Undecided between engineering branches

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

I’m undecided between these engineering branches:

-Civil engineering
-Electronic engineering
-Aerospace engineering
-Mechanical engineering

What should I do to make my decision? Is there any good website/online class/etc… that can help me make my choice?
Also, at least at a certain time in my life, I’d like to start my own company. Which of the fields is the one that would open more opportunities to me for entrepreneurship?

2

Characteristics of universities that may help you in your situation:

  1. **Not** difficult to change to a different engineering major. (Some universities are enrolled to full capacity in many or all engineering majors, so it may require a very high GPA or competitive admission process to change.)
  2. Offering engineering courses and seminars to first year students to help them decide which engineering major to choose.

Engineers design things. What kinds of things would you like to design?

  • Buildings, roads, bridges, water systems, etc. -- civil.
  • Power systems, electronics, communications, etc. -- electrical.
  • Aircraft and spacecraft -- aerospace (sometimes offered as a subarea of mechanical).
  • Vehicles, tools, aircraft, spacecraft, bicycles, shoes, appliances, prosthetics, any other mechanical object -- mechanical.
  • Chemicals and processes for manufacturing them -- chemical.
  • Materials -- materials.
  • Processes, systems, and logistics -- industrial.
  • Nuclear power and radiological devices for applications like medicine -- nuclear.
3

Here is one more way of looking at it:

If you feel OK being able to think about entities you cannot see (electricity, transistors), consider Electrical. Somewhat related to it, you need to be very good with Maths.

If you need to see it happen more to be comfortable thinking about it, Mechanical will be a good choice (though a decent level of Mathematical ability is needed for any engineering discipline - with possible exception of environmental engineering).

Aeronautical is a specialization of Mechanical – you need to be OK with the fact that possible employment is with only a few companies and in a few cities.

4

@ucbalumnus @osuprof @10s4life Thank you so much! You were all very helpful!!

5

I like structural engineering because it’s fun driving around town and seeing “my” buildings!

6

I like aerospace engineering because I like flying on a plane and knowing the physics explanation for all the weird stuff that occurs during a flight.

On the other hand, it’s extremely distracting when I am driving down the highway and pass a semi-truck and constantly visualized the vortex shedding behind it.

7

Ha, @boneh3ad! I have to watch where I’m going when I walk through a cool building and keep looking up at the roof framing! My mom and sister, non-engineers, just sigh and roll their eyes when my dad, husband, and I get distracted.

8

@MaineLonghorn I may not be a civil engineer, but I still do that fairly often. I feel like any engineering degree gives you at least some appreciation for all of that stuff, and the fact that my grandpa was formerly a carpenter and I did some construction projects with him as a teenager gives me an appreciation of all the work and thought that goes into it from that side of things as well. It just turned out that when I got to school, I was more (mathematically) fascinated by things that flow compared to things that stand stall and resist that flow.

9

@boneh3ad, I know what you mean.

It’s interesting how people are different. I like things that stand still! Dynamics about killed me, although I got a good grade in the class. It made my head swirl (oops, no pun intended).

10

I was a reliability/serviceability engineer for 20 years. Alas, I often worry about how thing are going to break…

11

I spent 15 years analyzing aircraft engines and various accident scenarios. It makes for interesting flying. I find I look for birds at take-off.

12

I avoid riding on traveling carnival rides, knowing how dangerous they are!

I also cringe when I hear “cement sidewalks.” It’s “concrete!” It would be like calling cake, “flour.”

13

“I avoid riding on traveling carnival rides, knowing how dangerous they are!”

copy, paste, send to kids

14

@STEM2017, good luck with that! The two things I said I would never let my kids do was jump on neighborhood trampolines and ride motorcycles. So guess what child #2 is going to do as soon as he gets to Beirut? Buy a motorcycle. My husband said, “I don’t think riding a motorcycle is as dangerous as going to Beirut…” and I replied, “Actually, I think it is more so.” Sigh. What do mothers know? And this is the kid with a bleeding disorder who would be in big trouble if he were injured and started bleeding. Sorry for the hijack. He’s just driving me nuts.

15

To be fair, you could make the same sort of cringe when you hear someone refer to the street as asphalt, which is like calling cake “egg”.