<p>Senior in high school. Plan to major in MechE. I know the most basic of BASIC, an idea of how a loop runs, slight calling, etc. </p>
<p>Question: Will getting more experience with programming allow me to be "above par" in the college of my choice? If so, which language would be best to get most comfortable for college. Please elaborate as well, because, I clearly have no clue about college engineering classes.</p>
<p>It is common for mechanical engineering majors to take a computing for engineering course, usually using MATLAB.</p>
<p>A MATLAB-esque language (because it’s the most straightforward to program and comes with extensive libraries), C (because it’s everywhere) and Python (including the SciPy packages, which are a modern alternative to MATLAB/similar).</p>
<p>Most of what you’d need to calculate in mechanical engineering are either done in the CAD program you’re using or you may use MATLAB (or similar) or SciPy to write an equation/model/system of equations that you’re trying to solve.</p>
<p>Advanced programming is not crucial to mechanical engineering other than the ability to write e.g. MATLAB code for solving models/calculations that you need to solve. It’s like an advanced pocket calculator for MEs. And that’s, unless you want specialize into fields like (computational) solid mechanics/structural analysis, in which case you might be doing programming extensively in e.g. C or e.g. Julia.</p>
<p>Thank you both for answering my second question although, do you guys have answers for the first?</p>
<p>Knowing more programming may not necessarily improve your performance in Mechanical Engineering courses, but when you get to the point of taking the MatLab course and working on projects, a good background in programming should make things a bit easier.</p>
<p>Programming will not help you in mechanical engineering courses, unless you think that you might program for turning out solutions to problems. E.g. linear algebra problems require in many cases computing, because operations with large matrices are slow to solve by hand. It can work, if you know how to do it and if the solution is calculable (i.e. mathematical).</p>
<p>Being versed in programming may also improve your thinking or the ability to think sequentially or step-wise and being able to figure out how to simplify things and problems into small logical steps. Or how to mentally compose simpler things into bigger compositions/abstractions. Kind of similarly how circuit design can help to develop this kind of logical, procedural thinking.</p>