<p>this question is basically for racinreaver but i would love to hear from anyone else too. Ok so I don't know if you remember me from the earlier thread ( i'm the really confused guy). I've been thinking solely about materials engineering now..and this is why its specifically for racinreaver since he's a Mat E guy. I think I'm more of a chemistry kinda person rather than a physics guy. I had initially entered university thinking I would choose mechanical. But i just didnt like my statics and dynamics course. I didnt do terrible in them. I got a B. Its just that I don't think im right for those career paths.
I really love the stuff you can do with a meche or EE degree. Designing robots, aircraft, automobiles. They're all fascinating. But getting there just doesn't appeal to me. its not that I stink at physics or math. I dont particularly enjoy them in that i dont go to class with enthusiasm about the new topic we'll be learning. I do pretty good in math (around a B+).
I do love my chemistry classes though and so I'm thinking that maybe Mat E would be right for me. The point of this huge post was that maybe someone could help me and give some sort of comment on whether i'm right about choosing mat E... sorry for the long thread and sorry if it sounded retarded.. oh and im studying in Canada if that should matter.. thanks</p>
<p>Well, MSE has a lot of options open to you. Just because you're a chemistry person and not a physics person doesn't really mean a whole lot. Prior to going to undergrad, I was in a toss-up between doing a minor in physics and a minor in chemistry. The only reason I did physics was because I had the choice between organic chemistry at 8:30 and quantum mechanics at noon. Being a college student that liked staying up late, I went with quantum mechanics. I never really did exceptional in my physics classes (and continue that trend in grad school), since I'm a very conceptual person and not very good at understanding things solely through math. So I wound up with a B in most of my physics classes, not a whole lot to be discouraged by.</p>
<p>If you want to see what exactly is that materials engineers generally study, then you should read the Table of Contents of this book: Amazon.com:</a> Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction: William D., Jr. Callister: Books Click the "Search Inside this Book" link and flip through it. Pretty much my entire undergrad education in materials was taking a class on each chapter in the book. If those topics look interesting to you, then MSE is probably a great choice. It's not really difficult on math, if you can understand partial derivatives and some basic diff-eq you'll be fine, and the concepts can either be understood visually, conceptually, or mathematically, so there's lots of ways to understand what's going on.</p>
<p>I think what's key about MSE is that you feel a drive to understand why materials behave the way they do, but more so on a macroscopic level than on a quantum mechanical level (though if you want to, that's also within the realm of materials scientists).</p>
<p>I'm not MSE, but I just want to point out that there are Mech E. people who can't stand dynamics, such as myself, and there are areas for us. I, too, was thinking about dropping out of ME, until I took my first thermo class. Thermo and heat transfer are a huge portion of Mech E, which have little to do with macroscale dynamics and, best of all, contain almost no free body diagrams. Fluids is another field which has a different feel than dynamics, and is also closely tied to thermo. </p>
<p>Then again, higher level thermo and heat transfer courses do get mixed up with quantum mechanics and statistical dynamics, both of which overlap with physical chemistry and material science. It all depends on what you want to focus. If you're interested in devices and want to learn how to broadly implement power supply or cooling schemes then thermo is your best bet. Any machine needs some sort of thermal or energy analysis, so you can find work in fields from chip design to power plants.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you want to design new compounds at the molecular level, that's more towards physical chemistry. If you want to study and create new material to fill some mesoscale functionality, then like racin said, MSE is the way to go. These two are interesting fields, and I am, in fact, taking a P Chem grad course, right now and really enjoying it. However, you may not have to leave ME to get involved in learning about material like this. Especially with the focus on miniaturization in engineering now, everyone's research is pushing into territory that was formerly the province of MSE and Chemistry.</p>
<p>Yeah, and we're both bitter and happy about it because we've got you guys stealing our research topics, but it also brings a lot more to the field since people are actually interested in it again. :p</p>
<p>Also, ME/MSE was a moderately common combination at my school. Nobody double majored in it, but we had 3-4 MechE's in our lower-level MSE courses (in a class of ~25) that were doing a minor. So you could always take a few classes, and if things aren't any better in MSE, you could probably walk away with just a few classes.</p>
<p>Edit: I know we have another MSE person or two on this board, so hopefully they'll weigh in (or a mod could change the topic to include Materials Science somewhere in the title).</p>
<p>thanks for both your responses. Yeah i totally hate free body diagrams and forces too. Although being in mech e, I'd think all of you loved dynamics since it plays a huge role. The little thermodynamics that i know are from what i learned in my introductory chem classes..enthalpy, entropy, gibbs free energy, hess's law etc. they dont seem too bad. If i choose MSE, i have to take an organic chem class. I dont really like organic chemistry. I had a few classes in high school and boy were those crappy. Although back in school i didnt really care how much i got and barely put in any effort (hasn't really changed now either).
I dont suck at dynamics. I had around a 74 percent on my midterm and that was after not paying attention in class. I guess I could blame part of my loathing for the subject due to the fact that i never put in much effort.
I read through the index of that book and that stuff seems pretty interesting. In one of my introductory chem class, we learnt stuff like atomic bonding, how electrons are filled in the different orbitals, hybridization, lewis structure and so on. I loved all of that and did extremely well on the midterm covering that portion. Is that closely tied to what you study under "Structure" in MSE? if yeah then i think id love it. Also, i've done a bit of imperfection in solids and fcc, bcc, crystal structures and those were pretty good too. The part that seems crappy is mechanical behavior of materials, stresses, strains.. that seems like my statics course all over again. I do realize that every discipline is going to have some ****ty aspect that i just have to put up with i guess. So i guess MSE it is then.</p>
<p>You might have to take one mechanical behavior class, though a lot of programs will let you get away without having taken any (I did, actually).</p>
<p>You shouldn't judge a whole major just based on one class you'll have to take; you need to think about what you're truly interested in and would like to spend a career studying.</p>
<p>I did MSE, the mechanical behavior class that I at least took wasn't too much like statics at all, in fact it was one of my more enjoyable classes. And like said in an earlier post, don't let one class let you turn away from a major.</p>