Aerospace Engineering as a college major

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randomguy
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by randomguy »

FireProof wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:12 pm I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but it does seem to have at least some versatility. A friend of mine has loved planes since he was a kid and studied aerospace engineering. Unfortunately, he wasn't really able to work in the field due to being a non-US citizen. However, he was able to get an engineering job at Tesla, no planes or space ships involved!
Of course. Every car maker has been hiring aerospace engineers for 50+ years to work on the aerodynamics of their cars. A body moving through a fluid is a body moving through a fluid. Driving a rover on mars isn't that different than driving car around LA:). The kid needs to think about what type of engineer they enjoy (rather study the flow of fluids through pipes or if a bridge will break when a truck goes over it) and then figure out what major matches that best.

As far as the value of being a pilot, I am sure a degree helps. But it is a vastly different career path. If your goal is to fly planes, figure out how to do that. A lot of engineers would much rather sit in front of the computer and figure out how to make that plane .01% more efficient...
lws
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by lws »

This was my strategy at State Uni:
First get a good background in general engineering fundamentals.
Research various engineering specialties while doing this.
Select a specialty.

Chose an EE specialty. Never got laid off in 35 years. Jobs were always available.
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quantAndHold
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by quantAndHold »

randomguy wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:09 pm
FireProof wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:12 pm I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but it does seem to have at least some versatility. A friend of mine has loved planes since he was a kid and studied aerospace engineering. Unfortunately, he wasn't really able to work in the field due to being a non-US citizen. However, he was able to get an engineering job at Tesla, no planes or space ships involved!
Of course. Every car maker has been hiring aerospace engineers for 50+ years to work on the aerodynamics of their cars. A body moving through a fluid is a body moving through a fluid. Driving a rover on mars isn't that different than driving car around LA:). The kid needs to think about what type of engineer they enjoy (rather study the flow of fluids through pipes or if a bridge will break when a truck goes over it) and then figure out what major matches that best.

As far as the value of being a pilot, I am sure a degree helps. But it is a vastly different career path. If your goal is to fly planes, figure out how to do that. A lot of engineers would much rather sit in front of the computer and figure out how to make that plane .01% more efficient...
In the 90’s in San Diego, it was pretty much a bloodbath for the aerospace industry. Multiple companies pulled out of San Diego and consolidated their operations elsewhere. The aerospace engineers who wanted to stay in town pivoted to designing golf clubs. Apparently metallurgy is metallurgy, whether it’s metal airplanes, or metal golf club heads. Calloway and Taylormade are still both here.

As far as flying, our next door neighbor in Seattle was a test pilot for Boeing. He had an engineering degree from the Air Force Academy, but all of his work experience was as a pilot. He had never worked as an engineer. His main qualification for the job was a bajillion hours flying big planes.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Parkinglotracer »

smalliebigs wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:27 pm
jayk238 wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 1:21 pm No body at lockheed martin is thinking boy id really like the guy from embry riddle because he can fly over the guy at MIT for a systems engineer.

Also im not talking about the broader aerospace industry as youve pivoted your argument to. OP wants to know whether engineering degree works for being an engineer. So aerospace engineering specifically.
This is correct. Careers are very specialized these days. We have design engineers that only do valvetrains, that only do pistons, etc. Combustion engineers that only do small diesel, only large gasoline, etc.

It is nigh impossible to be a flight guy AND an engineering guy.
Retiring after 22 years in the military at age 45, I worked at Lockheed Martin as a systems engineer and business development. When we went to visit the government team (customer) I was often included in the visit because I was an F-16 pilot not because I was a good engineer. Obviously this Would not be the same at all companies with different customers.

For sure, He would have more fun at work as a pilot. In fact he would do it for free.

Being an aero engineer may open up a lot of good pilot jobs like test pilot school. Of course we are way off the original question about the degree.

