What field of engineering should I go into?

Question

I am currently a junior in highschool. I plan to attend Lehigh University to get a degree in engineering, but which discipline, I do not know yet. I have particular interests in Mining Engineering and Aeronautical Engineering, neither of which are specific undergraduate options for that University. I have some interests in Mechanical and Chemical Engineering, which the University does offer. Would it be advisable to pursue an undergraduate in either of the two disciplines that the University offers and then pursue a Masters elsewhere to attain a focus on the two disciplines i mentioned earlier? Or would i be better off just getting a bachelors/masters in Mechanical or Chemical?

This is completely off topic from the questiones i just asked, but to all of you engineers out there, do you like your job? why or why not?

Answer 1

I would guess to start off in mechanical and see how your first few classes go. The aero side depends on what you would be dealing with more - chemical would be more useful if you're especially interested in aerodynamics because you'll study some fluid dynamics, but everything else would probably be better with mechanical. Of course, nobody knows which of those two are better for you. Mechanical is a pretty broad field in general, though. You'll learn many of the tools that you need in any type of engineering, so it can be easy to branch/switch to something else later.



Why are you set on Lehigh? If you really want to pursue aero or mining, there are other schools who DO have undergrad programs in one or both of those.



And I love my job. You can replace managers/accountants/secretaries, but engineers can truly bring unique skills that you can't easily replace.

Answer 2

It is true that engineers have the highest pay directly out of college with a BS. Outside of engineering, accounting is probably the second highest. A lot of people who get engineering degrees though are just using it to basically show their abilities, with no intention of pursuing an actual engineering career. Since engineering is very intense in the analytical and quantitative areas, employers know that somebody with an engineering degree has pretty strong raw abilities in this area that could be refined to suit any number of applicationst. Another thing to keep in mind, accountants are pretty well paid, and in the long-term you would probably make more doing that than in an engineering job (engineering starts high, but doesn't have as much long-term growth as business jobs). That being said, every engineering curriculum is pretty intensive in both math and science. Typically you take Calc 1-3, Differential Equations, Physics I and II (mayber III, depending), and Chemistry. I am currently studying electrical engineering, and I would say that once you make it past the sciences, it's not that intensive on those concepts. You use a lot more math, laplace transforms to solve circuits, boolean algebra to build logic circuits. However, if labs are one of the aspects of science that bother you, engineering has plenty of labs. Whatever you choose good luck

Answer 3

It really is up to you. Mech is good, it's got more math than chem. But don't think that chem is totally math free. Engineering is about creating things. You'll be a little underpaid for your efforts, and the best engineers are the ones who are in it to invent and create.. so just pick whichever suits your interests the most.



Do your Bachelors degree first, then decide whether or not you want to (or even can) do your Masters. Engineering is a very powerful core, because it really trains your mathematical skills; I know dozens of people with a Bachelor's in Engineering going to all sorts of other fields, including business and finance. It shouldn't be tough to move from Mech to Aeronautical.. I myself moved from pure Electrical to Telecommunications/Signal Processing.



Personally, I went ivy league, had a much tougher time in class than many, but after all the pain, I got quite a good job. I'd say I enjoy my job, very flexible hours, excellent chances of promotion, and I'm more irreplacable than some people in management or sales.



It depends.. some people graduate, get cool jobs, big houses, have their own patents.. and some design those toy cars that break down after a while. Many companies see engineers as the people who "use up money" and sales as the people who "earn money", and your wages will be a little biased towards administration's love for you.

Answer 4

That's not really something that can be easily answered by any of us here, ultimatley it's up to you to decide. Although I know you need help, just think about it and put it into perspective. Or you can google search engineering followed by some interests and you might come up with a few idea's. And never mind google, go with Microsoft, Apple and then Google. Remember me when you become famous



Edit: Upon further inspection, I see what the poster above me said. I thought you told me to go create google. My bad