<p>so im almost positive that i wanna major in computational mathematics for undergrad (bc the career prospects of being a computational mathematics major straight out of undergrad is better than regular mathematics). but i was wondering if it was possible to major in structural engineering for graduate school with a comp math undergrad degree?</p>
<p>Yes, it is possible. Math and science majors can get admitted to graduate engineering programs. What happens is that you will have to take a number of catch-up courses as part of the graduate program.</p>
<p>what can you do with a computational mathematics degree?</p>
<p>Definitely, definitely possible. I personally know a professor at UIUC who would drool at the prospect of having a computational mathematics person in his research group. When he found out I had programming experience, he offered me an assistantship on the spot. Too bad I didn't really want to do computational mechanics...</p>
<p>He works in fracture mechanics, which is a big field right now. That area of engineering's really hot right now (well, at least, relatively... It's vogue within civil and mechanical engineering, at least). Computational mechanics kind of is a shared discipline with mechanical engineering, so in addition to structural engineering graduate programs, also check out the computational mathematics regions of mechanical engineering graduate programs.</p>
<p>Good luck. Cool field, very employable in research-type settings. Lots of grants to be had.</p>
<p>
[quote]
He works in fracture mechanics, which is a big field right now.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I guess you could say that now is a good time to break into the field!</p>
<p>ha...ha...</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p><em>groan</em>. LOL.</p>
<p>Its very possible--you might have to take a few engineering courses to fill in the gaps.</p>
<p>aibarr,</p>
<p>Where did you get your programming experience from? Internship or required school course?</p>
<p>Well, various places... My dad's a quasi-programmer, and my younger brother's a bit of a computer guru (despite majoring in engineering, he's going to be teaching the Python non-credit course next year at Mudd, where he's going to be a junior), so I learned some from osmosis. At one point I was able to mess around with BASIC and Visual Basic and get stuff to work.</p>
<p>Then, my senior year in high school, I took AP Comp Sci, so I got a bit of experience in C++ programming. The teacher was less than stellar, but I still managed to learn how to think in a manner that computers can understand.</p>
<p>Rice ran me through the ropes of getting MATLAB to do what you want it to do, and there were lots of computational math courses that were required for engineers there. Learned how to write matlab functions and efficiently iterate, and stuff like that.</p>
<p>In grad school, that computational math stuff was furthered through my structural engineering classes, where I actually had to write programs to do analysis of various structures... Calculate deflection given a huge building with various elements, calculate the loads and moments and shears in each of the members, blah blah blah... So, essentially, it was just a natural progression of learning throughout various classes that I took. Comptuers are a great tool, especially when you're doing very extensive iterative operations, and so they're well-suited to the sorts of things that structural engineers do. But there's not particularly a "Microsoft BuildingDesign 2000" or anything... (Well, there <em>are</em>, but each of them have their own strengths, and none of them can do <em>everything</em> that you'll need to know how to do, and there's not really an industry standard program for analysis, and every company teaches its newbies how to design things differently...) so it's in structural engineers' best interest to know how to program.</p>
<p>Nothing was from internships, though.</p>
<p>Still, even if you <em>do</em> use commercially-available programs, there's a very programming-intensive thought process to inputting all that information, so you have to know how each of the programs works exceedingly well so that you don't screw it up royally. That's where the programming understanding really comes in handy.</p>