I am very math and science oriented so I figured the best field to combine my intellect with was engineering. I was accepted into many different engineering schools, but now I do not know what to major in. I am not a hands on person. I consider myself more of a thinker than anything else. I don’t really like the idea of sitting there and building things or making them better. I do like the idea of a suit and tie kind of job. I am also interested in medical fields such as radiology and figuring out what is wrong. What engineering major would grant me a hands off and a suit/tie type of career?
Most engineering fields are a lot less “hands on” than you seem to think they are. Most modern engineering is performed on a computer, and how much time you spend turning a screwdriver can vary pretty wildly from one job to the next, but tends to be skewed pretty heavily toward “not a lot”.
So any recommendations for a good major?
Industrial or Systems Engineering. Chemical Engineering
Have you though about Biological, Biomedical, Chemical,or Mechanical Engineering? You would do most of the work on the computer but also get to test your products as they come to life. Biomedical or Biological would combine both of your interests. Mechanical Engineering or Chemical Engineering would be very broad and you can pursue differing things including Biomedical or Biological Engieering and working in the medial field If you studied one of those disciplines. Engineering is a while collar job so you would most likely be wearing a tie. You have to like math and physics but do you like Biology or Chemsitry?
If you are just starting university in September, then you still have time to sort things out. You will get to take a variety of courses your first year or two which will give you a chance to compare a few different types of engineering.
I work at a tech company with a lot of people who have a degree that says engineering but are either at a computer or in suit/tie meetings all day, every day. They have a variety of jobs like product manager, software engineer, system architect… Even some of the people in our legal department have engineering degrees that they got before getting their law degree because they wanted to work on patent/intellectual property law.
Since getting my own engineering degree, I’ve been of the school of thought that an engineering degree basically teaches you how to solve problems really well. Whether its structural problems, environmental problems, airplane problems, signal problems or code problems is the specific engineering major; but the years of math, physics, and core engineering they make you go through teaches you how to look at a situation and think critically to find a way to resolve it. So you can be an engineer who sits there and thinks about how to solve problems, then tells other people to go implement it. The degree will give you the skills to know how to do it