I have recently been admitted to UChicago for undergrad and I’m interested in the physics major offered there, and am very impressed by the wealth of research opportunities available at the school. I would very much like to see myself as a physics researcher or PhD student in the future. However, I am at least somewhat interested in having engineering as a potential career path (not everyone can turn out to be highly paid physicists) and the lack of an engineering school at UChicago worries me slightly. Also I’m not particularly interested in molecular engineering at the moment, which I know Chicago does have now. I was wondering, should I unfortunately find that physics research just isn’t for me, what kinds of careers a physics major from UChicago might be able to have in the area of engineering (and the difficulty of finding such a job) or whether any physics majors are able to to be admitted to a top graduate school to pursue a masters in engineering? Please share your thoughts and experiences and thank you for your help.
Yes!!!
If you want to use this as a fallback plan, you could get an engineering job without an engineering degree. An engineering degree is not a license and while some companies might not look at you for that type of roll, many will look at you. Additionally, you don’t need an engineering undergrad to get into an engineering graduate program if you chose to go that direction.
But as an engineer, I think you should talk to some of us to find out what we do. Based on what you say you like to do, I’m not sure how often you’d get to do that as an engineer. We make incremental change, scientists make step change. Engineers may actualize that step change, but generally it is the scientist that makes the discovery. Our involvement often involves making existing things better. Better, is not always something that the end user even notices and in most cases we don’t want them to. For example, can we make something just as strong at half the cost? or a component is obsolete, can we find another and prove it works at least as well? Do engineers work on cool new things? Absolutely, but the role of the engineer is to apply science and the science usually comes first. I love (most days) my job, but I haven’t applied a differential equation or figured out a material strength in a long time. I came into the job not knowing what we do really. I’d hate for you to do the same.
My advice to my DD is to go ahead and get the engineering degree from UChicago vs a straight science degree. Albeit you can’t go wrong with any STEM at UChicago, except for some of the more basic engineering (MechE, EE, etc.)
- An engineering degree is employable straight out of college, science less so as most usually go onto grad school
- With a STEM degree almost all professional fields are open to you, law, medicine, business, etc.
- Engineers tend to get paid (on average) more than scientists.
- Suggest you look at UChicago's quantum engineering which is a variation of engineering physics.
Like @BrianBoiler says its really not what you think it is. Engineers that work in labs (Livermore, Lincoln, NREL, etc.) are a very small minority, and usually the top grads with masters from top universities. Most engineers are solving day to day problems with production, maintenance, etc.
I agree that numerically there are more engineers doing ‘routine’ work but there is more than a "small minority"doing other types of work that are more developmental/R&D oriented in nature. You don’t have to work in the labs to do cutting edge work…e.g. a new chip design, new jet engine technologies, new consumer electronics products…
The vast majority are not designing anything…
You can easily get an engineering MS with a physics BS if you decide that’s the route you’d rather take. Many physics majors also work in engineering jobs, and no they don’t make less. @xraymancs can vouch. He can give his bona fides. I’d certainly do that before I’d sign on to a new program, at a school that doesn’t have a department of engineering, where a substantial amount of the curriculum is molecular biology and chemistry. Unless that is, those things interest you. Then by all means, consider it. If not, you’ll be wasting a substantial amount of your curriculum when you could have a much more robust math and physics background.
I agree with @eyemgh that unless you are really excited about molecular engineering, you are better off with a physics degree. In my years as a physics professor, I have seen a lot of our students find jobs as engineers and software development right after their BS. An MS in an engineering would also be accessible with a few remedial courses.
If software engineering is an option for you, at UChicago you could pair your physics degree with a minor in CS to have those skills at hand when looking for a job.
If the molecular engineering program and one its three tracks aligns with your interest, it is certainly a worthwhile program but it is not necessarily the same as a traditional ABET accredited engineering degree.