<p>I was a BS in Computer Engineering. I worked for 4 years. I’m now going back to school to get my MS this Fall from Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>If she’s considering such a wide array of Engineering majors, she really needs to figure out what she likes. When I was heading to school my choices were between Computer Science, Computer Science & Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering (4 very closely related majors), and I had a tough time picking. Fortunately, I picked the right one in hindsight.</p>
<p>Job prospects for engineers in general are really good (even consulting), so I think what matters more is that she picks something she likes and is good at. That will give her the best career opportunities.</p>
<p>If you want a real answer to your question – I would say that Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering are all going to SKYROCKET in the next few years. If she has any aptitude/ability in Biology, she should definitely consider Biomedical Engineering. Since she hasn’t done any programming at all, I would suggest staying away from Computer Science and possibly Computer Engineering as well. You’ll find that most people in these majors have been coding for a long time (I have been since I was 7 years old).</p>
<p>Mech E is really really boring to me. But it might not be for her. Has she played around in AutoCAD or ProE much?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Industrial E, but I did have a roommate who was working as a Industrial E. He seemed to like it, but his description of it sounded awful to me. His job is to try to increase the output and quality of a production facility. YUCK. But hey, maybe she likes that sort of thing.</p>
<p>I would not necessarily focus on going to an “Ivy”. The best schools in the US for Engineering are not the Ivy schools (although most Ivys are top 10 / top 20). What I’ve heard about Ivy schools is that they definitely get you a lot of business connections. So if that’s something she might be interested in, that might be a good thing. As an aside, I turned down Cornell for Carnegie Mellon for grad school.</p>
<p>Some schools definitely look favorably upon recruiting women. Carnegie Mellon is actually a good example, because they have so few women there. However, if she’s going to be an Engineering major, it probably won’t matter where she goes since there are almost NO female engineers anywhere (therefore, she has good chances anywhere I would think).</p>
<p>Econ/finance: it’s up to her. Your degree is more what you make of it than what’s written on the piece of paper. I have plenty of Asian friends who were forced into Engineering by their parents and now they are unemployed and have no idea what they want to do with their lives. Or worse, they ARE employed and hate it.</p>
<p>Conclusion:
She needs to try stuff. Let her try to play around in AutoCAD/ProE. Let her try to write some code. Continue exploring all these interests her first year or two in college. She’ll figure it out. Changing majors is easy.</p>