Peace.
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MrBobcat
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by MrBobcat »

Pizza_and_Beer wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 2:22 pm 20 years ago (wow, I'm old), I was in a similar position as your nephew. I was passionate about airplanes and wanted to be an aerospace engineer. However, I went the mechanical engineering route since a mentor of mine advised me to not be too specialized in case the job market in aerospace dried up. His reasoning was with a mechanical engineering degree, I can still break into the aerospace field while keeping my options open. It turned out that was exactly what happened. I graduated during a recession. It took me some time to get a job and when I did, it was with a medical device company. I'm glad I kept my options open and went with the ME degree.
That's pretty close to how my son went. Wanted to go into aerospace got talked into going more general (ME) and specialize later depending on jobs and interest. He doesn't regret the choice. He ended up getting his Masters in EE.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Sandtrap »

lasp506 wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:25 pm Nephew is thinking about majoring in AE. He has been accepted at some of the big 10 schools in the Midwest, and waiting on results from the more selective schools in Boston, Pasadena, Bay Area, and Atlanta.

I have reservations about AE as a college major, primarily because I believe opportunities are limited compared to, for example, electrical engineering or computer science. (This assumes, of course, he does not dislike EE or CS and he can be equally as good in either. I am certain he doesn't dislike EE or CS and he will be a better EE or CS major.)

I talked to him about it a while back but, at the time, he seemed set on AE.

I want to talk to him one last time and layout the pros and cons, just to make sure he has/had full information when deciding on AE.

Question:

1/ Other than his interest to study AE, what are the pros of studying AE?
2/ Other than limited employment opportunities, what are the cons of studying AE? (I also think pay is lower than CS.)
3/ Should I encourage him to minor in CS? Or something else?

Essentially, I don't want him to pigeonhole himself into the corner, so to speak.

I was a math major in college and I had to (frantically) make myself marketable by pivoting to something that is more applied. My decision to major math was entirely based on the fact that I found it challenging and I was good at it. I gave no consideration about employment opportunities. It worked out well in the end but it was a risky move. Looking back, I should have double majored in math and something else.

I submit that AE is a lot more applied than math, but it still has limited opportunities compared to other fields such as CS.

So what do you think?

(P.S. His parent have given me the green light to talk to him about anything, including or especially academics.)

====

Update: 1/ Please keep it coming. Already so many great comments. Thank you!! 2/ I texted him the link to this thread. He will read and make his own decisions.
Have a dream and pursue it with ruthless passion at any expense and risk, thus the greatest reward in life personally and professionally as a contribution to self and society.

Or, work within the artificial institutionalized construct that provides safety, security, and predictability?
(Poor metaphor Dislaimer)

There is nothing wrong or better or worse in either path.

Real life example: From a village in Venezuela to America to a hard and long path to earn a phD in Aeronautical Engineering and a Career at JPL, NASA, etc. which included groundbreaking work on the Mars Lander mission and many others.

Life is not a spreadsheet projection.

Choose from a place of passion and dreams.
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Last edited by Sandtrap on Sun Jan 23, 2022 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Normchad
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Normchad »

I recruit for computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering.

I go to Penn State recruiting fairs every year. I’m lucky if I find 2 of those people to interview and hire. There are very few at the fairs, because they already have their post graduation jobs lined up before they start their senior year. So really, I’m coming back with interns, so that I can hire them before they go back to school.

However, I am approached at these fairs by lots and lots of aerospace engineering students. So that says something. It’s anecdotal of course, there might be 10x that number of kids I don’t see because they have jobs as well. But it’s a 1000% easier to find *available* AE seniors than it is to find available CS/CE/EE seniors.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by niagara_guy »

if you have questions about Oshkosh AirVenture please PM me and I will try to help.
Valuethinker
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Valuethinker »

lasp506 wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:25 pm Nephew is thinking about majoring in AE. He has been accepted at some of the big 10 schools in the Midwest, and waiting on results from the more selective schools in Boston, Pasadena, Bay Area, and Atlanta.

I have reservations about AE as a college major, primarily because I believe opportunities are limited compared to, for example, electrical engineering or computer science. (This assumes, of course, he does not dislike EE or CS and he can be equally as good in either. I am certain he doesn't dislike EE or CS and he will be a better EE or CS major.)

I talked to him about it a while back but, at the time, he seemed set on AE.

I want to talk to him one last time and layout the pros and cons, just to make sure he has/had full information when deciding on AE.

Question:

1/ Other than his interest to study AE, what are the pros of studying AE?
2/ Other than limited employment opportunities, what are the cons of studying AE? (I also think pay is lower than CS.)
3/ Should I encourage him to minor in CS? Or something else?

