<p>I am a senior who always considered myself a history/liberal arts type of person. However, within the last year, I have become interested in science/ tech fields and this past summer I was selected for a competitive research internship (awesome experience) and am now taking honors physics and find myself drawn in this direction. Scores CR=800; M=630;W=770. GPA unweighted 3.9. (This was my first SAT and will be re-taking in Oct.). Any suggestions about applied physics or engineering programs? School counselor suggested I apply to colleges as undeclared or something in arts and sciences. Not exactly sure how that works...seems to me that most schools do not permit much changing of majors into engineering if accepted into arts and sciences. Also, I'm not too sure about the ethics of presenting myself one way if my intention is truly in another direction. Am I being too naive? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>What is your home state? What can your family afford? If you intend to go into engineering you should start in that school. Most engineering programs start immediately. You can usually switch to the arts and sciences if you run into difficulty with engineering. And regarding the difficulty of switching majors, it really depends on the university.</p>
<p>Engineering curriculum does not leave the room that a sciences major would to explore majors. Are you sure you are sold on that line of study and career? I’ll just tell you what my daughter did in case illustrating one student’s journey is helpful. She was strong in all areas in high school but had exposure to science research, so wanted to go that direction in college. Applied undeclared. Took physics, the math to back that up and chemistry with a few electives like cognitive science and Russian lit. Did a year long CS intro sequence sophomore year and loved it. Declared a math/CS major. Now a PhD student.</p>
<p>It is perfectly okay to give a tentative major and change it later. Many students change majors from what they declared and that is perfectly acceptable (of course, considering if there is any restrictions between colleges),</p>
<p>I would start off by looking at the curriculum at engineering schools and see if it is appealing to you. Keep in mind that it can be difficult to transfer into an engineering program. Engineering coursework typically starts with intro courses freshman year and the courses in an engineering program are pretty sequential. So if you don’t start off as an engineer it could be hard to graduate as an engineer in four years. If you think you want engineering I’d consider starting off in an engineering course of study at a school which also has a strong liberal arts program. This way if you find engineering isn’t for you, you can switch out and still have a lot of great options available.</p>
<p>Curriculum-wise, it is relatively easy to change from an engineering major to a math or physics major in the first two years, since engineering curricula typically include the needed math and physics courses.</p>
<p>At some schools, there may be administrative barriers to switching into engineering, due to capacity limitations. Such barriers tend to be lower for arts and sciences majors.</p>
<p>History as a major is much less likely to have a lot of requirements or long prerequisite sequences, so switching into history should not be too difficult curriculum wise. Indeed, if you start as an engineering major but take history courses as your humanities and social studies breadth courses, you may be not have much “catch up” to do if you switch to history.</p>