Hello,
I have a few questions about selecting a major. I understand that I should study something that I love, but over the years I lost a lot of the childhood passions that I once had and replaced it with video games, work, and working out! I’m currently in the military but plan on getting out at the end of my enlistment so I’m beginning to research which major I should go for.
I was considering Electrical Engineering because one of my childhood passions was LEGO robotics. I really enjoyed programming and constructing our LEGO objects to complete the course (for competitions etc). I was pretty good at it, too. One of the more passionate kids on my team. I always loved math and had a love/hate relationship with science (I loved it to an extent, but it hated me). I was also a band kid, I had the ability to read sheet music well, I could play the saxophone and the trombone. Math actually became a hobby to me, constantly begging my mom to get me new math books from the book store, frequently doing any multiplication that my mom/ her coworkers could throw at me. However, once I got to high school I became lackadaisical and didn’t care about school, I thought that being a “thug” type would provide a promising future. Obviously I learned as I graduated on time and joined the Air Force. My older sister is a Stanford graduate and so is one of my cousins, education is a big part of my family (I was the black sheep).
Now I’m at a crossroad, I didn’t take precalc in high school because I just wanted to graduate on time and had failed electives (of all things). One of my cousins is an Electrical Engineer and a few of my friends are engineering majors soon to graduate, but I won’t ask them in fear of them telling me that I can’t do it (again, I wasn’t a go-getter in high school). I love a lot of things, from history to sciences, it’s just that my work ethic in high school wasn’t there. How hard would it be for me to be an E.E after the military? I’d start off with the community college route.
Sorry for the wall of text! Any advice is appreciated :). I have a few years left to decide but I’d like to look into things/ find a way to bring back my interests.
Starting with Community College is a very good idea. You can take the mathematics you need to enter an engineering program. Furthermore, most Community Colleges have pre-engineering courses which can help you decide whether you like the field or not. After a couple of years in Community College you can get into a strong ABET accredited engineering program and you should do fine.
Before starting in the Community College, you can also do a bit of self study or take some online courses to brush up on your pre-calculus material.
Good luck!
The community college path to eventually transfer to a four year university is better in some states than others. You may want to consider that in the selection of where you want to go after discharge. It is not that unusual for military veterans to attend college and complete bachelor’s degrees (including in engineering) after discharge. Some of them were academically flaky in high school, but became much more committed students later after military service.
As a practical matter, you will have to complete precalculus before starting with the calculus that is be base of any engineering degree program. But doing so at a community college is relatively inexpensive.
Re: Stanford
Stanford admits very few transfer students, but it appears that many of the few they admit come from non-traditional, including military, backgrounds. See http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/september/nso-starts-tuesday-091415.html . Obviously, Stanford is a reach for everyone, but you can certainly aim high, while also preparing for realistic backup schools like the many (mostly public) universities with good engineering but less difficult transfer admissions.
Thank you for the responses. Not looking at Stanford, steering towards Texas schools :). Nonetheless, thanks for the help so far. Any more tips to succeed would be helpful.
Texas has numerous public universities with electrical engineering (you can look up schools at http://main.abet.org/aps/accreditedprogramsearch.aspx ). Some private schools (in and out of Texas) may also admit significant numbers of transfer students.
You may want to go to some Texas public university web sites and check the frosh/soph course requirements for your major. Then look up “transfer credit” to see if course articulation listings for the community colleges are available. You can use the course requirements and the course articulation listings to see what courses you need to take to prepare for transfer to the university in your major. Don’t forget breadth / general education courses. Of course, you should also check the transfer admission web pages to see if anything else may be needed for admission.
You might also think about mechanical engineering and/or computer engineering.
Here is a website that provides links to various colleges and universities that offer different types of engineering programs, by state and type of engineering: http://best-engineering-colleges.com/
Also, here is a link that gives information on various engineering programs at different colleges and universities: http://profiles.asee.org/
EE tends to be ranked among the hardest of the engineering majors. Sure, C’s get degrees, but if you want to do the major, you need to be sure that you can maintain at least a 3.0 GPA if you want the expected return from investing that energy into getting the degree. If you get a sub-3.0 GPA, your chances of finding a well paid job will be no greater than if you had gotten a liberal arts degree. Most companies will shut out applicants with a sub-3.0 GPA or those who refuse to list it on the resume.