<p>I'm a sophomore in Aersp but most of the classes have been the same up until now. Looking at the course outline, I would only have 9 credits to make up. I'm seriously considering switching mostly because of the much higher starting salaries. I don't really know much about it though.
Is there some key I should know such as the hours are horrible, you have to work overseas, the work is boring, etc?</p>
<p>Typicall they are long, hard hours. Either way, switching for money is a really terrible reason. Do what you enjoy more.</p>
<p>I know it sounds terrible switching for money but I mean it’s like a 50% increase! And it’s not like I’m giving up something I enjoy. I’m not like super interested in Aero. I just thought it looked pretty cool and better than the other engineering majors. I did consider petroleum engineering back when I was thinking up a major, but it wasn’t listed in the College of Engineering so I forgot about it and recently realized it’s in another college.</p>
<p>If it’s not in the engineering college, what college is it in?</p>
<p>Probably geosciences or something. Either way, if you are more interested in aero, stay in aero. That is my advice.</p>
<p>Statistics aren’t everything. There are no guarantees that you would make significantly more doing petroleum engineering vs. aero. Typically petroleum companies pay more than average but there are companies in all industries that pay more than average. Petroleum companies also hire MEs and ChemEs so there is not one path to getting into that industry. The point, as others have said, is to do what you enjoy. Chances are that you will be more successful and probably end up making more doing what interests you.</p>
<p>There are probably more aero jobs out there than Pet. I don’t want you to graduate and can’t find a job.</p>
<p>I understand the interest argument, but understand that I don’t know exactly what I’m interested in. I’ve only taken general courses so far. I don’t know that I’ll like aero or petro for that matter once I get into it. I’m actually pretty interested in robotics but it’s too late to switch to mech(so far classes have been more in line with petro than mech believe it or not). And the job placement for petro at my school is 100% with an average salary of 30K more than the other engineering majors.</p>
<p>What school do you go to?</p>
<p>Robotics falls into aero as well. And that is a BS excuse to say it is too late to switch to ME if you really wanted to do that. Regardless of what your classes have been so far, you said yourself you have only taken the general stuff, so it doesn’t matter. AeroE and ME are really two sides of the same coin, and a lot of their classes teach the same stuff with different examples.</p>
<p>I go to Penn State. I checked the course layouts again and I guess I was wrong, both petro and mech are 9 credits away from me. It’s not like I’m dead set on petro, I just want to scope things out. I’ve been reading into it a lot and I have a meeting with the department head next week to talk about it. </p>
<p>Petro seems to be safer in terms of getting/keeping a job since I’ve been reading that demand for them is high and many of them are going to be retiring. My school claims that 100% of the grads get a job and it’s not like the big oil companies are going anywhere. </p>
<p>Aero seems to be tighter. I like the space side more than the aircraft side and I feel like jobs in that department are harder to find. I know that there’s all these new private space companies, but they don’t seem as stable and that far along in the process of getting people to space. </p>
<p>That used to be my main goal, getting into space, but that’s seeming more and more unlikely so I was thinking about going into the management side of things but if I’m going to do that, why not do it in a more lucrative yet still very interesting field i.e. petro.</p>
<p>You should talk to some professors or seniors in the PetE department to make sure that the 100% job placement statistic is correct. I recall someone saying on this forum that the outlook for PetE grads at Penn wasn’t very good compared to other universities.</p>