<p>I have two questions; one is for my husband, the other for me, but both affect us both as we're planning to stick together through the transfer process (couldn't really afford to do otherwise since we need to pool our GI bills for living expenses). We need to stay at a Washington state school for tuition reasons barring a miracle whereby we somehow get scholarships. Of the state schools, UW and WSU-Pullman stand out, with WWU also appearing to be a good option.</p>
<p>The first question: My husband is interested in several fields but primarily in mechanical engineering or materials science/engineering. While the UW is ranked relatively highly among national research universities and has a good reputation overall, his dad, a Rice grad and mechanical engineer with experience hiring and supervising new grads, has a higher opinion of WSU's engineering program than UW's. Is its engineering program really significantly better, and if so how? Also, is the difference worth going to a school where the culture would not suit us and the non-science/engineering disciplines are not particularly highly regarded?</p>
<p>Second question: Assuming we do go to the UW, I don't know exactly what to major in. I'm most interested in computer and mathematical modeling of physical systems, though I am also fascinated by theoretical physics and math in general. I'm not sure whether I will go to grad school but would like to keep the option open. The majors that have caught my eye are applied math, computer science or engineering, physics, pure math, earth and space science, and physical oceanography. </p>
<p>I will have two years of community college credits, including all math up to DiffEq and Linear algebra and a full year of chemistry and physics, and about 45-55 (quarter system) AP credits, so I will have no general education requirements and virtually no lower-level requirements outside my major(s). I could finish any combination of two of the six majors I listed in the three years it will take my husband to graduate; I might be able to do a third, depending on the combination, but it would likely require large course loads and cause scheduling conflicts, so I think two is probably the practical maximum. Which two would you suggest?</p>