<p>My son's always focused on math and physics but recently said he might be interested in looking into engineering. The problem I see is that most schools require that you know ahead of time that you want to be an engineer or at least that you want to major in engineering. How do high school students know this? Are students who <em>might</em> be interested in engineering be out of luck? For instance, my son just got Vanderbilt's common applcation supplement and a student has to pick a school to apply to. What if a student enters a college and then decides they want to major in engineering after the first semester or first year? Is this not possible? Should my son take an engineering class at the local community college this year to see if he's interested at all? My son's had lots of college physics and math but no engineering experience. He's a rising senior.</p>
<p>‘Engineering’ is a pretty broad category comprised of some much more specific areas - electrical eng, mechanical eng, civil eng, bio eng, chemical eng, computer science, etc. Taking a class at a CC in ‘engineering’ probably won’t be that informative to him except possibly in one of the particular engineering majors - i.e. if he takes an elec eng course and hates it he can rule at least EE out but it owuldn’t necessarily rule any of the others out.</p>
<p>Some colleges do require one to select the school of engineering right away for a couple of reasons - sometimes the ‘cut’ is higher vs the college of letters and sciences as to who will be accepted and often the engineering majors are so packed with courses one needs to get started pretty much right away taking the courses.</p>
<p>It’s often much easier to switch from the college of eng to the college of letters & sciences than the reverse but this also varies with the particular college.</p>
<p>If he thinks he might be interested in ‘engineering’, ask him what type of engineering and it may provoke some thought and research.</p>
<p>That’s a good idea, ucsd_ucla dad. I’m not sure what prompted his interest. It’s possible his research this summer has prompted it. He’s had to build an optics microscope (or something like that; not sure of the name) from scratch in order to conduct the research and maybe that sparked his interest?</p>
<p>Most people who are interested in a technical major but not deadset on engineering apply to the engineering school. You don’t have to be sure; the intro classes for engineering and science will probably be the same anyway.</p>
<p>First of all, I disagree that “Taking a class at a CC in ‘engineering’ probably won’t be that informative”. Depends upon what the exact course content is. I know in a few community colleges or Schools, they have an “Engg 101” type class where they touch upon most major branches of engg. and make the students do a small “project” or paper on each branch, etc. That would give the student an idea of what engg entails in general, and also gives a taste of what engrs of each branch do.</p>
<p>Secondly, not all Schools need the students to apply to a specific college/major. You’re admitted to the School (or univ or institute) and you get to choose your major in a year or two.</p>
<p>Finally, even those Schools that you apply (and get into) specific colleges (e.g. College of Engg), it is not super-hard to change majors after a year or so, to some other majors/colleges. Granted every School has their own policies and degree-of-difficulty around inter-college transfers, but I don’t think any of them make it impossible for students to change majors. Usually, admission into College of Engg is more competitive (repeating - usually), so if you get admitted into CoE initially, transferring into another school (like Literature, Sciences & Arts) is not that hard.</p>
<p>I know of only one School (UIUC) that makes students apply to a specific branch of engg (e.g. Civil Engg) when applying fresh out of high school. And once you’re in, I hear it is also somewhat harder to transfer, even to other branches of engg.</p>
<p>PS: I’ve used the term School above to indicate a College/Institute/University to differentiate from an individual academic division (Engg, LSA) within the School.</p>
<p>It is generally much, much easier to switch out of engineering than into it, so I would highly advise your son to start out in engineering and then switch later.</p>
<p>I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to be an engineer, but I ended up applying to a number of engineering programs, and choosing to enroll in one. At CMU, where I currently attend, I actually also applied and was accepted as a physics major, which is in our science college here - I figured if I did ever decide to switch, having initially been accepted as a physics major as well might give me some leverage for switching to physics. (At CMU, you can apply to multiple colleges within the university - this is not true in most places).</p>
<p>Nonetheless, in any case, engineering –> anything else is so much easier than the other way around. If I wanted to switch and be a physics major right now, it would be really simple. I’ve taken math through Diff Eq, have completed two semesters of college level physics, taken a physics laboratory class etc. If I were another major and wanted to switch into engineering…well, who knows? I wouldn’t have any engineering coursework completed, so that would be a problem right there… </p>
<p>Engineering to physics or math is an easy switch at most schools. Math or physics to engineering isn’t the worst, but it’s certainly going to be far more difficult.</p>
<p>It is generally much, much easier to switch out of engineering than into it, so I would highly advise your son to start out in engineering and then switch later.</p>
<p>This is very true.</p>
<p>Incoming engineering freshmen often start with some kind of Freshman Engineering Program of classes . Also, many engineering programs are carefully sequenced…first you take A, B, C, D…then you take E, F, G, H, etc. All carefully sequenced for 8 semesters.</p>
<p>It can be hard to “get in the sequence” without starting in the fall as a frosh…especially if some classes are only offered in the fall…and some are only offered in the spring. </p>
<p>And, I agree…unless a CC is known to have really good eng’g classes, taking one may not tell him much.</p>
<p>Instead…have him sit in an engineering class or two at a local university that is good in engineering…especially a Frosh class that reviews all the different aspects of engineering.</p>
<p>Usually, a university’s engineering college or majors are more selective than its arts/letters/science college or math/physics majors, so a student who enters as an engineering major usually has little trouble switching.</p>
<p>Also, freshman and sophomore engineering course lists include the math and physics courses needed by math and physics majors anyway, so switching from engineering to math or physics is trivial from a standpoint of courses required for the major (but the engineering college may have different breadth requirements from the arts/letters/science college, though careful selection of breadth courses can work to both breadth requirements simultaneously).</p>
