What should I do?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I will be starting college in the fall at SUNY University at Buffalo. I am trying to decide what to major in and currently my top choices are Electrical or Computer Engineering.</p>

<p>Here are some facts about me:
- I am really good at math, especially Trig and Calc, had an 800 SAT Math (720 CR and 760 W)
- I love physics, especially electromagnetism
- I like circuits and how they work, have designed some [extremely basic] ones as projects
- I like chemistry as well, not as much as physics though
- I don't find biology interesting, though I did get a 100% on the Biology Regents
Exam
- I find IT and Programming to be boring
- I like history and politics
- I hate English, literature, music, arts (no offense... just being frank and honest :) )
- I don't want a job where I'll stare at a screen all day. I know this is starting to infiltrate many jobs though
- I don't want to have to move to California for a job; I live in the East and so does my extended family
- Salary is an important factor for me, not the most important but important</p>

<p>Some people in the engineering field have given me advice to become a doctor instead of an engineer. They've told me that ultimately, whatever field you enter, work is work: you collect your paycheck and go home. Might as well make $300,000 rather than $60,000, right?</p>

<p>I don't want to major in anything other than engineering, partially because some of my scholarships are only for students majoring engineering (if I switched it would decrease from full-ride to 60% ride). Would applying a pre-med track onto a Computer Engineering major cause my GPA to decrease?</p>

<p>I was accepted to some semi-"prestigious" schools but chose not to attend because of financial reasons. I applied to 1 elite engineering school (Cornell) but was rejected. I will apply to transfer after freshmen and/or sophomore year, to Cornell and possibly other schools.</p>

<p>My father is a Computer Engineering PhD and works as a Professor. I don't want to sound like the type of person who follows exactly what their dad does, but I like his job. His pay is good ($85k right now, but we live in a low cost of living area, and it increases every year), hours are nice, and he gets to travel a lot for conferences. </p>

<p>Many PhDs are being forced to take post-docs or adjunct positions rather than tenure-track Professor positions. I was visiting Case Western Reserve University where I was accepted and was shocked that some Stanford PhDs had taken adjunct positions as well! So maybe a PhD is not a great idea???</p>

<p>Getting a BS in engineering then entering the workforce is an option, but the pay isn't that great compared to doctors or professors, and most of the jobs are in California thousands of miles from the rest of my family :( Also, there isn't much job security from what I've heard, and working in a cramped cubicle is not very nice. Still, working for a company like Apple would be awesome, though I'd imagine MIT/Cornell/Berkeley grads would get that job over UB grads.</p>

<p>So, I'm basically looking at a few options right now:
1) Get a BS in engineering and enter the workforce
2) Get a BS then PhD in engineering and (try to) become a professor
3) Screw all of the above and become a doctor
4) Any ideas guys?</p>

<p>Currently, this is what my plan is: attend UB, work my butt off, try to transfer to a top-10 engineering school, then go for grad school if I get into a top grad school. If not, enter the workforce.</p>

<p>Based on personal experience or experiences of people you know, what do you think I should do?</p>

2

<p>Most MDs do not have a net take home pay of $300k. The average salary of a physician in the US is about half that, and the take home pay is often much less after you consider the cost of office overhead expenses, insurance, increased loans for the extra years of school, etc. One popular viral video calculated a net take home pay of under $28/hr (you can find it with a Google search). That’s probably an underestimate, but closer to the actual rate than $300k. </p>

<p>I think becoming a doctor, engineer, or anything else should be about more than just salary. If you focus on salary, you may enter a career that makes you miserable and your work & grades may suffer because of the lack of interest and/or talent.</p>

<p>If I read your post correctly, you haven’t started college yet. I’d suggest taking classes in several areas while a freshman and seeing what you enjoy and what you think you’d like to be doing for work. You don’t need to declare a major, decide on graduate degrees, and decide on your career while still in high school. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, when I was in college I also was considering both engineering and medicine. I completed both tracks as an undergrad. They overlapped more than you might think, and the pre-med classes did not add that much to engineering degree requirements. Furthermore, I’ve read that having an engineering degree looks more favorable to med school admissions than majoring in something extremely common, like biology.</p>

3

<p>Well, it’s hard to figure out what would make someone else happy. But I could definitely see you with an EE PhD teaching physical electronics, etc. CompE doesn’t really seem like a great fit for you–you may find yourself spending more time than you’d like thinking about software and HDLs. I’m a CompE because I <em>like</em> that stuff.</p>

4

<p>Of those getting PhDs in EE, are they generally finding jobs or are they working postdocs or adjunct positions?</p>

<p>I know it’s really really early to be thinking about a PhD considering I’m graduating high school, but I want to have a plan as to what I’m going to do.</p>

5

<p>Depends on the specialty…</p>

6

<p>Every engineering field involves programming nowadays.</p>

<p>If I apply the premed track to my engineering major, I’ll have to take: Organic Chem I & II, Biology I & II, and (I think) Psychology and/or Sociology. I have AP credit for Chem I and II, Statistics, and Calc I & II. Physics I and II will be part of my major.</p>

<p>Based on your college experiences, is it possible to add those onto an engineering workload, and still have a high GPA? I’m not considering pre-med right now but if I change my mind I’d like to know if that’s an option.</p>

7

<p>

English requirements are more common for pre-med than psychology/sociology, and posts on the forums of this site advise against using AP credit for pre-med core class requirements, such as intro chem classes.</p>

<p>In any case, adding these classes to an engineering major doesn’t need to affect courseload a great deal, if you substitute them for electives. How these classes impact your GPA depends on how good you are at those subjects, and whether you’d do better in electives than you would in pre-med classes. For example, I found chemistry to be very intuitive. On some tests, I scored 2+ SDs above the mean without a great deal of effort. However, I found the rote memorization of biology to be non-intuitive and had little interests in some areas of biology, such as plants, so I didn’t do as well. Chem pulled up my GPA, and biology pulled it down. In contrast, the majority of pre-med students I knew struggled more with chem than biology. My overall GPA in pre-med classes was about the same as my overall GPA in non- pre-med classes.</p>