Essentially, I don't want him to pigeonhole himself into the corner, so to speak.

I was a math major in college and I had to (frantically) make myself marketable by pivoting to something that is more applied. My decision to major math was entirely based on the fact that I found it challenging and I was good at it. I gave no consideration about employment opportunities. It worked out well in the end but it was a risky move. Looking back, I should have double majored in math and something else.

I submit that AE is a lot more applied than math, but it still has limited opportunities compared to other fields such as CS.

So what do you think?

(P.S. His parent have given me the green light to talk to him about anything, including or especially academics.)

====

Update: 1/ Please keep it coming. Already so many great comments. Thank you!! 2/ I texted him the link to this thread. He will read and make his own decisions.
Way back, I took courses with engineers in an advanced EE/ Computer Engineering stream. They were pretty amazing - competing with them would be very hard. You have to love the subject.

Another option they had open to them was Aerospace Engineering. Really until the 2nd half of 3rd year & 4th year, the core curriculum was pretty much the same (school was not a trimester system).

With a good school name behind you then I think one will get a job even if it is not in Aerospace.

Engineering is just a tough subject. You want the kid to love it in undergrad - because it is all about motivation to get through that course load.

So I would say do AE. Maybe get a minor (if possible) in Computer Science. But TBH any engineering degree worth its salt, now, should teach quite a bit of programming. There are principles of good algorithm design, discrete mathematics & software engineering practice which would be valuable and are taught in CS.

My friend who works for NASA (via a contractor) -- he actually did "Applied Math & Engineering" and then an MSc in Control Systems engineering. So came into aerospace via the back door (his work supports a key subsystem on the International Space Station).
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by AnEngineer »

Valuethinker wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:38 am Another option they had open to them was Aerospace Engineering. Really until the 2nd half of 3rd year & 4th year, the core curriculum was pretty much the same (school was not a trimester system).
If you mean the EE/CE and AE curricula are the same until second half of junior year, I'd be worried that you're actually getting into each major enough. Many schools may be almost identical freshman year, but start diverging after that. Some places accommodate some CC time more and don't really start doing that until start of junior year. If later, I don't see how there's time for the core sequence of courses, unless this is a five year BS.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Valuethinker »

AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 7:27 am
Valuethinker wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:38 am Another option they had open to them was Aerospace Engineering. Really until the 2nd half of 3rd year & 4th year, the core curriculum was pretty much the same (school was not a trimester system).
If you mean the EE/CE and AE curricula are the same until second half of junior year, I'd be worried that you're actually getting into each major enough. Many schools may be almost identical freshman year, but start diverging after that. Some places accommodate some CC time more and don't really start doing that until start of junior year. If later, I don't see how there's time for the core sequence of courses, unless this is a five year BS.
Engineering Science, as the degree was called, was separate from Civil/ Electrical/ Mechanical/ Geological/ Chemical/ Industrial engineering BSc. It had a much higher high school grade requirement (SATS were not mandatory, at least then). Big public Canadian school.

So that may be the reason. I believe they opted for their specialisation at the end of 2nd year (Eng Physics/ Computer Science & EE/ Aerospace/ Chemical might have been Biomedical as well) but it might have been at end of 1st. Then they still had some courses in the 3rd year w were in common. I recall (I was in CS, not engineering) that the Aerospace stream was really a quite small number of optional courses.

So your point is very well made and I am afraid my memory is not good enough to definitively answer -- although I rather suspect the core curriculum has changed little in the last (nearly 40!) years.

Everyone I knew in Civil Engineering wound up in computer software as a career. No one could find a job (early 80s recession).

(We used to laugh at the engineers because all they knew was Fortran 77. But except for those who were really gifted with C, none of the rest of us used any language that we had ever used in undergrad, when we got to the commercial world).
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Valuethinker »

randomguy wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:09 pm
FireProof wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:12 pm I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but it does seem to have at least some versatility. A friend of mine has loved planes since he was a kid and studied aerospace engineering. Unfortunately, he wasn't really able to work in the field due to being a non-US citizen. However, he was able to get an engineering job at Tesla, no planes or space ships involved!
Of course. Every car maker has been hiring aerospace engineers for 50+ years to work on the aerodynamics of their cars. A body moving through a fluid is a body moving through a fluid. Driving a rover on mars isn't that different than driving car around LA:). The kid needs to think about what type of engineer they enjoy (rather study the flow of fluids through pipes or if a bridge will break when a truck goes over it) and then figure out what major matches that best.

