Hello. I have a crazy question for you guys.

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Hello. I have a crazy question for you guys.</p>

<p>But before all the impossibility and the impracticability, let me specify my conditions.</p>

<p>I am going to a state university, and thanks to my need, the financial part of my problem is almost fully eliminated (I will not have to work during my college years).</p>

<p>I am a high school senior, and next semester, I am planning to register some classes at a local community college to fulfill some general study requirements. Along with the few AP credits I have, a lot of the requirements will be done before I go to college. </p>

<p>Also during college, I am planning to have summer schools after my sophomore year and junior year (which will essentially give me a total of 10 semesters to finish all courses).</p>

<p>And lastly, I will be 100% devoted to education while I'm at it.</p>

<p>So here comes the crazy question: regarding all factors above, will a double major in physics and mechanical engineering be possible in four years? If not, in five?</p>

<p>Yes, some common suggestions would be engineering or applied physics, which unfortunately aren't available as undergraduate degrees in my university.</p>

<p>The reason I wish to pursue a such rigorous path is because physics does and will continue to fascinate me, and the designing and application aspects of engineering will greatly complement the imperceptibles of it. </p>

<p>I am fully aware that childish curiosity will not lead me to the success I seek.</p>

<p>Job opportunities matter not to me. Therefore, will this be possible?</p>

<p>I have already planned my schedule for it, and theoretically, as always, it seems very possible. But I need your opinion from experience and knowledge.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

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<p>In my opinion, if you are committed it does seem entirely possible. If you do choose to follow this, I wish you good luck as it seems it will be difficult.</p>

3

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That depends on a lot of different factors. You first need to consider the overlap between the majors at your school - at some schools, the “minimum” extra coursework might only be a semester while at others it may be three. You then need to consider how much beyond that “minimum” you want to go - the fastest double major is going to double-count as many courses as possible, which is fine if you just want the degrees but not so great if you want to really study both fields. Last, you need to remember that schools do not really work to accommodate double majors, and once you get there you may find that simple scheduling problems will prolong your stay.</p>

<p>So is it possible to graduate in 4 years? Sure, with enough credits beforehand, at schools with a lot of overlap between the majors, if you USE that overlap, and if nothing goes wrong.</p>

<p>5 years? Much easier, but still not necessarily easy.</p>

<p>As a note, you do not NEED the double major for anything. You could almost certainly just take the physics courses as an engineering major.</p>

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<p>It seems a stretch but possible in 4 years based on what you say and more tractable in 5 years. However, I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is what’s your endgame? What is your goal after you get these degrees? Double majoring rarely helps and may, in some instances, hurt your job marketability, so you need to think about your end career goal. You could certainly scratch your itch for physics just by taking extra classes in it rather than full-on double majoring in it.</p>

<p>Also keep in mind that using up all of your summers is not necessarily the best thing to do. You are usually far better served by taking internships over the summer, particularly if your ultimate goal is engineering employment.</p>

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<p>I see. Thanks to bigepinky for the encouragement.</p>

<p>To cosmicfish: Yeah, I may be able to get the degrees, but only shallow knowledge in both fields. I’ve only considered fulfilling the 45 credit hours of upper-division courses needed for each major, not much more. But clearly I’ll need more in-depth education to gain a more profound understanding… I’ll see what I can do during summer courses to do that.</p>

<p>To boneh3ad: Yes, perhaps I need some introspection, of what I actually want to do in the future. As you suggested, taking an engineering major with extra physics courses sounds great, but my emphasis will be on physics. And luckily, I only have very little interest in employment, so summer should be set for education. </p>

<p>I appreciate all the sincere advices and encouragements. They really add up to create great minds (not that I’m sure to be one). The course load will likely kill me, but being young is always good right? Perhaps I’ll learn what’s best for me when it comes to experience… Again, thank you!!</p>

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<p>You can probably do it you should work out a potential schedule to make sure. </p>

<p>However, I would advise against it, as you will want your summers to do internships. Also, the classes you need may not be available in the summer, so when making a potential schedule, make sure that you know what classes are available what semesters. It makes much more sense to just take 5 years and use your summers for internships.</p>

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<p>If you’re committed to engineering, you should use the summers for internships. You’ll take plenty of physics and math.</p>

<p>If you’re not committed to engineering, you should major in physics - since you’ve talked about your love of physics but not mentioned a single thing that attracts you about engineering, I infer that you actually like physics much better.</p>

<p>Especially if job opportunities allegedly don’t matter to you. MechE is a waste of time if that’s true.</p>

<p>What you major in isn’t a reflection on who you are or what you know. It’s a technical requirement that has to be met for graduation, prefereably in the way that inconveniences you least. The only situation where it’s anything more than that is when there’s some kind of industry standard qualification at stake, as in ABET-certified engineering programs.</p>

