I’m currently enrolled in a community college in Nampa, ID. I’m acing all my classes, and so far have a 4.0 GPA, and want to transfer to a 4-year institution in the near future. At the moment, I think I will transfer to the Northwest Nazarene University, just because is 1 mile away from where I live and has a pretty good engineering program. It says in there website that, “Graduates from our program have a nearly 100 percent acceptance rate when applying to graduate schools such as Purdue, Georgia Tech, Colorado State, Washington State, and Indiana University.” Is that good? I mean I don’t know much about American institutions, but after doing some research I found that a good chunk of astronauts came out of Purdue University and Georgia Tech holds the 2nd highest ranking Aerospace Engineering program, so I’d assume they’ve got really good Engineering school… but what’s your input on that? Their statistics are insane as well, for example; from last academic year, out of 69 students enrolled in engineering programs only 13 graduated, that’s a over 80% dropout rate! They also only offer 4 Engineering Concentrations; Computer Engineering, Engineering Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. So which one should I go for if I want to be admitted into an Aerospace Engineering Program in Grad School?
Well I’ve never heard of Northwest Nazarene University, so I have no idea about its quality. It seems to have a general engineering program with various concentrations rather than a full engineering program and is ABET accredited. That means it will have far fewer technical electives available compared to the larger programs. I’d also be very concerned about that graduation rate. This program is so small that the sample size makes the statistics unreliable, but that’s a huge attrition rate.
Also, don’t worry about grad school rankings yet. Focus on getting your BS and worry about grad school in junior year if you are still interested.
Mechanical engineering is the closest field to aerospace engineering.
If your school offers AE as a major, I’d suggest you to take it- mechanical engineering if pretty similar to AE, but some classes are specific to AE. These classes would definitely help your understanding in AE. However, if you don’t have an AE program available, mechanical is your best bet.
Mechanical is the closest match to go into aerospace engineering grad school, but you can definitely work in the aerospace engineering field with a background in electrical or physics. I would not recommend computer, just because there is relatively little dedicated computer work in aero.
I am extremely skeptical of Northwest Nazarene. I’ve never heard of them, but their claims about their graduates seem highly dubious, and their dropout statistics absurdly high. I would personally not choose a university program that saw 80% leave without a degree.