<p>–> What kinds of things do materials science people do? </p>
<p>–> What “kind” of engineering is materials science engineering?</p>
<p>To clarify:</p>
<p>As I’ve poked around these forums, I’ve gotten a few impressions about engineering:</p>
<li><p>Electrical, chemical, and mechanical engineering are the “traditional” engineering fields. Computer engineering is often a subset of electrica engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>Biological/biomedical engineering is often seen as an exotic and/or “easy, not real engineering” field that generally requires going to graduate school for gainful employment. Industrial engineering may be in this category, too.</p></li>
<li><p>There are some obscure engineering fields that are highly specialized (nuclear, aerospace, petroleum). Civil engineering is like these, but to a lesser extent. Industrial engineering might be in this category, too.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>–> Where into all this does materials science engineering fall? </p>
<p>[Is it seen as a traditional field like electrical/chemical/mechanical, from which it’s possible to get a good job out of college? Or is it seen as a pre-graduate school major like bioengineering (and thus requires graduate school for gainful employment)? Or is it more like nuclear engineering in that it’s highly specialized?]</p>
<p>my impression of mse is that it goes along with other types of engineering. where i go to school, you can double mse with almost any other type of engineering. i'm me/mse, for instance. no matter what you're doing, somebody will eventually ask what you're going to do it with, and that's where a lot of mse might come in.</p>
<p>also, a lot of my mse professors seem to do a lot of troubleshooting... something fails, they figure out why, then make recommendations for a better product.</p>
<p>Here at U of I, it seems that MatSE is a combination of civil and chemical. They take knowledge of materials and structure and put them to use in structures. It sort of a hybrid engineering.</p>
<p>MSE might be somewhere between 2 and 3. To clarify, MSE is one of the most difficult engineering majors out there. However, it is such a specialized field, most of the time you need to get an advance degree to get a highly specialized job. In that sense, it is very similar to BME/BE. Since MSE curriculum varies from school to school, it is very important to pick a school with strong optical or electrical material focus, if you wish to get a job right after college. It would be really hard to find a job with an MSE degree if your concentration is in ceramics. </p>
<p>Just to add one thing, I think you are wrong about Industrial Engineering and. Most of the IE&OR students are going into business after graduation. There are lots of job in the business field for IE&OR students.</p>
<p>Hmm I'm not sure about the content of the major, but since most departments are small, the profs want you to do well. Thus they pay more attention to you, and also give out better grades.</p>
<p>My husband graduated with a BS in MSE in 1985 with a focus on semiconductor engineering. Most programs have a focus that you can choose, such as semiconductors, polymers, ceramics, metals, etc. He got a job with IBM right out of school at a competitive wage. He has since received his MS in MSE (tuition covered by his employer), and enjoys his career. One advantage to an MSE degree is that you aren't pigeon holed into one type of engineering, since all types of engineering have materials involved, so the MSE degree can have applications in many different industries/fields.</p>
<p>Maybe MSE isn't so tough else where. However, MSE is one of the toughest major, if not the toughest, at my school. Even though the department is very small, professors don't really give out better grades. Most of the junior level MSE classes I know have B or B- median grade. I've heard stories about some MSE classes give out only 1 A grade for the entire class. I believe the MSE professors here want the students to do well, but they just don't believe in giving out high grades.</p>
<p>Contrary to what you might have heard, employers don't care that awful much about your GPA, as long as you graduated. And two years out of college, no one will even ask you about your GPA, unless you are trying to get into grad school.</p>
<p>That's not entirely true. There are companies with cut off GPA. I know GE has a minimum GPA requirement of 3.0 or 2.8 in order to get an interview for college seniors or recent graduates. I do agree that after two years out of college with work experience, GPA doesn't really mean much.</p>
<p>MSE is certainly not one of the harder engineering majors at Stanford. EE majors commonly take MSE classes to boost their technical GPA. As for the B/B- median, that's not really grade deflation. Most engineering programs (at public schools anyway) curve around that.</p>
<p>I go to Cornell. ECE here is pretty tough too. You definitely need to spend a lot of time working on projects. However, the median grades for most of the upper level ECE courses at Cornell are around A-/B+, which is no way near B/B-. Some of the smartest engineering students I know at Cornell are MSE majors and they have trouble getting a decent grade in the junior classes.</p>
<p>referring to im_blue: MSE classes are taken to boost GPA's</p>
<pre><code> how many are taken, 1 maybe 2 classes at the introductory level. All intro level engineering classes are used to boost your Gpa. I used a nuclear class to boost my gpa, doesnt mean the major is easy. Also, at Michigan, all the MSE classes curve to a B- average. In my intro class the class average was 86% and it was set to B-, I had a 91% and ended up with a B+, thats how competitive it gets. On the flip side, in another class we had an exam where a 46% was an A. hahahah, pretty funny actually, bunch of over achievers flunking in synchrony.
</code></pre>
<p>a class average as an 86 is pretty high to begin with. Why is the class average so high to being with? All my classes' averages are in the middle C range so almost little or none curving is done on each test.</p>
<p>it was an introduction to mse class that was relatively easy, the point is that the curve ended up working against the class. So even though it was an "easy" class it wasnt an easy A because of the curve. Curves arent always good things.</p>
<p>My mom is a materials science enginnering professor/researcher/whatever. From what I can tell, it's incredibly hard, but useful for a lot of different industries. Definetely not anything I want to do, lol.</p>