<p>Sweating over whether you can do a double major is like sweating over whether you can pay your taxes twice. The smart thing is to plan on more than is required for graduation and any pre-professional requirements you might want to fulfill (if applicable) and leave yourself with some flexibility and breathing space.</p>

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<p>As someone who is taking extra physics courses to satisfy that “itch” as boneh3ad put it, I can tell you that once you get beyond the general physics sequence, you’ll find a rather significant divergence in mindset between your engineering and physics courses. It’s difficult to quantify, but here’s a rough comparison-- in your engineering classes (that aren’t lab/project based), you’ll get a question that might take 1 minute to figure out how to approach and 7 minutes to solve. In Physics you’ll get a question that takes 7 minutes to approach and 1 minute to solve.</p>

<p>It’s more than just problem solving, in my physics classes we’re usually asked our own theories on an observation, but in engineering we’re given the empirical data and asked to apply it to a new situation. Both programs are trying to churn out grad students/researchers (not workers), but I will say that within physics, they’re much more concerned with discovering some new fundamental understanding of the universe. In engineering, the focus is figuring out how to make something work and eliminating/working around problems. There is a lot of overlap of course, but I guess what I’m getting at is that if you’re just interested in the cool concepts of physics and not interested in coming up with new ones, you’re almost better off watching youtube videos.</p>

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<p>So then major in physics and take a few extra engineering classes as you are interested. I don’t know how you can possibly say you are not interested in employment. Are you saying you intend to graduate from college and then just not work?</p>

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<p>One problem you may run into is that there may be a schedule conflict between required courses for each of the majors for a course that is only offered once a year. This happens more often than you might think, because each dept is concerned only about avoiding overlapping schedules <em>within</em> their dept, and you can’t predict years in advance whether this will be the case in your junior or senior year, as the schedules change. A single such conflict can add a year of calendar time to your graduation with a double major.</p>

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I think they meant during college only, with the usual need for a career after graduation.</p>

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<p>If so, maybe I wasn’t clear enough in saying that you practically need internships to be employable later.</p>

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<p>Vladenschlutte: I have worked out my schedule. If internships are really that important, I’ll consider taking five years instead of four. </p>

<p>NavalTradition: Yes, I figured I didn’t really clarify why I would also major in mechanical engineering. It’s not really different from why others chose engineering: application of intangible knowledge to something tangible, something innovative; something possibly beneficial to our society. Also not to mention the engineering skills I will gain from it, which I believe will be useful for the rest of my life. Yeah I am starting to think that maybe I’m just trying to get two degrees, not because of interest but for academic recognition or such. As you said, I will try to major in physics primarily, and take engineering courses as electives (if it is possible. I hope it is). Then by the time I have my physics degree with several engineering courses taken, I’ll be sure whether I am truly interested in engineering or not. Thanks for the great advice.</p>

<p>da6onet: I see. So when it gets to upper-division, the two really aren’t the same, right? As NavalTradition has suggested, I am planning to major in what I know I am interested first (which is physics), then take some engineering courses (if possible) to have some knowledge of what a double major might get me into. </p>

<p>boneh3ad: Yep, that is what I am planning to do. When I said I’m entirely uninterested in employment, it is because after my bachelor’s, I still will attempt to study afterwards. Perhaps it will interest me more when I am in dire need of it (yeah, just a typical spoiled immature American teenager, expecting everything to be done for me as I wish).</p>

<p>triseradad: Yeah that is what I’ve been concerned about (conflict between courses). I’ve checked the courses through the online archive, and apparently ALL courses are offered both fall and spring semesters (except the specified ones) AS WELL during summer. Which is crazy. And because of it I am very skeptical about it, but then again ASU being one of the biggest schools in the country, it could also be very possible.</p>

<p>Again, thanks for all the great advices.</p>

14

<p>Also food for thought, I’m interning at a startup enginering company where three former engineers turned business/founders of the company (ceo, pres and vp), are the bosses of the two applied physicists who came up with the technology we’re selling and the physicists are the bosses of all the working engineers :-)</p>

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<p>

[quote]
If you’re committed to engineering, you should use the summers for internships.

[quote]
</p>

<p>I agree!</p>

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<p>If you’re coming in with a lot of AP credit, you might not even need the summer time to graduate. I had a few friends that doubled in CS and other engineering fields with physics and were able to get out in four years. I realized I was only interested in a specific subset of classes, so I went with a minor in physics and graduated a semester early.</p>

<p>If you’re really interested in physics, you’d probably be better off spending your summers doing research in labs. It gives you better perspective on your courses and teaches you to think in a different way that’ll be helpful in your upper division classes. It’ll also be essential if you wind up deciding to pursue a PhD after you finish undergrad.</p>

<p>Finally, why are you going with MechE? Which aspect of physics itself interests you? Is it classical mechanics? Quantum effects? Thermodynamics? Statistical Mechanics? Waves? Depending on your answer here you might have a different field of engineering that’s closer to what actually interests you.</p>