My son who will be a senior says he likes Physics and probably pick engineering as his major for college application, what can I help to see which particular engineering he should apply?
Each engineering school seems to manage choice of major somewhat differently. I think you would do well to have your son look at the process of selecting majors at the schools that interest him.
For each school on his list he should find out which majors are available, when he needs to declare a major, and whether some of the majors that interest him have competitive admissions requirements higher than those of the engineering school as a whole. These are usually the most popular majors such as EE or BME.
When frazzledS was in engineering school, his school like many others had all the freshmen engineers take the same curriculum, and this curriculum included a freshman seminar that exposed students to the different branches of engineering. They chose their engineering major before beginning sophomore year and after exploring different possibilities.
IIRC, a few schools did not require students to choose an engineering major until the end of sophomore year, while some required students to choose a major at the time of application.
Changing a major within an engineering school, even as early as sophomore year, can end up requiring an extra semester or two as most classes are sequential within each major. Some students will find after a year that their interests and goals are best met with a liberal arts major such as math or physics.
College students who chose their majors in high school often graduate with a degree in something else. Many kids find new interests and potential careers when exposed to the options available in college. If your son is in high school now, I would think you wanting to work on specifics of his potential major may be big waste of your time, unless you are uniquely fascinated with engineering. After he has sampled college and perhaps taken a few of the classes in math and science, your son can decide whether he still wants to major in engineering and if so, what area. That’s how he’'ll earn his living. Also, from my recollection, I resisted my mothers interference in choosing my major.
Coach Mike Shanahan supposedly said, and I agree, that it doesn’t matter what position a kid played in college football. If he is a good athlete, he can learn most of the other positions. Students can major is so many areas and graduate with specific and general (soft) skills that can be applied at many kinds of work. One father was determined he wanted his daughter to in business, but she was flat-out refusing. Dad got to hear about Mike Shanahan and said he agreed and told his daughter to major in what she wanted.
Business is a flourishing major now. Having administered accommodated tests to students with disabilities, I find the content staggeringly boring. Majors reflect out interests and the strengths we bring to learning. Oh a happier note, one mother who insisted emphatically on speaking for her son told me he would major in business and he agreed, but looked very unhappy. Ultimately he changed his major to art, studied in Paris, did well and loved it.
My son took an Intro to Engineering course at the local community college the summer after his sophomore year. It included a survey of mechanical, electrical, civil, and computer engineering. He found some things like analysis of trusses to not be so interesting. But he loved the computer portion - Arduino programming. The Professor had him helping the other kids because he just got it. So in applying to colleges he had no doubt his intended major. He starts at UCSD in two months. If your son doesn’t have time to take a course - he could go through some of the content at Coursera. I see “introduction to systems engineering”, “introduction to electrical engineering”, "introduction to engineering mechanics ", "introduction to computer science " … and many others. Free.
Most schools would admit students into a first year engineering program instead of specific major (of course, some exceptions like UIUC). There will be a chance to explore different area of engineering during the freshmen year. In my D’s school, one may take that introduction to engineering instead of ENGR100 in freshmen year. Most students will declare major after freshmen year and some may even change major after sophomore year.
Let your son choose his major. If he wants a particular type of engineering, let him choose that area.
Most schools have an intro to engineering course which gives a smattering about a number of different areas. Also, if your son majors on engineering, his academic advisor in that department can give him some suggestions and advice.
My engineering major kid chose the specialty based on a particular professor mentor. That is another way some students choose the particular area.
But bottom line…your kid should be doing the choosing…not the parent.
Depends on the school and when he is allowed to declare his choice. My daughter is going to an Engineering school where the students don’t pick their Major until their Junior year. All the students take the same Engineering classes for the first two years.