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Ask Slashdot: Best Second Major For a Mechanical Engineer?
Scarred Intellect writes "After attending DigiPen Institute of Technology and deciding that I liked the idea of programming more than programming itself (I still do enjoy it a bit); after getting my AA at a community college with no direction; after much tinkering with engines growing up; after 4 years of service in the US Marine Corps infantry; I have finally decided what I want to do when I grow up: mechanical engineering. The reason is simple: I believe our automobiles can be a lot better (in terms of engine/propulsion) than they are now. Better technology exists, and there's more technology to develop for them. I've taken an intense interest in biodiesel and other clean, alternative energy methods (fuel cells being one of my favorites — second is solar, with wind being last). I figure mechanical engineering will give me a broad understanding of the more specific engineering disciplines. My uncle, also a mechanical engineer, suggested I get a second major in computer science to complement ME. It sounds like a good idea to me; I could mate mechanical processes with computer controls pretty effectively. It should take me 3 to 4 years to complete. What do you think? Is ME + CS a good option, or would ME work better with something else? I'll almost definitely have a math minor coming out of this."
In that order.
If none of those appeal to you, then take a few classes on technical writing.
Good luck
Best degree (in addition to ME) to work on consumer products would be something involving reading/speaking Chinese.
Have gnu, will travel.
Biology... so you don't show up on the Internet a few years later insisting that your experience and training in engineering equips you to declare evolution false.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Salem_Hypothesis
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you want to learn controls, it seems Electrical Engineering would be a better fit than Computer Science. While Mechanical Engineers have to learn a fair degree of controls theory, the EE guys live and breathe controls, so it would make you more proficient in that area, at least on paper.
I work part time as a contract consultant for a giant company. The division I work at requires 2 separate degrees for their second flor elves. One in computer science, the second in either mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. They also require at lest one of those to be a masters or doctorate. They prefer a masters & a doctorate both.
One discipline is no longer enough to get the really, really, good jobs.
The bad new is out of 65 guys and 1 woman in that second floor cave, only 1 guy is caucasian and speaks English as a 1st language.
The VP in charge said it was just sad that American kids didn't want to put in the work and take the time to get the educational requirements of that group.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
It'll help you effectively communicate with the laity about the benefits of your work without making their eyes glaze over. Nobody's going to accept a proposal that reads like a 5th grade book report.
I'm not the best writer in the World myself, but good grief! Many CS and engineers (and business people for that matter) can't write for shit.
Double in ME or CS? Nope. You'll get enough CS in your engineering program. Everything beyond data structures will be a waste for an engineer and besides, if you really need it for your job, just buy a book. A CS degree won't do anything for your marketability.
At least 3 semester of accounting would also help: Acct: I & II and Managerial (teaches you how to read and write accounting statements for PHBs).
So here's my program:
Do your absolute best in your ME program. Take tech writing classes and even a touchy feely composition class (it'll help you later on with the chicks and it counts as an elective!), 3 semesters of accounting and anything else the peeks your interest (also counts as electives).
This dual major BS will just distract you and possibly cause you to have a lower GPA with your BSME - your GPA plus internships is going to get you into your first job. And by NOT double majoring, you may actually have time to socialize and further develop your networking and people skills.
Cars have complex electrical and control systems and an Electrical Engineering degree may put you closer to your goal. EE's do a fair amount of programming as well. It would work for Aeronautical and Medical Device Engineering as well. Tough you may have to take some pre-med courses. Also weapons engineering. Since you are a vet, you already have at least a minimal security clearance. That boosts your employ-ability, if you decide weapons are right for you.[1]
Note that you may have to get a Masters degree to do any serious design work for a car company, aircraft company, or a medical devices company. That's what a ME student once told me. You should investigate.
One thing to consider is that ME and EE are easy to offshore. Anyone with solid engineering training can do it anywhere on the globe. For job security I would recommend Civil or Environmental. As one CE I knew once put it "There are always jobs in roads and commodes".
Math minor is OK, but I think you should focus more; either EE and ME or ME and Math.
