Hi DoctorZ, I'd like to chime in based on my experience in a related field (mechanical engineering). You don't mention where you are in school; I'm assuming you haven't started your bachelor's yet.
You don't have to stay in the same school for your whole college career. I did my bachelor's at a school that concentrated on undergraduate education, and it was wonderful. At a school that concentrates on research, you might have trouble getting attention from the professors as an undergrad. If possible, tour prospective schools and try to talk to professors or instructors who aren't part of the tour. See if they'll even give you the time of day. When looking at graduate schools, you're more likely to be talking to specific professors at different departments who do research in the specific area you're interested in.
At the school where I did my undergrad, there was no aerospace engineering (AE) major, only a minor within the mechanical engineering (ME) department. Don't be afraid of getting an ME bachelor's degree instead of AE; the fields are closely related. At the school where I got my Master's and Ph.D., I took as many AE classes as I did ME, and in my ME classes there were always lots of AE majors.
I would recommend taking a few years off from school after the BS to work as an engineer. Don't go straight through to the Ph.D. without experiencing anything but academia. Working for a few years gets you:
- paychecks -- you can pay down some student loans and/or build up some savings
- experience of how engineering actually works -- Muz mentioned that engineering schools often don't teach the practical side very well -- it's true! They also don't teach the business of engineering.
- maturity/life experience -- helps keep you from getting run over by your advisor
And, of course, you might discover you don't want to do grad school. I worked for five years before going back to grad school, but I wouldn't recommend waiting that long. My fundamental knowledge had started to fade, even though I used my engineering knowledge regularly.
At all levels At the graduate level, concentrate on classes that teach the fundamentals at a high level;
be wary of don't take too many classes about specific technologies. You won't have very much freedom to pick classes at the undergrad level, though. Once you have the fundamental physics you can learn any specific field. Lots of math will be necessary. At the graduate level, don't neglect statistics, and a class on solution techniques for differential equations will be helpful. You'll need lots of fluid mechanics or solid mechanics classes, depending on whether you're interested in what's going on outside or inside an aerospace vehicle. If you're interested in the power plant, you should look at thermodynamics and chemical thermodynamics classes too. Take a few classes on numerical methods, but make sure they teach the mathematics of the methods and not just how to use a specific program. Take a class on technical communication.
Enjoy!
Edit: On second thought, I got a little over-excited in the last paragraph there. The undergrad engineering curriculum is
full. There's nothing wrong with just making it through the undergrad curriculum and taking whatever classes sound interesting for your electives.
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Topic: SO I'M CONSIDERING ENGINEERING (Read 2673 times)