<p>I don't know what a major would be good for a job in developing new alternative energy, such as wind, solar, electric opposed to fossil fuels, etc. Which engineering major should I choose?</p>
<p>It truly depends on what kind of alternative energy you want to get into.</p>
<p>Agreed, but I would start with mechanical and chemical as being the two most likely routes. Materials science, aerospace engineering and electrical engineering would potentially have niche areas in alternative energy as well, though it would be fairly minor.</p>
<p>Of course, I could also state the obvious… NUCLEAR ENGINEERING!</p>
<p>If you would like to get into alternative fuel sources such as ethanol and other replacements then your best bet is in ChemE. There is a lot of research being done using different organic materials and turning them into fuel while also trying not to deplete human food sources in the process.</p>
<p>ME and EE both play a role in developing new wind turbines, etc. </p>
<p>Most of the research done in battery technology for use in electric cars, etc., takes place in Materials Science/Engineering. </p>
<p>However, like most cutting edge research and development there is a great deal of interdependence among engineering disciplines. Also, if you really want to work on developing these new technologies youre almost certainly going to have to wait until grad school except for possibly some low-level research assistant stuff in undergrad.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is where you go to school. Find out who is doing a lot of research in your area of interest before you choose a school. Even at large research institutions there are usually only a few professors who are really making headway in these areas - and knowing what you want to get into ahead of time is key unless youre just interested in any of it, in which case you can probably find a professor or two at any university covering some aspect related to alternative energy.</p>
<p>What “kind” of alternative energy are there? I am just starting these admissions and just thought that alternative energy would be fun to get into so I really don’t know which majors are good for different kinds of alternative energy.</p>
<p>Even once you decide on the type of alternative energy, you’ll still have different engineers performing different tasks related to that energy. For example, if you decide to focus on electric cars, you’ll have chemical engineers designing the battery, electrical engineers designing the electrical systems, mechanical engineers designing the engine, etc.</p>
<p>So for things like increasing efficiency for solar panels, higher density batteries, etc. chemical engineering would be ideal?</p>
<p>I’m planning on applying to University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and the list for majors include Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Is that a good major to start off in? </p>
<p>Also on the list is Engineering Mechanics and Mechanical Engineering; what’s the difference? The list is here [U</a> of I Admissions: Programs by Interest](<a href=“http://admissions.illinois.edu/academics/majors_interest.html]U”>Academics, Undergraduate Admissions, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)</p>
<p>Engineering Mechanics is a much more theoretical program than Mechanical Engineering. There will be less of a focus on design and more of a focus on the… well… mechanics. I think something like 3/4 of the people in the EM program go onto grad school. It might even be more. It is what used to be called Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at UIUC.</p>
<p>Also, I might be completely off base on this, but I would think that increasing solar panel efficiency would be more of a Materials Science thing than ChemE, though the two fields are related so there could be some overlap.</p>
<p>I’d suggest Mechanical or Chemical. That way you have options in hybrids, thermal, biofuels, renewable fuels and nuclear. </p>
<p>Engineering Mechanics is usually a graduate specialty but focuses on stress/strain and continuum mechanics–think of is as a focus on the mechanic of materials courses.</p>
<p>I would say every field contributes something to energy since it’s one of the bases in all engineering. In ChemE, you could work on biofuels or make your process less likely to lose energy in the form of heat and increase efficiency. In materials science, you could find a way to synthesize energy efficient materials. I don’t know much about other majors.</p>
<p>See if you can learn about the alt. energy projects going on at the grad level at UIUC and find out what the grad students majored in.</p>
<p>"Of course, I could also state the obvious… NUCLEAR ENGINEERING! "</p>
<p>YEAH BABY!</p>
<p>Haha, yeah Oakland, people tend to overlook that since everyone is so hellbent on wind/water/solar/biofuels. People tend to forget nuclear. I almost went into Nuclear Engineering so that I could then specialize in plasma engineering and go try and solve fusion.</p>
<p>Thanks for all your replies. After reading over the description for materials science and engineering, it seems like that’s something I’d be interested in, but is it hard to get accepted in UIUC for engineering? Is it really competitive?</p>
<p>Yes it is, but not terribly so.</p>
<p>political science… lol its true!</p>
<p>^ ??? ^</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>haha, this was funny to me. Crazy politicians.</p>
<p>And as to the question about UIUC, it is tough to get in, but not impossible. The admission rate is fairly high, but that is partially due to the fact that the applicant pool is self-selective (call the cliche police) and partially because in a large state school like UIUC, it is more impressive to graduate from their engineering program to get in, as there is a fairly high attrition rate.</p>
<p>The materials science department at UIUC is second to none. It generally trades off and on for #1 with MIT, so you can’t go wrong (academically) by going there. The big caution about UIUC is that you have to try and make sure you keep yourself from getting caught up in the party scene to the point where you start letting your grades slide. That is the cause of probably half of all the people who don’t make it to the end of engineering.</p>
<p>Where are alternative energy jobs usually located?</p>
<p>Um… all over? Where are research universities located? Where are the oil and gas companies located? Where are high tech jobs located? There are companies that work on alternative energy everywhere. The problem is, you aren’t very specific. Let’s narrow it down to wind power. Working in alternative energy would mean you either develop new types of turbines, which means you probably will be working in academia or at GE or Honeywell or a similar company (or perhaps a smaller startup). Those jobs are all over the place. Let’s say you wanted to work on biofuels. You would work for either academia or one of a bunch of small companies around the country that each cater to the type of biofuels available in their geographic area. Nuclear power is everywhere and gets researched in many different universities and companies.</p>
<p>Solar power is about the only one that would be easy to pin down where it would be located… sunny places. Other than that, you could work towards making fusion practical, which means you would be getting a graduate degree most likely at one of only a handful of universities that have major fusion research programs, which are, again, located in a variety of places.</p>