Hey guys,
I am going to Georgetown next year fo my undergrad. I am undecided about what I want to do as a career yet (I have been bouncing between a bunch of different things like medicine, research, and finance).
Recently I have gained an interest in physics through AP Physics in school. If I decide I want to be an engineer when I am at college (keep in mind G-town doesn’t offer engineering), will I be able to get a physics undergrad degree and then apply to engineering masters programs, in order to launch a career from there?
Thanks!
Yep. You’ll need to take a few remedial engineering courses, but it’s a road others have certainly taken. Good luck.
It can certainly be done and I’ve worked with several people who’ve done just that. Look at the required courses for whatever branch of engineering you’re interested in. You will have to complete those before you are accepted into an engineering master’s program. See if you can complete a few of those within your undergrad program. The rest will have to be taken later at a school that offers such classes.
If you are truly interested in engineering, you might want to consider transferring after your freshman year to a school that offers engineering. It would be less work in the long run. Freshman year is kind of generic for any kind of STEM major and so you could be right on track for a BS in engineering.
Also, a masters degree is starting to specialize within the chosen branch of engineering, usually having the background from your undergrad years. It might be harder to decide on a grad program that really interests you without the undergrad experience.
Many engineers enter the job market with just a BS and then go back to school after a couple of years. In that way, they can usually get their employer to pay all or part of their grad education. Going from a physics BS to a grad engineering program, and with all the extra prerequisites, could get awful expensive with you shouldering most of the cost.
That’s a valid consideration but there are ways around it.
My son is a math major at a school that doesn’t offer engineering. He is considering engineering as one of the many directions he can go with his major (physics is much the same in that way). This summer he will be interning at a smallish scientific instruments company where he will work with engineers in a range of fields: mechanical, electrical, industrial, plus some more specialized areas. Being a smaller company, he will see the product development cycle up close and he should know by the end of the summer if engineering is something he wants to pursue.
He specifically chose this internship over one in a mega-large corporation in order to get this kind of real-world exposure to real down and dirty engineering. There are tons of smaller companies like this who are thrilled to get interns from top colleges and universities. It’s an ideal way for ST!EM students to get a taste of engineering, or for engineering students to get a whole-picture view of the field.
@Otterma, that is certainly a good approach for the position your son finds himself in now, given his late to the game interest in engineering, but it isn’t ideal. He will get a peek at a very tiny subset of those specialties. He will be judging a whole discipline based on only a fraction of what they can actually do. If that doesn’t align with his interests, he won’t have a good way to know if another facet would.
Thanks so much guys! I’m thrilled that in less than a day I got so many replies.
If I decide I want to do engineering in the future (I’m undecided), I was thinking I could probably take a few engineering courses at Rutgers (my state school) over the summer.
Yeah I’ll probably go to school and after I’m more sure about my plans I’ll talk to the advisors for guidance.
A physics degree can also lead to an engineering job without going for a graduate degree. The key is to get internship experience as @Otterma suggests. Many of our Physics majors at Illinois Tech go right into the workforce.