As far as the value of being a pilot, I am sure a degree helps. But it is a vastly different career path. If your goal is to fly planes, figure out how to do that. A lot of engineers would much rather sit in front of the computer and figure out how to make that plane .01% more efficient...
If one wants to be a pilot, my *guess* is that you either:

- attend a military academy & become a pilot (I believe that's what the best Annapolis grads seek to do). US Army presumably only helicopters. One constraint is that more and more of the "pilot" jobs in US Military will be flying UAVs (drones)-- better to risk a $30m drone on a mission than a $200m+ manned airplane. Lots of people who signed on to fly, wind up sitting in a trailer in the Nevada desert, flying drones. There are quite a few books and articles about this trend and the psychological effects on the pilots.

- take commercial lessons and become a pilot. As I understand it, it's all about the hours and the air frames, and the sooner you get those hours, the sooner you can enter into the profession

(One thing I had heard is that as the cockpit becomes more automated, the role of a pilot is deskilled. You are just a super well trained machine minder, if you fly commercial aviation & routes. That's happening in lots of professions and is something to be wary of).

I am not sure that an engineering degree makes much difference in becoming a pilot? Just loses you precious years off your flying career?

If car design then my *guess* is mechanical engineering is a better choice. Subject to the really radical change that is going on in cars right now, which makes them more a Systems Engineering/ Electronics problem ie the movement to EVs, which is global, and has become unstoppable.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by valleyrock »

Just adding two cents here:

It can be interesting to look at the background of the professors who are running a degree program.

On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go. However, I'd say specialization can be good if a person sees a clear career path from having done their homework on career paths. Homework means having done research online, talked to people in the job they're looking at, talked to managers at firms that look good, looked a job statistics, found a mentor or three who actually know about these things and aren't just speaking from opinion or because they want you in their program...
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by AnEngineer »

valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by shess »

AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:22 am
valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
Yeah, I wasn't following this point. If you had a computer-science program being run mostly by people with a mathematics background, I would not take that as evidence that mathematics was more desirable, I would see that as evidence that the computer-science people all got hired away by industry and the mathematics people weren't hired away, so you built the program out of what you had.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by FireHorse »

Both me and spouse were EE. The northeast region went through all kinds of layoffs back early 1990ish, including engineering related jobs - from office engineering to manufacturing engineering. I switched to business and did well, and spouse switched to computer programming didn't do well at all because that was the time the computer jobs were outsourcing to India. Our son followed our step and become an EE. The job market requires more ME than EE (the ratio is 90/10). He landed a fulltime job last year and now try to get himself involved in software engineering at work for his future career development. Most EE jobs are computer programming related.

Each individual here provide advice is basically based on their own experiences. My advice is that If anyone interested in engineering, base on the existing job market condition, ME or CE are a good choice.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by randomguy »

shess wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:09 am
AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:22 am
valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
Yeah, I wasn't following this point. If you had a computer-science program being run mostly by people with a mathematics background, I would not take that as evidence that mathematics was more desirable, I would see that as evidence that the computer-science people all got hired away by industry and the mathematics people weren't hired away, so you built the program out of what you had.
Well computer science degrees are pretty new. All the fundamental guys in the 60s and 70s had degrees in mathematics and physics because that was what was around in the 50s when they were in school.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by valleyrock »

My point is to beware of fads. Not that aerospace engineering is a fad. But faculty are sometimes quick to create new degrees if they'll bring in students. If there's insufficient oversight, new degrees might get created that fill classrooms but might not lead to the jobs students are expecting.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by getthatmarshmallow »

shess wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:09 am
AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:22 am
valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
Yeah, I wasn't following this point. If you had a computer-science program being run mostly by people with a mathematics background, I would not take that as evidence that mathematics was more desirable, I would see that as evidence that the computer-science people all got hired away by industry and the mathematics people weren't hired away, so you built the program out of what you had.
Also that in CS there's a pretty significant lag time between a major becoming 'a thing' and people having PhDs in that major. If one wanted to build a computer science department in the late 90s, one likely hired a lot of physics PhDs and math PhDs, because they knew computers, and one needs PhDs for an academic department. It's not that math is more desirable or that the computer science PhDs were all in industry, it's that there weren't (as many) PhDs then and the old dinosaurs still have tenure. That's going to be true of any newer or niche field -- it's not a good predictor of much.

