I’m really interested in Aerospace Engineering but I’ve been hearing that the industry is on the decline and since it’s more specialized getting a job is harder. Would you consider this true or would getting a degree from say UIUC in aerospace engineering set me up for a promising future?
If that’s what you wanna do, then go for it. If you work hard enough in any field, you can have a successful career. Don’t worry about job prospects now. Do what you are passionate about and see how it goes.
For international candidates, it would not be a good major.
For other candidates, it is a specialized major and narrow in scope for some companies.
Mechanical engineering is also used in aero companies (same types of work) and more broadly useful.
Unless you think that people will simply stop traveling by air, then the aerospace industry will be around for a long time and will always need new engineers.
I think companies like Tesla and GE (see their new aerospace venture with companies in China) agree with Bon3head.
I’d also go with Mechanical Engineering over Aerospace Engineering. I’ve worked for two aerospace companies, one being Boeing, and the proportion of Aerospace Engineers was surprisingly low. Most people working in aerospace don’t actually design planes. Rather, they work on subsystems. So you have electrical engineers working on the electronic subsystems, computer scientists programming various subsystems, mathematicians and industrial engineers doing simulations and modeling, material scientists designing stronger and lighter parts, and so on. Mechanical engineers seem to fit the “Jack of all Trades” category, where they work on all kinds of things.
Great point about who works for Boeing. And it’s worth repeating. Most “stuff” is generally engineered by a bunch of MEs/EEs. BUT none of that “stuff” would work without the guys who can sprinkle some pixie dust on it - Aerospace / Nuclear / Materials / etc.
So, to the OP, if you want to work in aerospace, then do some investigation and see what aspect actually interests you. You may surprise yourself.
This has every bit as much to do with the fact that there are far more “other” engineers in existence than there are aerospace engineers than any kind of indictment on the value of aerospace engineering. Aerospace engineers generally make up a small group at universities just like they make up a small group in industry. The are essentially just a more specialized flavor of mechanical engineers.
However…
…this is a very good point and something that is missed by a lot of prospective engineers who expect that aerospace engineers “design airplanes”, mechanical engineers “design cars”, and so on. Engineering is not done in a vacuum and such complicated machines require all manners of expertise.
This is easier said than done. I know when I was 18, I had a vague idea of the sorts of industries I wanted to get into - most likely airplanes but not 100% sold - but really no idea where exactly I fit into the picture. My dad is an aerospace engineer and he suggested that if that was the case, I should think about mechanical engineering. That is what I did, and as it turned out, I ended up developing quite an interest in fluid mechanics, specifically the sort most applicable to planes, so I ended up going to graduate school for aerospace engineering. Fast forward a bit, and I found that I was even more interested in the fluid physics than the plane itself, so now I find myself in a job that is more dominated by mechanical engineers again.
The bottom line is that interests change and it is incredibly difficult to figure out your life in 5 years when you are 18 and only just learning who you are. The good news is that with mechanical and aerospace engineering, it is often relatively easy to move back and forth between the two because they are both essentially the same science with different example problems. There are really only two issues. One is that someone with a degree in aerospace engineering tends to be perceived as being interested in planes and liable to bolt at the first sign of a job involving them, so they may not get a fair shake in the hiring process for non-aerospace jobs that they may still be plenty qualified to perform. The other is that mechanical engineering is still more broad, particularly at the undergraduate level, and so it will likely keep more doors open to someone who isn’t quite sure than aerospace engineering would.
Hopefully that wasn’t a ridiculously convoluted answer. I don’t know that there is an “easy” answer that isn’t at least in some way incomplete or disingenuous.