Mastering Engineering?

Bigg gives excellent advice.

Especially about losing AP and establishing an identity.

And knowing your strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. Also knowing how dedicated you are.

Depending on the type of engineering job you want to get, a physics degree may not give you the best chance right out of school.

And the type of engineering job you want to get may not even be available when you get your degree.

So, if you want a job, be flexible, and employable.

I think the major distinction will be either a mechanical, or electrical engineering path, if you want to be a practical engineer.

The Short Version:

A Physics Degree will get to a piece of paper...

A General or specific Engineering Degree will get a Job & Career if applied properly.

Regards,
Sapper

I went into an engineering career with a BS in Physics. I would not do that today.

Physics in my time had both theoretical and applied branches. I attended a school with a heavy emphasis on applied; I don't know of any such schools now, though I'm sure some exist.

Fifty years ago, there were lots of engineering jobs in manufacturing, where a Physics background was useful and a PE was not important. That was what I wanted to do, so I fit in. Most of those jobs are gone.

I had a hard time explaining to potential employers why I had a degree in one field and a career interest in another. That was easier when there were quite a few already employed people with similar stories.

I second the advice to take a straightforward mechanical or electrical engineering degree, followed by a one year program in renewable energy, if you can find that. In other words, if you want a good meal, always go to a restaurant, not a gas station.

Hello, I posted 3 months ago on this forum because I was interested in renewable energy and didn't know what path to take. I finally took the mechanical engineering route and now I am doing my engineeing foundation year. However my interest is not in mechanical engineering, and from what I have read you said thay why get a degree and pursue a career in another.. Could you please enlighten me on this? Thanks TVP45

I did that out of necessity. I went to school before most of the financial aid available now, so I worked my way through. That meant commuting to school, and finding a job that allowed enough flexibility. The closest engineering program was about 100 km away, and the closest one with evening classes was 150 km. I found a job at a pretty good college, where they allowed me to attend several classes a semester, and where they had a good applied Physics program. That program allied itself with a major university to offer a shared type of degree - a Masters in Engineering in my case - and eventually morphed into a regular Engineering department with a much smaller Physics program.

Although I received an excellent education, people took me for "neither fish nor fowl", for I lacked the quantum mechanics part of Physics and, likewise, machine design and engineering economics from the Engineering side. I was able to learn enough of those on my own, but I was often considered underqualified in both fields.

If I had it to do all over, I would have chose Chemistry, which was available to me and which I also liked quite a bit. Chemistry was just getting into serious instrumentation, and I would have enjoyed that.

"physics to master the "language and fundamentals" of engineering."

That depends on your thought process. I did the reverse, because I needed to understand the fundamentals as you call it, and wish I had done just what you are asking about. After losing an engineering job in an economic downturn, I went back for a one year cram session with an over load of credit courses each semester of only physics and advanced math courses, and suddenly the light dawned on me as to why things functioned as they did. Semi-conductor theory was now very clear in my mind. My personal experience is that physics develops the basis for engineering and engineering uses that for an economic output.

A point to remember is, unfortunately, as life progresses we seldom get to where we thought we were going, especially in engineering, and the semi-conductor theory has never been used in my engineering jobs. However the good GPA in physics opened doors for me into other engineering jobs.

Conversely I know many engineers that were quite successful accepting the equations as presented in engineering courses, without the in depth analysis of why they are as they are, and applying them. It depends on your personal thought process.

This is a very valuable question.In UK for engineering studies they require Maths & Physics only in Year 12 exam(GCE) but in some third world they ask for Chemistry too. We sat for British engineering institution's exam without chemistry and passed. One professor has told he didn't get admission to engineering faculty in that third world country because he didn't get good grade in chemistry at the year 12 exam. So he went to UK,did a degree,masters & even Ph.D in civil engineering returned to his home country and became a Professor & Vice Chancellor of a university.It proves why some countries are classified as third(class) world.

Friend,

You can't underestimate the need for a good background in your education. I took mechanical drawing one semester in high school and found it crucial to my work about 12 years later.

A true but somewhat apocryphal story when I was in graduate school in Indiana was of the math major who decided to take an upper-division EE course. All his classmates laughed because he had no clue about what a capacitor or inductor was. However, after he aced the first two exams while all the rest barely passed (or worse), the laughter stopped. At the end of the semester the EE faculty got together and significantly increased the math prerequisites for their students!

--John M.