[1] As an undergrad in CS I had a Math prof once offer to do a letter of introduction to a guy he knew working at the China Lake Naval Weapons Testing Center in CA. I decided that I did not want to pursue that path, so I was under employed for a few years. This was during the 1980s Reagen "prosperity". But I still think it was the right decision for me.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
You can mock all you want, but English or Communications would definitely be helpful for an Engineer. I know someone working on an MA in English, and part of that is teaching a basic writing class for freshmen. A lot of the students who struggle are those from engineering or science programs who just don't know how to write down and communicate their thoughts academically and professionally. You have to at least be able to communicate effectively with other engineers, and being able to organize your thoughts and convey them to non-Engineers is probably as essential if not more so, since your bosses will likely not be engineers themselves.
I hear it often from math, science, engineering, and technology majors that they don't see the point in having to take humanities courses, especially English, and while I agree that detailed study of literature and theory is probably unnecessary for them, one should at least be exposed to those ideas as part of a liberal (meaning broad) education. Studying literature is as much about learning how humans communicate through the written word as it is acquiring the ability to appreciate it as a form of artistic expression.
tl;dr, everyone needs to be able to communicate effectively, NOT everyone has to (or can) be an engineer.
Even in India, most of the official communication is in English.
You wont find many good Indian programmers very comfortable with written Hindi
Even spoken Hindi is more of a mixture of Hindi+Indian English
Mechanical Engineer working in the automotive industry here. (3 years out of school, about half of that time in automotive.)
You're 100% correct about needing computer science skills. I'm not sure going for a second degree is as beneficial as a minor, or just being skilled with computers. Many schools are shifting their focus for mechanical engineers toward computers anyways. You can expect to learn finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics and a programming language in a ME major. It's a really broad major, and the nice thing is that (in a good program) you will be exposed to all of the fields you mentioned above, and given opportunities to pursue them.
A math minor could be useful if you're going to use it. I know a few people who got one, but it's not useful for most of them. Minors in materials are also common, and much more useful in my opinion.
I think what you do beyond the classroom is more important. Getting involved in competitive engineering teams (FSAE) did much more for me in the automotive industry than minors. (Admittedly, I was a poor student... Internships and extracurricular activities helped me stand out.) More important to focus on the basics before double majoring and minoring in a ton of stuff.
The Basics:
Get into a good program. You will learn more from smart classmates and good professors.
Try to get good grades. (>3.5 = genius, >3.0 = reasonable, 2.5 = not hirable to many employers.)
Work internships. You'll learn how to be professional, and getting a real job will be a lot easier.
Do extracurricular activities. This is where you learn how to apply your schoolwork.
First, let me say that all colleges and universities have slightly different curricula, so mileage may vary. But...
Computer Engineerin/Science is probably not going to teach you control systems. It will teach you how to understand the problems and trade-offs of software design, and how to employ higher-level patterns to quickly solve common problems optimally. That will probably not be used in controlling a feedback system with a microcontroller, or in controlling a large scale plant. Automatic control generally falls into Electrical Engineering, though it will also be a large part of more specialized degrees if they are offered by your school: chemical engineering (emphasis on plants and processing), petroleum engineering (again, emphasis on plants), process engineering (duh), and automotive engineering.
I would take a healthy dose of engineering economics. The auto industry is motivated by having very good system redundandy under harsh conditions with minimal cost. I know, that's theoretically every engineer's job, but the conditions here really are harsh, the redundancy is mandatary, and the margins are tight. Also, consider your willingness to travel, and what other fields (aeronautics?) your degree could be useful in once complete. Tough market out there.
When I graduated 50% of my Chemical Engineering class was female at that time, all my good friends then were female and one could easily have been a fashion model if she wanted it. Most focused on premed or biochemical.
