<p>First let me tell you about myself. I'm a senior in high school, I enjoy both social sciences and math/science. One thing I really enjoy is designing and drawing, but I'm not very creative. I'm decent at math and generally like it. I got a 31 on the ACT with a 30 in math. I will have taken AP Calculus BC by the end of the year. In social sciences, I have really liked economics, sociology and history. I think I lack the creativity for architecture but I want my major to be based on designing and planning, so I was considering urban planning and civil engineering (maybe structural). I want my major to have attributes of both social science and the math/science as well as provide job opportunities. I wanted to ask what major I seem most fit for me and tell me the pros and cons of it. Also will civil engineering have sufficient designing in it or only math.</p>
<p>Bear in mind that most engineering design is done on computer using CAD or similar. And sometimes it can just be a part or a part of a part to solve a problem rather than a whole lovely building or bridge. </p>
<p>Can I also suggest aircraft or aeronautical engineering? My sister does design as part of her degree and hopes to move into that area eventually (she was a military technician before college). </p>
<p>Urban design sounds possible. Statistics, specialising in biostats or epidemiology? (my best friend does this- lots of planning and project design while indirectly benefiting society). Prosthetics? Designing and making prosthetics for various parts of the body. Nursing in the community? Audiology? Speech Therapy? Lots of therapy planning, test analysis, scope to go into the research side of things. Surprisingly science-y.</p>
<p>A quick google search will supply the pros and cons.</p>
<p>At the risk of blatantly promoting my line of work :), may I suggest Human Computer Interaction. </p>
<ul>
<li>a good part of it is social sciences, mostly psychology and sociology, and in general interacting with people</li>
<li>it is quite analytical (hard as it may seem to believe, there is a math method behind the madness of user experience design). Lots of statistical analysis. </li>
<li>the design aspect is usually limited to Photoshop and various simulation design tools (i.e. Altia). </li>
<li>lots of cooperation with other people (the industrial design people who do the artwork, software people who do the software, and so on). </li>
<li>creativity is needed, but not to the extent of making far out designs that won’t work</li>
<li>obviously, it involves LOTS of computer work</li>
</ul>
<p>It is a very entertaining and rewarding major especially if you consider that thanks to Apple and the like, people are taking HCI very seriously. Depending on how deep pockets you have and what schools you can get in, there are plenty of schools that are awesome, GA Tech, CMU, Purdue, blah, blah, and a lot of good but not very known schools (Wright State, U Dayton - for obvious reasons :)). </p>
<p>HCI is used in anything from web page user experience design to mobile apps to military and space, medical, and consumer electronics. I went to Purdue among other places and work in consumer electronics. My daughter is an architecture student and there are lots of similarities with the creative processes, etc.</p>
<p>Depending on where you go, what you focus on, and so on, HCI may be offered in engineering, computer science, psychology, etc. departments. At Purdue it was somewhere between Industrial Engineering and Psychology. YMMV here.</p>