<p>Hi. I am currently in high school and I am having problems figuring out exactly what to major in and what to study. I want to develop, design, implement, and construct new technologies that would be more energy efficient, cost efficient, and more environmentally friendly. I am also interested in working with alternative energy technologies. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thank you.</p>
<p>In most types of engineering, low operating cost (including low energy or fuel consumption or waste) is often a design criterion. Various types of energy generation, delivery, and storage also require engineering.</p>
<p>I want to do the exact same thing so I’m going for mechanical engineering</p>
<p>Don’t worry about making up your mind now, you’ll likely change it. Focus on going to a large school that has a lot of different engineering degrees to choose from, and where you are able to change your mind within your first year or so. The first year of every engineering degree is identical. Calculus, Freshman writing, physics, and possibly an intro to engineering sequence.</p>
<p>Not all schools have identical freshman curricula for all engineering, or easy engineering major changing. If you are still undecided on which type of engineering to do, check each school for how similar the freshman curricula are, and how easy it is to declare or change engineering majors.</p>
<p>alumnus, could you give an example or two of dissimilar first-year programs? I thought they were all the same. I can see how the first-year can be different if the student in question has enough AP credit under their belt to skip calc, writing, etc. But I thought all basic curricula, assuming no college credit, were identical.</p>
<p>You can look here:
<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/COE_Announcement_2012-2013.pdf[/url]”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/COE_Announcement_2012-2013.pdf</a></p>
<p>While the degree programs have the same math and physics courses in the first year, there are some differences. For example, electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) majors take different CS courses meant for CS majors, while other engineering majors take a computing for engineers course (MATLAB-based).</p>