If you would like to work on automobiles I recommend sticking with ME, and just doing that for now. Mechanical engineering is quite an undertaking on its own and if you double major, plan to spend at least 6 or 7 years in college to get a good understanding of both subjects. If you try to double major with mechanical engineering as one of the majors in the standard 4 years, you will either not gain a satisfactory understanding of the fundamentals and theory or you won't have any time to participate in the practical non-classroom experiences that make a mechanical engineering degree worthwile. I would recommend joining the Baja or formula SAE team at your university or college to get a better understanding of what goes into real world vehicle design, also project oriented teams look great on the resume. You will pick up a little CS and EE in Mechanical engineering if your school is doing it right. You might want to get a green minor if you're interested in biodeisel and low carbon emmisions vehicles, but make sure your university offers this first. Getting the math minor is easy, but probably won't do alot for you in the long run (most mech e's have one by default).
And Controls theory is definately a mech E subject, you can get very in depth in mechatronics and controls courses offered through a mechanical engineering department, and you'll get alot more real world hands on examples than you would in an EE course (EE's tend not to care about mechanisms, and are more interested in the electric theory) I would say if you're interested in cars, go the ME route and stick to it.
(This advice is coming from a practicing Mechanical Engineer who got his BSME in 4 years (at Virginia Tech)) I focused on robotics (CHARLI and RAPHaEL were my pet projects) but had alot of friends who loved cars). I work at SpaceX on rocket stuff now.
Also, you should probably know, the job you get might not be exactly what you planned for or learned the most about in school, but engineering, like life, is an adventure, so stick it out and you'll be sure to have fun.
It really depends on what you want to do with yourself. Do you want to manage a group of engineers or an entire plant? Do you want to be a researcher studying cutting edge technology? Do you want to be more on the technical side and spend time actually building things? I spent two years as a dual major in mathematics and computer engineering, before I decided I would rather just do mathematics since you have plenty of opportunities to work in most areas of research as long as you have programming skills.
As a mechanical engineer, you will have plenty of opportunities for material science classes, physics classes, mechanics classes, etc. So, my best recommendation to you to ensure you can get a job is to take programming courses. By this I mean, take enough to be able to program an application or scientific computation software comfortably in Unix. This should be in addition to any second major you would choose. From there its really up to you.
If you plan to be on the plant management side of things, statistics and/or operations research is a major plus. This is achievable through many math programs. If you want to manage a business or people, economics/finance or an MBA is always a plus, though generally engineers and scientists can take courses on these topics geared more towards their discipline. If you plan to be on the more research side, I would recommend either mathematics or physics. If you plan to actually build things, I would recommend sticking to just engineering disciplines and taking as many courses in it as possible rather than waste extra credits on a second major in the sciences. Even mechanical engineers have to specialize in something, and if you don't worry about a second major it leaves more time to work on a second specialization. For example, there are mechanical engineers that specialize in thermodynamics, and some that specialize in material science. You could have time to do both by not taking a second major.
I am a PhD student in computational mathematics. I have my MS in Applied Math, with a specialty in mostly computational topics as well as optimization. I was an engineering student for awhile, but I absolutely love mathematics and typically sacrificed an engineering class for a mathematics class I didn't even need to graduate. Ultimately I got some good advice and just pursued mathematics full time.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
You and I are very similar. I currently have a B.S in Information Technology.
Next Spring, I graduate with an B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. I'm also an automotive engineer working for Mercedes at the moment.
I also founded my school's first Society of Automotive Engineers chapter, and we're working on finishing the school's first Formula SAE Car.
I do not recommend a CS degree. That was my first degree before I switched it to IT. IMO CS will give you an unnecessary study into in depth facets of CS that you won't utilize as an ME. If you want to combine technology with engineering then pursue a degree in IT. It will be easier, give you more practical programming experience, teach you about databases, and allow the flexibility of taking several electives (which can be CS related courses).
You will also be subject to programming and controls classes during your ME studies. Your IT experience will give you a leg up against your peers.
You will amaze your ME friends when you can create a programming solution to an engineering problem on the computer.
Just stick with ME. Instead of spreading yourself thin with a double major, take advantage of other opportunities to gain experience in your field. Take part in club or engineering competitions. Find a professor who does interesting engineering research and get a position in his or her lab. There is WAY more to school than just classes and most students don't take advantage of all there is to do. These activities outside your class will get you face to face with people who will serve as future career contacts. If you really want more education, wait for grad school.