In lots of place aero/ME are the same department, with lots of overlap, so it's not surprising that an aero program has a lot of MEs. IME aerospace engineers do just fine, but don't always wind up designing airplanes and they have nothing to do with flying them. Don't get tunnel vision based on the title of the major. -- the aerospace engineers might not work on an 'airplane' but the ones working for Tesla are using their education and hardly suffering. Weirdly, the people I know working for Boeing/Lockheed/NASA are a computer science major, a mechanical engineering major, and an industrial engineer.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by shess »

getthatmarshmallow wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:46 pm
shess wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:09 am
AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:22 am
valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
Yeah, I wasn't following this point. If you had a computer-science program being run mostly by people with a mathematics background, I would not take that as evidence that mathematics was more desirable, I would see that as evidence that the computer-science people all got hired away by industry and the mathematics people weren't hired away, so you built the program out of what you had.
Also that in CS there's a pretty significant lag time between a major becoming 'a thing' and people having PhDs in that major. If one wanted to build a computer science department in the late 90s, one likely hired a lot of physics PhDs and math PhDs, because they knew computers, and one needs PhDs for an academic department. It's not that math is more desirable or that the computer science PhDs were all in industry, it's that there weren't (as many) PhDs then and the old dinosaurs still have tenure. That's going to be true of any newer or niche field -- it's not a good predictor of much.

In lots of place aero/ME are the same department, with lots of overlap, so it's not surprising that an aero program has a lot of MEs. IME aerospace engineers do just fine, but don't always wind up designing airplanes and they have nothing to do with flying them. Don't get tunnel vision based on the title of the major. -- the aerospace engineers might not work on an 'airplane' but the ones working for Tesla are using their education and hardly suffering. Weirdly, the people I know working for Boeing/Lockheed/NASA are a computer science major, a mechanical engineering major, and an industrial engineer.
The CS program I started on in the late 80's had mostly math-background profs, for these reasons. But by the time I had graduated, there were a couple CS-background profs in the program, and at this point they've all retired. If someone were entering a CS program today, and the program was heavily skewed towards people with math or physics background, I don't think it would be because CS is so new that they simply hadn't trained enough people to teach it.

Of course, why I even introduced the CS/Math thing is because this is literally happening, industry is raiding academic departments (notably in AI). I don't know if that kind of thing happens in engineering, I just wanted to point out that having a department with a lot of profs from adjacent fields doesn't imply that those adjacent fields are more valuable, it could imply that those are just the profs that are left after someone hired away all of the in-major profs.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by willthrill81 »

The University of North Dakota has one of the best aerospace programs out there. Call them up and ask to speak to an advisor about careers that recent alumni have gone into.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by phxjcc »

I would caution the OP to understand that there will always be challengers to the Engineering curriculum and other STEM majors from Liberal Arts oriented administrators.

In 1971, at one of THE BEST engineering schools in California the administration was literally telling parents to have their kids get out of engineering and into a "broad based liberal arts degree" curriculum because of the massive cutbacks of NASA budget due to changing government administration priorities. I know...my parents sat through this presentation and were (literally, not metaphorically) told "engineers are driving cabs right now--is this what you want for your kids??!!!".

Yes, there was a massive shift, yes there were layoffs of 100,000 from NASA contractors...but within a few years there was Fairchild, then INTEL and Motorola and AMD and HP, then IBM and Microsoft and Apple and Sun, etc.

By the time I graduated, this advice proved to be incorrect so far as job and career opportunities...in the md-70's if you could spell COMPUTER you were golden.

The world needs engineers.