Sorry about the run on paragraph, tablet doesn't work well on the site. Bigg and some others nailed it. Physics will lead you down the path to a PhD and research. Or take teaching credential major as well. I'll assume you're in the US. Hopefully California. If not, move there and establish residence. Then you can go to a cal state, specifically Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. This is where I received my BS ME. Plenty of other schools will serve you well, but my experience/knowledge at poly: General: it's been named the "the best in the west" for ~15 straight years for public schools that don't offer a PhD, and mostly BS. College of engineering has been #1 or close to it as a whole most of those years. Arch and civil were #1 in the country last year. ME has been at the top or very close for years. Worried about the no PhD? Poly was 7th last year in the west out of all schools. So that's a lot boasting. Here is why. It's the king of colleges for producing engineers ready for the workforce. The motto is "learn by doing" and nearly every engineering course has a lab attached. Major is required on the application, you don't sit back and take GE classes for 2 years and then start the real stuff. Examples: first quarter ME are required to take intro to ME, 3 hours a week of class and a 3 hour lab; design courses follow the same, some are 2 3 hour lab periods. Capstone thermal design: in the lab we designed a solar heating system that grabbed energy during the day and stored it under the house in a giant sand pit. Nearly every class up to that point was used during the design. Also had design and build labs. Fluids lab included a small hydro turbine and measuring efficiency among other things. Can't get more real world than that. My group in the capstone design class designed a wafer handling system for a semiconductor process used by a major company in silicon valley. Our design was nearly identical to what the engineers at the company came up with. For background courses: 3 in higher math, 2 in applied engineering math, 3 physics with associated land, same for chemistry, 3 EE classes with labs, a motors class with lab, there were also plenty of ME tech electives that dealt with energy conversion if you didn't want to go down one of the planned concentrations for ME. General engineering was much the same. In an alumni so of course I'll the pitch the school. But I had 3 paid internships through the school, and was hired a month after graduation on the spot after about 3 interviews. (Good and bad, not sure when you'll get a job so it puts in a bad spot negotiation wise, but it the company was a giant machine tool manufacturer, not a bad first job!) So I'd recommend any school that fits somewhat with what I described. Learn by doing, and plenty of theory to back things up. This is all if you don't want to go the research route.

Confusion is not uncommon these days, and it wasn't in the past either. I had a difficult time deciding what area of engineering to take as well, way back in the 70's. All I know is that I wanted to be an engineer. My ultimate decision took me to the discipline which offered courses from several fields, in my case agricultural which, at the time had courses in mechanical, civil, chemical and more areas. Unfortunately, this is no longer offered where I attended.

I kind of think that this may not be readily available these days as there is so much specialization offered as universities focus on producing "employable" students. The problem, I believe, is that too much focus on one area/field reduces the students odds of finding employment as the field may be overcrowded with applicants.

You need to assess what you want out of your career and where you want to go. As mentioned by others, R&D or practical. Working for a large corporation seems to be the focus for a lot of people, but do not rule out the smaller companies who may not be looking for a very specific field, but just a good general background.

I am not at all disappointed with my choice, it has taken me into several different industrial/manufacturing sectors where I have been able to use all my training in all the fields and, with a little hard work, into areas I had no formal training in, but was willing to learn.

I don't know how much time you have, but take a hard look at the real world, after all, you are deciding about the rest of your life. You need to be able to get your "foot in the door" somewhere after your "initial" formal education is over.

Remember that your education/learning should never stop. Even after my many years, there is always something new to be learned each and every day.

There are a lot of good comments here. I would add that an engineering degree qualifies you for a wide variety of career paths.... engineering, manufacturing, R&D, sales, marketing, management, etc... A physics degree is a bit more specialized. In either case, choose your electives carefully. Don't just look for the easy A. If you major in physics, take some entry-level engineering courses. If you major in engineering, take some extra physics courses. Getting a B or C in a "real" course is far more valuable than an A in basket-weaving. Your college major and grades play a key role in getting your first job. But once you begin working, your future depends more on your performance, ambition & interests than your college major. But you must never stop learning. I have been out of college for 40 years. My biggest challenge during the past 20+ years has been staying current. Once you are classified as a dinosaur, your career is finished.

To your first paragraph: I'm sure energy will still be high in the mix, but I suspect it will have to move toward nuclear instead of renewable. Renewable will have capacity problems--there's not enough available space to build the capacity that will be needed. Nuclear can do that, especially fast nuclear otherwise known as Generation IV. Now if we could just get the general public to be less afraid of it.

Lehman57

Your assessment about available space for renewable is not well-supported by the data. I disagree with your thoughts about nuclear being for the future, but there are many who would agree with you. A significant problem with renewables (such as solar, wind) is matching generation output to demand. When people want "demand" power, the utility needs to be able to supply it right then. As long as our electrical grids are interconnected via AC there will be a significant problem with maintaining frequency with constantly changing loads. Thus spinning reserve, etc.

Natural gas has the ability to store very significant amounts of reserve as pressure in the transmission and distribution mains.

Some utilities have used pumped storage to provide peak via hydro, and store excess capacity at non-peak times. Given time, I anticipate the problems of matching power output from solar and wind to demand will be reduced to a level where we no longer notice it.

--John M

Renewable... maybe. Nuclear... maybe. It's hard to foresee breakthrough technologies, but I suspect there will be a few. Cold fusion has been 20 years away for the past 50 years, but a breakthrough may actually be on the horizon in the next 20 years... we'll see. A good background in physics/engineering will be needed to move forward with whatever the future holds.