<p>I'm a senior studying Aerospace engineering at Purdue University with minors in astronomy and physics.</p>
<p>I'm considering doing grad school in planetary science. Places to apply to include MIT, UC-Boulder, Caltech, Cornell etc. In particular I'm interested in aspects of geology and hydrology of the rocky planets. I have a fluid mechanics concentration in my aerospace engineering undergrad curriculum. </p>
<p>I was just wondering if making a jump into a science grad program from engineering happens often or not (in my field of space science/engineering to be more particular). It doesn't seem like a very conventional thing to do. </p>
<p>I have a decent background in the field both through my minors and regular interest in astronomy topics. Additionally, I'm involved in a lunar robotics competition called Lunabotics and may even do my senior design work on lunar engineering/science.</p>
<p>Aside from the first 3 places I mentioned, are there any universities that have strong programs in both planetary science AND space engineering?</p>
It does not happen very often. The reverse - going from science to engineering - is more common because there aren’t very many jobs in science proper. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that your application would be ill-received or that it would be a bad idea in your particular situation. </p>
<p>One piece of advice I’d like to give you is to think about what you’d like to be doing in 5 or 10 years. If you hope to be doing space engineering, for example, it might make more sense to enroll in a PhD program in that rather than planetary science. Do you want to spend 5 years analyzing extraterrestrial rock samples while taking a few space engineering courses on the side, or do you want to spend 5 years thinking about aerospace engineering problems while learning about space geology on the side?</p>
<p>One more cautionary note. If you are hoping to work in space-anything, make sure that you are generally eligible for a security clearance. NASA likes to run FBI screenings on all of its contractors even when they don’t handle sensitive information.</p>