Q.E.D.
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Valuethinker »

getthatmarshmallow wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:46 pm
shess wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:09 am
AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:22 am
valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
Yeah, I wasn't following this point. If you had a computer-science program being run mostly by people with a mathematics background, I would not take that as evidence that mathematics was more desirable, I would see that as evidence that the computer-science people all got hired away by industry and the mathematics people weren't hired away, so you built the program out of what you had.
Also that in CS there's a pretty significant lag time between a major becoming 'a thing' and people having PhDs in that major. If one wanted to build a computer science department in the late 90s, one likely hired a lot of physics PhDs and math PhDs, because they knew computers, and one needs PhDs for an academic department. It's not that math is more desirable or that the computer science PhDs were all in industry, it's that there weren't (as many) PhDs then and the old dinosaurs still have tenure. That's going to be true of any newer or niche field -- it's not a good predictor of much.
I don't think that was the case by the 1990s. There were plenty of grad schools in CS producing lots of PhDs. Even in very mathematical fields of CS like combinatorics & theoretical computing. What you tended to see were people who had undergraduate degrees in EE/ Math/ Physics perhaps (more the first 2) who had then done their PhDs in Computer Sccience.

What you describe was more a feature of the profs from the 1960s & 70s--when CS Departments were first invented. By the 90s, those guys were retiring.


In lots of place aero/ME are the same department, with lots of overlap, so it's not surprising that an aero program has a lot of MEs. IME aerospace engineers do just fine, but don't always wind up designing airplanes and they have nothing to do with flying them. Don't get tunnel vision based on the title of the major. -- the aerospace engineers might not work on an 'airplane' but the ones working for Tesla are using their education and hardly suffering. Weirdly, the people I know working for Boeing/Lockheed/NASA are a computer science major, a mechanical engineering major, and an industrial engineer.
My NASA-contractor friend did Applied Math & Engineering, and then MSc in Control Systems Engineering. His work is very software-intensive.

I think someone should do the subject in undergrad engineering they most feel affinity for. Petroleum Engineering might be an exception. Engineering is such a hard slog that you have to really be interested in the underlying subject.

60+ years after my father did Civil Engineering, I now understand why. There's so much I'd like to ask him about his chosen field, but no longer can.
Last edited by Valuethinker on Wed Jan 26, 2022 6:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
chipperd
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by chipperd »

lasp506 wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:25 pm Nephew is thinking about majoring in AE. He has been accepted at some of the big 10 schools in the Midwest, and waiting on results from the more selective schools in Boston, Pasadena, Bay Area, and Atlanta.

I have reservations about AE as a college major, primarily because I believe opportunities are limited compared to, for example, electrical engineering or computer science. (This assumes, of course, he does not dislike EE or CS and he can be equally as good in either. I am certain he doesn't dislike EE or CS and he will be a better EE or CS major.)

I talked to him about it a while back but, at the time, he seemed set on AE.

I want to talk to him one last time and layout the pros and cons, just to make sure he has/had full information when deciding on AE.

Question:

1/ Other than his interest to study AE, what are the pros of studying AE?
2/ Other than limited employment opportunities, what are the cons of studying AE? (I also think pay is lower than CS.)
3/ Should I encourage him to minor in CS? Or something else?

Essentially, I don't want him to pigeonhole himself into the corner, so to speak.

I was a math major in college and I had to (frantically) make myself marketable by pivoting to something that is more applied. My decision to major math was entirely based on the fact that I found it challenging and I was good at it. I gave no consideration about employment opportunities. It worked out well in the end but it was a risky move. Looking back, I should have double majored in math and something else.

I submit that AE is a lot more applied than math, but it still has limited opportunities compared to other fields such as CS.

So what do you think?

(P.S. His parent have given me the green light to talk to him about anything, including or especially academics.)

