Mechanical vs Aerospace vs Electrical Engineering @ Purdue in terms of Career prospects

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

Me and my dad have been trying to figure out how I should make the most out of my time at Purdue and one of the main debates is what to major in. Purdue is a renowned engineering school, especially in aerospace since Neil Armstrong graduated there, and I am going in as a first year in aerospace engineering. I also got admitted into the honors college but I won’t be able to participate in the honors engineering course since aerospace is considered under technology instead of engineering. I want to minimize the number of inevitable regret before graduation so I want to make sure that I pick the right major. I’m also looking to develop great universal engineering skills to help me throughout various different competitions. I’m pretty smart and willing to put the hard work in just to avoid my greatest fear “becoming a mediocre engineer.” Please review the information provided below and help me make a choice as to what the best course of action is.

Stats according to U.S. News & World Report 2018:
- 8th in Engineering (@ current peak)
- 6th in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering (Peaked at 4 in 2017)
- 6th in Mechanical Engineering (@ current peak)
- 8th in Electrical Engineering (Peaked at 7 in 2014)

Fields of Interest
Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Neuroreality, Augmented Reality, Holograms, Drones, Robotics, Internet of Things, Management, Rocketry, Aviation, Nanotech, Space, Weapon and Defense Systems, Vehicles

Arguments for and against Aerospace
- Purdue is a really good aerospace school and i’ll be stupid not to take advantage of it.
- I’m already entering my freshman year as an aerospace major so switching now is a waste of time and energy.
- Aerospace is the most limited engineering field where most of the jobs can just as easily be replaced by a mechanical
engineer.
-You’ll have to work on planes and rockets for the REST OF YOUR LIFE as a desk employee till I retire.
- Aerospace is not under Purdue’s engineering school which means missed opportunities

Arguments for and against Mechanical
- It’s always going to be safe and it can take me almost anywhere giving me better career options
- I can always choose to transition and specialize in another field, like aerospace, later
- You work with your hands and do cool projects
- Can be though of a too broad and not a full comitment
- Way more competition at the high end jobs
- Purdue has always placed in the top 8 for mechanical engineering but it can’t compete with schools like MIT

Arguments for and against Electrical
- Gives me more coding opportunities (I am pretty good at coding)
- Have a lot of background experience from Arduino projects
- Can work almost anywhere
- So much competition
- Majoring EE at Purdue might be a risk

Just to be thourough
Arguments against computer science
- Purdue is not good at CS and wont give me a leg up with the vast competitio
- I can alway teach myself about how to code better
- It feels like grunt work while needing to keep up with so much software updates
- I hate reviewing peoples code, its long, tedious, and agonizing

Future Goals:
- Get a Masters degree from a top engineering grad school like MIT, Berkeley, Stanford (maybe add an MBA if needed)

- Get employed by top STEM companies like Google, Alphabet, Boston Dynamics, SpaceX, Tesla, Intellectual Ventures
Lab, NASA, DARPA, D-Wave Systems, FBI, Amazon, Boeing, DJI, IBM, Blue Origin, Consulting, Start Ups, etc
- Have a hands on and collaborative jobs surrounded by other hardcore nerds
- Make at least a 100k+ starting salary (accounting for deflation) by 26 in 2026
- Avenue to make 250k+ salary when i’m in my 30’s

I’m looking for advice about what should I major in for my undergraduate at Purdue taking into consideration what I might want to do in the future and the fear of being a mediocre engineer because the major is not among Purdue’s specialties.

Disclaimer: I’m trying to create as clear an image of my current interest but the reality of it is that I can only probably contribute partly to some if not one of these fields. I’m not really in it for the money as well but I just want to be in a more noticeable and active role and the money to me is just a reaffirmation of my value as an engineer and a leader in STEM. I also want to be able to comfortably support my family and eventually have my own shop but i’m mostly just in it for the legacy.

Also, please that I have an equal amount of passion for each of these fields.

2

Purdue is a respected engineering school, but Neil Armstrong’s affiliation has very little (if any) bearing on why. It was a respected engineering program well before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

This is a big red flag to me. The [School of Aeronautics and Astronautics](School of Aeronautics and Astronautics - Purdue University) at Purdue is absolutely part of the engineering college. This is the department that is associated with “aerospace engineering”. The Purdue Polytechnic Institute (i.e. the College of Technology) has an Aviation and Transportation Technology department that offers a degree in [Aeronautical Engineering Technology](Aeronautical Engineering Technology Degree | Purdue University). Are you absolutely certain you are in the former program (the engineering one) rather than the latter program (the engineering technology one)?

I ask this because engineering and engineering technology are not the same thing and have (largely) different career paths. You need to know exactly which of the two you are going to be studying.

I wouldn’t call it the most limited engineering field. Also, there are certainly jobs that are more suited for aerospace engineers and jobs that are more suited for mechanical engineers even if the two degree have a large degree of overlap. Particularly within the aerospace industry, that overlap goes both ways. A mechanical engineer could take a lot (not all) of the jobs that an aerospace engineer might take, but an aerospace engineer could generally do the same thing in reverse.

This isn’t even remotely true. Even if it were, there are a lot of subsystems to these larger pieces of hardware that mean that the jobs of people working on them are very diverse.

There are plenty of coding opportunities in all three of these fields. I know plenty of mechanical and aerospace engineers who spend their whole careers writing software.

Don’t worry about this (for the most part) just yet. You need to find a career path before considering graduate school options. MBAs are only useful for a certain subset of people, particularly those who want to branch off into management. Even then, some argue there are more appropriate degrees these days (I will let others elaborate, because I am purely a technical guy).

That said, you do need to address my above question about which department you are entering. If you are getting an engineering technology degree, you will have a very hard time being admitted into a true engineering MS program.

Also note that selecting a “top” engineering school in the way you have is essentially meaningless in the context of graduate school. You will need to find that topic you want to research/specialize in and then find a program strong in that area, not strong according to some list in a magazine.

Realize that this would be a very unusual career path for an engineer (at least to do so at the rate you are targeting here). A $100k+ starting salary is tough for an engineer outside of a few select fields (e.g. petroleum or computer science), and you also have to factor in the cost of living. $100k+ is fairly common for computer scientists, but those jobs are often in Silicon Valley. $100k+ in silicon value has the same purchasing power as $52k+ in Indianapolis. Keep that in mind. Also, it is quite uncommon (though certainly not impossible) for an engineer to get anywhere near $250k. A mid-career salary in the mid-$100s is certainly doable, but mid-$200s is entering rarefied territory without going into a more non-traditional career path like management consulting or trying to get into upper management at an engineering firm.

3

Fairly certain Purdue doesn’t have a first year Aerospace Engineering major in the school of Engineering. I believe all are just First Year Engineering majors and specific fields don’t start until 2nd year.

4

All Purdue engineers compete for their specific field after 1st year. My niece is a rising second year. :wink:

5

You guys are sort of missing the point here.