<p>As far as picking a specific engineering major at freshman application time goes, Berkeley’s College of Engineering allows one to pick either a specific major or Engineering Undeclared, with different levels of selectivity (Engineering Undeclared being one of the most selective). San Jose State University has all freshman applicants (engineering or otherwise) select a major, with varying levels of selectivity (Undeclared is one of the least selective, but one probably has to apply to declare a popular major later).</p>
<p>My d wasn’t sure if she wanted to major in engineering or physics, so any school that would force her to make a choice on her application was off the table for us. We looked for schools which offered a fair degree of flexibility. Most universities are organized so that the school of engineering is separate from the school of humanities and sciences, but institutions vary widely in how transparent those separations are to the students. College tours and information sessions are a good way to figure out how flexible an institution is likely to be, especially if you can find some engineering students to talk to.</p>
<p>Fast forward 4 years - my d just graduated with a double major in EE and physics, so she never really had to make a choice at all (she’s going to grad school in physics, however, so she did eventually choose… sort of).</p>
<p>DD did the opposite. She thought she was interested in engineering but did NOT apply to her school’s college of engineering. She knew it was a tough admit…so she went undeclared arts and sciences. BUT she also inquired whether students could switch to engineering…and the answer was yes. As a freshman, she took the SAME course sequence as those freshmen IN the college of engineering (calculus, chemistry, biology…those were required at her school of all freshmen engineering majors). She also took an intro to engineering course…something the college also required of the engineering majors. She continued the correct sequence into her soph year and at the end of the first quarter her advisor suggested she declare her major and switch to engineering which she did. </p>
<p>Engineering had different core course requirements than arts and sciences (e.g at her school, engineering majors did not have to take a foreign language).</p>
<p>BUT she did inquire before she matriculated…to be sure she COULD change to engineering if she chose to do so…and had satisfactory grades in the courses. They said yes…this was a “dealbreaker” for her in college selections. If they had said NO, she would have gone elsewhere.</p>
<p>She graduated with two majors…bioengineering and biology.</p>
<p>It is hard to decide on engineering coming right out of high school if one has little exposure to what an engineer actually does. If you know of any friends that are engineers, have them talk to your son.</p>
<p>A couple of comments:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Some schools will indeed make you choose a major and it will be that department that accepts you, not the “school”. In many instances it is also hard to switch majors also at those schools. Many of the CA state schools are that way. </p></li>
<li><p>There are others that will not require you to declare a major or ask you for a major but not hold you to it. {my daughter choose WPI somewhat for this reason} Those schools are usually also somewhat easy to change. It becomes harder to change the longer you are in school as most school really do want you to graduate. The later you change, the harder it becomes to graduate on time (or even close to it). However, freshman year is pretty much the same for a lot of math/physics/engineering schhols. </p></li>
<li><p>If it is easier to change out of engineering, it then usually means it is harder to get admitted to that school. You need to consider that in the application/admittance dance.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I think it is crazy for a school to require an incoming freshman to declare a major when they usually have little or no exposure to the various options. But that is the way many do it; usually because of their approach to department funding.</p>
<p>A student who loves math and physics might really enjoy engineering. It’s true that engineering (with many required course sequences) is easier to switch out of than into. But there can be the issue of trying to switch schools with low gpa. </p>
<p>For a student not sure, I think it makes sense to got to a college that offers engineering, but also many other majors.</p>
In general this is true. But I think it’s not easy to switch from engineering to theorical math/physics at colleges like UCB, MIT, Princeton, Harvard. The math/physics majors at these college are very hard.</p>
<p>Don’t know about the other schools, but switching majors at MIT wasn’t hard when I was a student there. The student determined what his/her major was. The only issue would have been the timeliness of your changing majors and being able to graduate in a reasonable time.</p>
<p>^I can’t speak for any others, but at least at UCB, the College of Letters and Science remains easier to get into than the College of Engineering, regardless of the fact the UCB’s excellent physics/math programs are housed in L&S.</p>
<p>I guess we need to have this conversation soon! I think auditing an engineering class at the local univ. is a good idea. I’ll have him talk with his physics prof about that. His top 4 schools are Harvey Mudd, Penn, Princeton and Vanderbilt. It looks like two of those schools, Penn and Vanderbilt, require a student to apply to engineering school. Is that right? What about these other schools: WUSTL, Davidson, and UTD? And these are schools on the possible list: MIT, Stanford, UCSD, U of R, and Baylor. What about them? </p>
<p>My son honestly thought engineering wasn’t for him because he’s been very interested in theoretically stuff rather than hands on type stuff but maybe the success in designing this microscope has given him confidence. I don’t know.</p>
<p>We have several friends at church that are engineers. One is a structural engineer who is very successful. Not sure what type of engineer the other one is but my son is close to both men. I guess it’s time for him to pick their brains.</p>
<p>Do you think having no engineering experience in high school would be a drawback in applications? I just don’t know how serious he is about exploring engineering. He tends to go off on tangents; he just likes so many things.</p>
<p>sbjdorlo: At Penn CAS students can have double majors in CAS and Engineering or CAS and Wharton.
I don’t think engineering experience in HS is a requirement for college engineering.</p>
<p>I was thinking of robotics, FLL, and things like that. My son’s never done computer programming, either, except for a summer class of C++. His background is heavily math and physics.</p>