====

Update: 1/ Please keep it coming. Already so many great comments. Thank you!! 2/ I texted him the link to this thread. He will read and make his own decisions.
Is your nephew looking for your guidance?
"A portfolio is like a bar of soap, the more it's handled, the less there is." Dr. William Bernstein
Topic Author
lasp506
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by lasp506 »

chipperd wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:55 am Is your nephew looking for your guidance?
Yes.
chipperd
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by chipperd »

lasp506 wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:02 am
chipperd wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:55 am Is your nephew looking for your guidance?
Yes.
Did he say what kind of guidance he is looking for (ie: major decision) or a multiple of topics?
If it's just guidance around a major, ME's seem to have the easiest time obtaining a decent paying job are seen as the most flexible (read: trainable) in the field.
"A portfolio is like a bar of soap, the more it's handled, the less there is." Dr. William Bernstein
getthatmarshmallow
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by getthatmarshmallow »

Valuethinker wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:51 am
getthatmarshmallow wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 1:46 pm
shess wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 10:09 am
AnEngineer wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 9:22 am
valleyrock wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 8:51 am On one extreme, probably not at all the case, but as an example, if most of the professors running an aerospace engineering program at a university have their degrees mechanical engineering, then that might be an indicator that a mechanical engineering degree is the way to go.
If you want to be a professor of aerospace engineering.
Yeah, I wasn't following this point. If you had a computer-science program being run mostly by people with a mathematics background, I would not take that as evidence that mathematics was more desirable, I would see that as evidence that the computer-science people all got hired away by industry and the mathematics people weren't hired away, so you built the program out of what you had.
Also that in CS there's a pretty significant lag time between a major becoming 'a thing' and people having PhDs in that major. If one wanted to build a computer science department in the late 90s, one likely hired a lot of physics PhDs and math PhDs, because they knew computers, and one needs PhDs for an academic department. It's not that math is more desirable or that the computer science PhDs were all in industry, it's that there weren't (as many) PhDs then and the old dinosaurs still have tenure. That's going to be true of any newer or niche field -- it's not a good predictor of much.
I don't think that was the case by the 1990s. There were plenty of grad schools in CS producing lots of PhDs. Even in very mathematical fields of CS like combinatorics & theoretical computing. What you tended to see were people who had undergraduate degrees in EE/ Math/ Physics perhaps (more the first 2) who had then done their PhDs in Computer Sccience.

What you describe was more a feature of the profs from the 1960s & 70s--when CS Departments were first invented. By the 90s, those guys were retiring.


In lots of place aero/ME are the same department, with lots of overlap, so it's not surprising that an aero program has a lot of MEs. IME aerospace engineers do just fine, but don't always wind up designing airplanes and they have nothing to do with flying them. Don't get tunnel vision based on the title of the major. -- the aerospace engineers might not work on an 'airplane' but the ones working for Tesla are using their education and hardly suffering. Weirdly, the people I know working for Boeing/Lockheed/NASA are a computer science major, a mechanical engineering major, and an industrial engineer.
My NASA-contractor friend did Applied Math & Engineering, and then MSc in Control Systems Engineering. His work is very software-intensive.

I think someone should do the subject in undergrad engineering they most feel affinity for. Petroleum Engineering might be an exception. Engineering is such a hard slog that you have to really be interested in the underlying subject.

60+ years after my father did Civil Engineering, I now understand why. There's so much I'd like to ask him about his chosen field, but no longer can.
Yeah, that's fair. I still know a number of people my age (40-something) in CS departments with other-than-CS PhDs -- my point was just that one shouldn't look at the PhD of the prof holding it as proof of much of anything about the industry that aligns with the major.
Valuethinker
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Valuethinker »

getthatmarshmallow wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 4:44 pm

Yeah, that's fair. I still know a number of people my age (40-something) in CS departments with other-than-CS PhDs -- my point was just that one shouldn't look at the PhD of the prof holding it as proof of much of anything about the industry that aligns with the major.
Interesting that is still the case. As I say, a diverse undergrad was possible (Math with a computer science minor, Applied Math, Physics ditto, Engineering) but usually by PhD level they had joined the CS stream (this was at a "top 10" department in the research rankings).

I was taught Intro to Programming by an ex astronomer. He would be in his late 60s by now.

CSC may be fairly unique in this. I imagine in most disciplines, if you don't have a PhD in that discipline (and you are under 50) you are not in a tenured or tenure track academic position?

Industry is again different. Lots of people come to programming by lots of routes. I would guess the top rank employers hire from the top CS & EE programmes, though. Perhaps some math and physics majors as well?

(Anything really hard core + CS Minor if the latter includes some advanced courses eg Compilers, Operating Systems, Software Engineering).
Valuethinker
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Valuethinker »

lasp506 wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 12:25 pm Nephew is thinking about majoring in AE. He has been accepted at some of the big 10 schools in the Midwest, and waiting on results from the more selective schools in Boston, Pasadena, Bay Area, and Atlanta.

