Materials Science...maybe?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Son is probably interesting in engineering, increasingly interested in materials science but absolutely not ready to commit to a major. Very possibly a kid who would apply to colleges as "engineering - undecided" if that's an option.</p>

<p>Some of the schools on his radar have materials science as a master's program, not as a BS degree, or as an undergrad minor or concentration; some in Chem dept., some in Chem Eng., some in Mech Eng. (Examples include Northeastern, RIT, WPI I think.)</p>

<p>A couple of these schools seem like good fits otherwise and have a lot of appeal to him. Should we be ruling out such schools, though, if Material Science is something that he is even considering studying? Or would he likely be getting a Masters eventually anyway in this field?</p>

<p>I know many other schools (Virginia Tech, Drexel, RPI, Purdue) are very strong in Materials Science, but they may be too intense an environment for him. He is a good student but worries about getting in over his head.</p>

<p>Advice / reactions gratefully accepted, thanks.</p>

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<p>Well, if he is sure he going to graduate school, he could get into Materials Science & Engineering from a variety of undergraduate majors including Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering (of course), Physics and Chemistry.</p>

<p>If he is not sure of his plans but really is interested in materials science then he should find a school which has the major. As for the environment, I would expect that WPI and RIT are no less intense than Drexel and RPI which are all part of the [Association</a> of Independent Technological Universities: AITU](<a href=“http://theaitu.org%5DAssociation”>http://theaitu.org) schools (along with my institution, IIT). You can never predict what he might decide to do after graduating but for taking a Masters it might be best to get some work experience first. This is often much appreciated by graduate programs in engineering.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the input, xraymancs. He is not sure about grad school, nor about the major. I definitely see the benefit of attending a school with all possible engineering options. But this will eliminate some schools that he is drawn to for other reasons, which he is reluctant to do. We were surprised to see multiple schools with masters’ programs in Materials but no bachelor’s program.</p>

<p>He is a junior so I will encourage him to learn more about materials science as well as the other engineering disciplines and hopefully that will help clarify his priorities. He has aptitude and interest in Comp Sci as well so that is not off the table either.</p>

<p>So many schools, so many engineering programs–with significant differences, it seems. For a humanities parent like me it is quite overwhelming.</p>

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<p>As someone that knew they wanted to do Materials Science going into undergrad, and absolutely loved doing it all the way through, I can’t even tell you how miserable I would have been in a MechE or ChemE program only getting to take a small handful of classes in what I was interested in.</p>

<p>The flavor of materials science you’d get will also different depending on which other department it’s housed in. Mechanical engineering will give you more mechanics, chemical will probably give more polymer stuff. Similarly, individual MSE departments differ from school to school. Mine was known for being somewhat theoretical, while others are industry-centric (class on ferrous metallurgy, non-ferrous metallurgy, bunch on mechanics, processing, etc). Some schools with materials departments will focus on different types of materials. The general fields are metals, ceramics, polymers, semiconductors, composites, and, I guess, biomaterials. Nanomaterials can fall into any of the above. If he’s really interested in one field vs another, I’d take a look at which classes the school seems to offer more of.</p>

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<p>RacinReaver – Great that you knew exactly what you wanted to do going in. My kid is definitely not there yet. More self-knowledge will be a goal going forward. (Though I don’t think it’s always achievable by a 16 year old.) I do suspect he will need to broaden his search based on your and xraymancs’s comments. Thanks for the insights.</p>

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<p>A great book I recommend prospective students in MSE take a look at is [this</a> book](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Materials-Science-Engineering-An-Introduction/dp/0471736961/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379099864&sr=8-2&keywords=calister+materials+introduction]this”>http://www.amazon.com/Materials-Science-Engineering-An-Introduction/dp/0471736961/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379099864&sr=8-2&keywords=calister+materials+introduction). Use Amazon’s “Search Inside This Book” to see what sort of things are covered. A “typical” materials curriculum will have an entire semester long class dedicated to each chapter or two.</p>

<p>About half of my MSE classmates went to college planning on doing ChemE. They took the Intro to ChemE class and realized they didn’t want to be doing four years of Flow In = Flow Out, so they switched. :)</p>

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<p>Thanks for the recommendation. As for ChemE, we heard similar stories at an engineering program information session, which is where he first got interested in Materials Science.</p>

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<p>if he is interested in material science, i would recommend the engineering route compared to the science route, simply because the engineering title seems to appeal more to employers. the scientist and the engineer job cross over. a lot see to work in metallurgy up here, which is the refinery process for minerals extracted from the mine. other than that I have heard they do work with aerospace materials, nanotechnology. </p>

<p>here, the materials science program is in the chemical engineering department, other times its in the mechanical. often I have seen material engineering offered as a certificate program, or as a minor/ major. he can also major in materials and minor in another field. </p>

<p>I wanted to major in materials for a long time, then I didn’t get accepted to that school so I switched to petroleum… more money I guess, but i like lab work so materials engineering would of suited me. </p>

<p>If he wants to check out similar courses that materials engineering offers he can google mit opencourseware. click on courses, department, materials science and engineering under the engineering section. if he wants to actually open the course info, its free, but thats a while to download and extract the file.</p>

<p>[EduMine</a> - Professional Development and Training for Mining](<a href=“http://www.edumine.com%5DEduMine”>http://www.edumine.com) offers metallurgy courses, under online courses, then mineral processing (on left). it should be free to enter the course. I’m not 100% sure. </p>

<p>that that gives him an idea of what to expect.</p>

<p>youtube helps too.</p>

<p>as for getting a graduate degree after his BS. I wouldn’t count on it at this time. normally students that get an engineering degree don’t need to take a masters degree to get a job. Students who take science degrees usually need to get a masters degree to get a job. I dunno why, just how it goes. maybe it has something to do with science majors getting paid less, so they think a masters will help them. I dunno!</p>

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<p>Lake Jr. is in a similar situation. He just started engineering school last month and signed up for Ch-E. I was a bit surprised because he previously expressed great interest in chemistry and materials (polymers, composites) and he enjoys lab work research. Secretly hoping he switches to Materials Science Engineering, because that’s where his curiousity lies.</p>