What Is Best For The Graduate Degree I Want To Get

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello all!
I would eventually like to get a doctorate in Astronautical Engineering, or something similar (basically I want to work with space stuff, mostly on engines, not air craft stuff [not that its bad, its just not what I want to do]). Right now I am thinking I should double major in mechanical engineering, and computer science (I do a lot of computer programming, had internships, done good in science fairs, etc. so why not :-) ). But I had a few questions:
0: I have herd that aerospace engineering is similar to mechanical engineering, is this true?
1: Is computer science to game development, as mechanical engineering is to aerospace?
2: What are the schools with the best major for what I want to do, AND are very strong in it (I dont care as much about the computer science major)?
3: Here is a list of what I am thinking about applying to right now (needs some narrowing down), does it seem good for what I want to do (note: M.I.T through U of Virginia are on my "shoot for the stars" list :-P)?:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Notre Dame
Boston Collage
Tufts University
Georgetown University?
Stone-hill
Kobe University
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
University of Virginia
Texas A&M University
University of Miami
Southern Methodist University
Colorado School of Mines
Florida Institute of Technology
Virginia Wesleyan College
University of Vermont
Assumption
Purdue University
UMass Amherst
Colorado State University
University of Connecticut
University of New Mexico
University of Nevada - Reno?
University of Hawaii</p>

<h1>Pennsylvania State University</h1>

<p>===================================================
4: Here is a list of colleges I am looking at, do any of these stand out?:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
University of Cambridge
Harvard University
University of Oxford
Yale University
University of Chicago
Princeton University
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Columbia University
University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)
ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Cornell University
Stanford University
Johns Hopkins University
University of Michigan
Duke University
University of California, Berkeley (UCB)
Northwestern University
Ecole Polytechnique F</p>

2

<p>You can go anywhere and get a PhD in engineering, as long as you have an engineering undergraduate degree. What’s much more important to graduate schools is what you do in undergrad, not where you went.</p>

<p>With that said, you want to go somewhere where you can get 1) research experience - but don’t necessarily rule out smaller universities and LACs with engineering programs, because their professors need to do research too, and sometimes you can get great experience there; 2) good relationships with professors who will write you recommendation letters; and 3) a wide variety of coursework that will prepare you for graduate school - so not just depth in one area of interest but breadth, as you’ll be expected to have a good basic foundation (and your research interests are likely to change between now and grad school). You also want to go somewhere with what I call the “peripheral resources” to support those endeavors. Serious researchers need good libraries, for example, and good study spaces and lab spaces. It would be nice if the career center had a focus on helping students get into graduate school (my undergrad’s did not but my graduate university does this for the undergrads).</p>

<p>Honestly it seems like any of the schools on your list will do that, but some will do it better than others. You have many places on your list that are top research universities. They will have opportunities for you to get research with professors, although the competition will be fierce at MIT.</p>

<p>Then you have places like Stonehill and Assumption that are going to have smaller class sizes and more personal attention. You’ll forge close relationships with professors and the atmosphere will actually be more like a small grad department than a huge undergraduate mill. I will say that even the big research universities do have smaller classes when you get into the upper division classes.</p>

<p>Almost all of the American institutions on your list will work for what you want to do - they are all well-known and well-reputed places.</p>