I have reservations about AE as a college major, primarily because I believe opportunities are limited compared to, for example, electrical engineering or computer science. (This assumes, of course, he does not dislike EE or CS and he can be equally as good in either. I am certain he doesn't dislike EE or CS and he will be a better EE or CS major.)

I talked to him about it a while back but, at the time, he seemed set on AE.

I want to talk to him one last time and layout the pros and cons, just to make sure he has/had full information when deciding on AE.

Question:

1/ Other than his interest to study AE, what are the pros of studying AE?
2/ Other than limited employment opportunities, what are the cons of studying AE? (I also think pay is lower than CS.)
3/ Should I encourage him to minor in CS? Or something else?

Essentially, I don't want him to pigeonhole himself into the corner, so to speak.

I was a math major in college and I had to (frantically) make myself marketable by pivoting to something that is more applied. My decision to major math was entirely based on the fact that I found it challenging and I was good at it. I gave no consideration about employment opportunities. It worked out well in the end but it was a risky move. Looking back, I should have double majored in math and something else.

I submit that AE is a lot more applied than math, but it still has limited opportunities compared to other fields such as CS.

So what do you think?

(P.S. His parent have given me the green light to talk to him about anything, including or especially academics.)

====

Update: 1/ Please keep it coming. Already so many great comments. Thank you!! 2/ I texted him the link to this thread. He will read and make his own decisions.
It really comes down to what he/ she loves. But of course at that age tastes change.

My friends who work in aerospace seem to work mostly on software (with hardware interfaces). Ideal background would be Electrical Engineering + Computer Science.

Engineering is just hard. Hard material & huge volume delivered at a ferocious pace. The student has to be highly motivated & in a supportive environment, or they won't get through the degree. When I was in CS we had a lot of ex engineers who just couldn't take the pace (or the job opportunities were not worth the hard work)-- they had 40 hours of labs & classes a week plus assignments, we had less than 20.

Whatever engineering path chosen, a Computer Science minor would be useful -- basically knowing algorithms, programming languages, software engineering (although that latter can be taught post degree).
dukeblue219
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by dukeblue219 »

If there is passion for AE then encourage it, don't be the obnoxious person saying "well I don't know, you could earn more doing something entirely different." BH spend too much time fixated on negative outcomes in my opinion.

Aerospace is a surprisingly broad degree with many underlying skills and specialties, and it isn't a dead end. If it doesn't work out, the first few years are all the same classes as any other major.

I am also a pilot and an engineer working as an AE, though I am an EE by degree. Nobody gives a you know what about the pilots license or experience and I would never, ever encourage anyone to be a professional pilot. The first decade of life as a commercial pilot is awful, making $35k a year while grinding it out trying to get a big airline job.
f35phixer
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by f35phixer »

Naval Flight Test was awesome, F-18 A-G, AV8B, F35B/C's !!!

Get a degree and join Federal Government.
Topic Author
lasp506
Posts: 44
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by lasp506 »

Updates:

1/ he has heard from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Purdue, and GaTech and got admitted to all.
2/ waiting to hear from UCLA, Berkeley, CalTech and MIT. To my surprise, he did not apply to Stanford.
3/ He told me he read all the posts here and will be studying AE.

Thank you to all who shared their view on this!!
Bradford
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Re: Aerospace Engineering as a college major

Post by Bradford »

Echoing what others said about following your interests and ease of change within engineering majors:

I started off in 2004 as an AE major. After my freshman year I switched to ME as I realized the AE curriculum at my school included more programming, fluids, and math than I was really interested in, and the ME curriculum looked to include more real-world physical applications which sounded more interesting to me. I loved airplanes and spacecraft (and still do!!), but turns out there's plenty of job opportunities in the aerospace industry for ME majors as well!

I remember the job prospects being pretty similar in each field when I graduated. Basically, if you graduated with a not terrible GPA there were plenty of employment opportunities available whether you were AE, EE, ME, CE, etc., and that was in the middle of the recession in 2008! I think AE would be a great major, just tell your nephew to be ready to be diligent and work hard :happy
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