Hi. I am a rising senior in electrical engineering looking at graduate school. One of the areas I am interested in is Guidance, Navigation and Controls systems (GN&C). Most of the schools I am finding that do this in the Western US are in the aerospace engineering department.
I asked a professor in my department about going to grad school in AE, but he said it was a poor idea. Firstly, I could not TA the undergrad labs, as I have not taken the coursework. This means I will have trouble finding work. Secondly, I would be in between two majors and not very employable. Thirdly, he told me that it is a consumer product that a company wouldn’t hire an engineer to build.
He, however, did recommend investigating the possibility of doing coursework in EE and doing research in GN&C with an application in aerospace. I had never heard of a cross area masters like this where the thesis for the master’s is in a different area than the coursework. To be more clear I would be studying controls in EE and doing research in controls under an AE professor. Knowing some graduate students, none of them do research under a professor that is not in the department they are studying in. Is this something that is done?
Not being in engineering I would say defer to your professor, but I’m kind of skeptical. People change their focus for graduate school often, particularly across related fields; there were several people who didn’t major in psychology in my psych department who still TA’ed undergraduate psychology classes. There are also several classes in common across engineering fields that undergrads would have to take that you could TA. Furthermore, people often TA across subfields - my specialty is social/health psychology, but I TA’ed undergrad classes in cultural and developmental psychology in grad school.
But perhaps it’s different in engineering. I’d get more than one opinion on it, though.
Anyway, it’s very common for MS and PhD students to do research in a different but related department/field than the one they are in. Like I said, I was a psychologist, but my colleagues did research in neuroscience, in business, in political science and even in physics (psychophysics). It really depends on the program, and how they operate. Some programs might frown upon it while others embrace it. And some programs might require your primary adviser to be in your own department but allow you to work with a secondary adviser.
Your advisor is giving you pretty good advice. It is possible, although challenging, to get into a research group in another department. The challenge is all in getting in though because once you are working in the field, you will learn what you need to get your project done.
I have seen physics students be supported in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering groups and I am supporting a chemistry Ph.D. student and a chemical engineering Ph.D. student in my physics research group. As an EE you would have something to contribute to the GN&C field but you would be stuck taking a lot of remedial courses if you were to be in an AE program. By entering an EE program, you minimize your coursework and EEs are hired in the Aerospace industry, particularly if they have relevant research experience.