Hello, I am a junior in high school, and I want to become an Aerospace Engineer. I have been researching and I have seen that people are saying to Major in ME rather than AE because it is a broader subject. I always wanted to work at NASA, so I have a few questions:
Should I major in ME or AE? Can I double major ME and AE?
If I want to work with NASA, should I go to a college that is close to a NASA Center? (Example: Going to UMD College Park so I can intern at the Goddard Space Flight Center)
Is interning during the semester a big deal, or will interning at NASA during summers suffice?
A double major is useless. Just pick one. They are practically interchangeable for what your goal is, so pick the one you want. ME just has a larger safety net of alternative career options.
You can go to a school that is regionally close to a NASA center or just go to one of the major, well-known engineering schools. NASA recruits from both classes of school.
Both should be fine. Also not interning with NASA would still keep a job there in play, though being an intern/co-op there would give you an in with them.
Interning at any NASA facility isn’t just as easy as simply deciding that’s what you want. I’m sure some are more popular than others, but they are all competitive positions. Good luck.
If you happen to be in Southern California I would recommend applying for an internship at JPL. I’m not sure if they have positions for high school students, if not keep this in mind for when you are at university.
“You won’t be staying in New Jersey as an aerospace engineer anyway so you might as well get used to moving.”
Could you elaborate on this? I’m an ME student from NJ and I might be interested in working for an aerospace company once I graduate. Are you saying that there aren’t many career prospects in aerospace engineering in this state/region?
Correct, there isn’t much in the way of aerospace industry in that region. Aerospace companies are concentrated in a relatively small number of area such as Southern California, Seattle, St. Louis, Atlanta, Houston and Dallas (plus a handful of other places that have sizable aerospace industry representation). The odds of finding an aerospace job up in the northeast are considerably lower. Your best bet is probably Boeing in Philadelphia or one of the various companies in the DC area.
There are actually many companies in NJ. For example Lockheed Martin, Cobham, and Zodiac Aerospace are with 20 miles from where I live. My mother works at Cobham, and she got job offers from Lockheed Martin, so if I really wanted, I could work in NJ, that being if I did not want to work with NASA.
Yet the vast majority of aerospace jobs are elsewhere. Those companies are a very small slice of the pie and may not be the best opportunities. You’ll have to determine that later.
There are only two major (really large) aerospace companies in the northeast; United Technologies Corp. and General Electric Aviation. To Boneh3ad’s point, those companies have their major aerospace operations in other regions (but UTC builds helicopters in Connecticut).
The south is where much of the action is for aerospace engineering. Huntsville, Alabama is home to NASA’s manned space program, the Army’s aviation,missile and space acquisition and R&D offices, and the Missile Defense Agency. Thiokol has a production facility outside of Huntsville. Lockheed produces the C-130 in Marietta, GA, and the F-35 in Ft. Worth, TX. Boeing opened up a 787 production line in Charleston, SC. Etc…
What kind of aerospace engineering do you want to do? NASA Goddard is a particular type of aerospace engineering, mainly satellite design and operations. If you want to work airplanes, that’s not the place. NASA Langley is the place. If you want to work rocket propulsion, that’s another place.
But GE, Boeing, NASA, UTC, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics recruit from several schools, including…
California Polytechnic- SLO
California Polytechnic- Pomona
U of Washington- Seattle
Wichita State University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Saint Louis University
Iowa State University
Case Western University
Illinois Institute of Technology
U of Colorado
Virginia Tech…and others
Of course it would be very hard to earn admission to the Cal Poly schools as an out-of-state student. Admission to the colleges of engineering still may be designated as “impacted,” meaning that there’s no room at the inn, so to speak.
@SouthernHope, that assumes the OP believes in or cares about USNWR’s rankings. There are a bazillion rankings out there, each only as good as their methodology. The problem with USNWR is that engineering rankings are based 100% on “institutional reputation” which is typically determined by the graduate program without much relationship to the quality of UG education. Aviation Week and Space Technology named Cal Poly as the #1 Aero program in the nation. Take them all with a grain of salt. Do as @LakeWashington recommended, look at who recruits where.