<p>At Caltech they call them options right? Ha. Business Economics and Management.</p>
<p>materials science and engineering for me.... but i would be open to change to some other type of engineering if i looks better during the core curriculum</p>
<p>If you're planning on majoring in BEM it might not be the best place for you. While BEM is growing quickly, and we have a prof who is super gung-ho about it (and he's a really awesome guy), I don't think it's developed enough for you to want to come here because of it.</p>
<p>galen</p>
<p>Well, I want to major in BEM, but that is not the only reason I want to go to Caltech. I also love biology, chemistry, physics and computer science.</p>
<p>Alright, cool. There are a bunch of folks who double in a science and BEM, so that's certainly a viable option.</p>
<p>For a long time I wanted to be a surgeon...but then I realized I have no fine motor skills whatsoever...so that kind of killed that.</p>
<p>my mid year bio grades suck :(</p>
<p>Is it all easy to double major in Electrical Engineering and Aeronautics, and say, graduate in 5 years, and still manage a social life?</p>
<p>Nothing is easy here. EE is also a notoriously hard major. One thing that will help is that AE is not it's own major. Instead, it's a concentration under E&AS (engineering and applied science), which is rather flexible. Also, many of the EE courses will also count towards an E&AS major. Most people can't handle more than 5 courses a term, so doing some quick calculations looking at the requirements, EE requires about 20 terms of EE courses and AE requires about 17 terms not covered by those. If you estimate that you can get about 5 courses out of the way before Junior year, and then estimate 4 courses per term afterwards (on top of that you'd need to take a hum), it ends up taking 8 terms. So, the answer is that yes, it is technically possible to finish in 5 years. But, it's a lot harder to accomplish than the math makes it look. You only have one term's worth of leeway, which is going to get eaten up pretty quickly, especially when you take into account the possibility of burnout (very possible when trying to finish two majors) and the numerous complications from scheduling. That last one will be a problem no matter what. AE courses could very well conflict with EE courses and you need to carefully plan everything so that you'll have all the necessary prerequisites when the time comes (EE in particular seems to have a real maze of prereqs). Anyways, the short answer is yes, it MIGHT be possible, but you might also run yourself ragged finishing. For more information about requirements for each of these and for projected schedules for students following those options, you can look at the catalog:
<a href="http://pr.caltech.edu/catalog/pdf/catalog_04_05.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://pr.caltech.edu/catalog/pdf/catalog_04_05.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thanks for your response, alleya!</p>
<p>I skimmed through the catalog (thanks for the link) and it certainly isn't worth it. How about doing my graduate studies in Aeronautics instead..? (I presumed it would take a year, not really familiar with organization of credits at caltech) </p>
<p>I would say that sounds more feasible, only I don't know if it'll work with EE major or if the graduate school will accept students with EE undergraduate degrees.</p>
<p>Well, there are definitely people who "switch directions" when heading into grad school, so it shouldn't be impossible to do your graduate studies in AE after an EE degree, but it might bar you from the most prestigious programs in AE. Do you know what exactly you're interested in with AE and EE? It's somewhat of an odd combination, since AE is much closer to MechE (mechanical engineering) and EE is closer to CS than they are too each other. Are you interested in working on electronics on airplanes? For that, you really just need an EE background. I've actually had an internship with Lockheed Martin (makers of the F-16, F-22 and the new JSF) for the last three summers, so I might be able to give you more guidance about what kind of background you need (or I could ask people for you). If you're just choosing the two because those areas are what you're interested in, you could always choose one to major in and just spend your electives on the other, without trying for a degree in it.</p>
<p>Yeah, it might sound like an odd combination, but an application of both discplines is an aircraft with an automated control system (EE here). . of course, this will require the design of the aircraft by it self, and the control system.</p>
<p>If it turns out that only few courses from Aeronautics will suffice, then that's fine too! :)</p>
<p>Thanks for your reply.</p>