<p>What types of engineering give you the most flexible skill-set to be involved in start-ups. </p>
<p>I assume its electrical engineering, but that is off of a hunch. Since I am not too interested in working in the corporate world for TOO long, I want to know what kind of engineering majors at say Georgia Tech will provide me with a fundamental knowledge over a field that is flexible and has growth?</p>
<p>I understand this is very subjective and that there is much more involved to being a founder than a degree or the theory in undergraduate courses, but generally speaking, electrical engineering is more apt at allowing you to be involved in most startups than say nursing or chemistry.</p>
<p>From industrial, electrical, materials, mechanical, biomedical, computer, and civil engineering which do you believe would assist most and why?</p>
<p>Anything that works with software because you don’t need any expensive capital. You don’t need an expensive chemical reactor, a large factory, etc for a program, only a high-end computer and a startup budget ($500k would be more than enough).
However, it’s not really any type of engineering that gives you an advantage that matters enough to major in it for the startup opportunities. There are plenty of Mech/Chem/Aero/other E’s that have made successful software startups(or startups in their major). You don’t work in a vacuum anyways; you have to have partners to start a business. There’s plenty of flexibility in startup creation for any engineer and you’d be better off just doing what you like if your end goal is a startup.</p>
<p>Agree with Comp Sci, which I am. I’m always getting digests about people looking for software engineers for “the next big thing.” I interned for a start up where my boss graduated Comp Sci and now 5 years later, has made hundreds of thousands off of simple yet clever apps. Web and mobile development is only going to grow over this decade.</p>
<p>My brother is EE so I asked, and start ups don’t often start there. EE is great for research though. A liberal arts major wouldn’t definitely be terrible, but it probably would be in comparison. Look at the trend of successful start ups over the last few years (look at nominees for the crunchies if you’re unfamiliar). It’s often a business guy and software guy got together with a great idea and built it, usually in code.</p>
<p>Remember that there are two essential components to every start-up - the product and the business. Anyone (in theory) can find investors, manage the business, and advertise and sell the product, but this is 90% of the use of MBA’s. Any engineering major can design a product, but the start-up costs can vary considerably between majors. NucE is extremely expensive, Aero not much better, but (as others have noted) a software company can start with one PC and one CS major - this is why so many CS start-ups exist, the initial costs are so low that nearly ANYONE can start a software company. Starting an electronics company may take a million even for relatively simple products.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that I seriously doubt you are good at all of the types of engineering. You should pursue the engineering field you are best at, not the one you think will have the best startup opportunities.</p>
<p>Startups have a high failure rate and a lot of flexibility when it comes to where people come from. Software doesn’t have to come from a CS, though help from a CS and programming knowledge are useful.
Who knows, maybe you can make a useful program that relates to MatSciE and make good money off that. Or make a non-software startup.
So basically, startups should not influence your major.</p>