<p>So, the more I research it, the more I find myself interested in an Engineering major. However, with this interest has come a few questions, so I'm hoping someone can clear these up for me...</p>
<p>First of all, how easy is it to switch from one field of engineering to another? I'm under the impression that some switches may be easier than others. For example, could I major in Mechanical Engineering and get a job in Environmental Engineering, or go to graduate school in Environmental Engineering (or vice versa)?</p>
<p>My other question is whether or not engineers tend to be able to do the jobs non-engineers can preform. For example, would Geotechnical Engineering majors be able to do essentially any job a Geology major could do? Would Environmental Engineering majors be able to do any job an Environmental Science major can do? I'm sure there are exceptions, but I'm wondering if this is the norm.</p>
<p>Thanks! I may post more questions if I think of them because I'm kind of new to this.</p>
<p>For your first question, assuming you are referring to changing major when going to graduate school, it depends on how closely related the majors are, and whether you took electives as an undergraduate that could prepare you for graduate study in the different major.</p>
<p>For example, mechanical and aerospace are closely related, as are civil and environmental (some colleges treat aerospace as a specialty of mechanical and/or environmental as a specialty of civil). But mechanical and electrical are less closely related, unless your graduate focus is the specialty of robotics and mechatronics.</p>
In both cases it depends on the specific spot and your specific education and experience. Pick any two engineering majors and they have some degree of overlap - if you have some experience and training in that area of overlap, you can work in that specialty regardless of the title on your diploma. If not, you are out of luck. It is unlikely that any given engineer will have the breadth to work in more than one discipline outside their own, and you will likely never have the full breadth of another field open to you - without having a mechanical engineering degree you will simply not be realistically able to compete for all mechanical engineering jobs, the best you can do is pick out a few that happen to require the knowledge you incidentally have.</p>
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Again, there is some overlap between fields, but it is not total and it depends on the discipline - many jobs will simply not have a use for your engineering skills, others will find them useful. Ultimately, you will never have that much breadth, you are going to have to gamble on a specialty.</p>