"you will never ever meet any girls you want to sleep with in engineering school. ever."
FTFY
Parent has it right. EE isn't just about circuits. It also covers embedded controls and systems engineering (feedback loops, etc.). If your goal is a broad understanding of engineering that allows you to mate different technologies, then you can't go wrong with ME+EE. You can do just about anything with that pair. Certain fields (such as a aerospace on the ME side and IC design on the EE side) require you to focus more on depth of knowledge than breadth, but for most careers being well rounded is more important. They'll teach you the specifics on the job.
As in, just try to make an airplane or gas turbine engine with 19th century materials. Not happening, steampunk to the contrary.
Same goes for anything else you're going to be doing before you hang up the CAD system for a golf cart.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The VP in charge said it was just sad that American kids didn't want to put in the work and take the time to get the educational requirements of that group.
Here's what one of my Indian grad school classmates said to me, "I want to stay in school as long as I can." Never got a chance to ask him why.
The Chinese classmates value education and degrees, I think for the sake of just getting degrees - more degrees means better person (Like we Americans think more money means better person).
But here's something to ponder:
They also require at lest one of those to be a masters or doctorate. They prefer a masters & a doctorate both
OK, they require those degrees. Are they actually needed?
I can't tell you how many times I've talked to managers and people who hire folks and ask them where they get their educational requirements for a job. They fall into a couple of camps. Those that use degrees to weed people out and those that think their employees should have. I knew one manager who had this absolutely brilliant device driver programmer who had no college degree. He got rid of him because "people who write device drivers should have a college degree."
Or I knew a guy who got a MSEE on the job - a testing job that was beneath a BSEE let alone a MS. The manager, to justify reimbursing the employee for tuition, said that the education was needed for the position. The guy left with his free MSEE and got his 100K+ job and when the job was posted, you guessed it - "required MSEE" for a job that I thought a vocational school grad in electronics could do (it was just testing circuit boards and trouble shooting.)
You know that the employer was saying shit like, "We can't find anyone qualified to do this job! American kids just don't want to go to school!"
I also think there are managers who like the ego boost of having PhDs working for them or they have a PhD and want their employees to have one - I guess to share the pain.
tl:dr Many educational requirements are unnecessary.
I believe that many people have a misconception about what computer science is really about. Computer science is about algorithms, sorting, databases, mathematics, and not so much about software development and programming.
I studied electrical engineering and in my job interviews before and after graduation I was repeatedly told that they were looking for people with more programming experience. After being told that so many times I took a look at a degree in computer science. At my university the computer science department lives under the liberal arts college. In the liberal arts college they require all students to take X credits or foreign language, Y credits in natural science, and Z credits in social science. The core courses in both computer science and computer engineering were largely identical but the computer science degree had many requirements outside of the core that had nothing to do with computer science but were there to fulfill the requirements of the liberal arts college. The computer engineering degree overlapped quite a bit with my electrical engineering degree so the requirements in the engineering program were already met, things like physics, chemistry, mathematics, "pre-engineering" (the courses covering the basics of the engineering process), and composition/communications.
Other schools place computer science in the same realm as engineering and so you might not have the same experience I did. I chose computer engineering over computer science since I did not feel the desire to take another foreign language course (the engineering college still had a humanities requirement and I took Spanish to fulfill that requirement, going to the liberal arts college would have meant I needed another semester of foreign language) or take a class on public speaking (all liberal arts majors had to take a public speaking course at my school).
Depending on how you feel about things like taking a foreign language (something I recommend), studying in the social sciences (which you'll have to take in any four year program it's just a matter of quantity), and other topics in the realm outside of engineering a major in liberal arts might be something that you enjoy. It sounds to me like you really want a broader study inside engineering. Other people here have suggested electrical engineering.because of its high content in control theory. I can agree to that but control theory is emphasized in other engineering disciplines like aerospace, industrial, and biomedical engineering. Software engineering is becoming a bachelor degree track in many schools now, that is something to consider as well besides computer science and probably something more fitting to your desire to do embedded controls.
If you want to take an emphasis in bio-energy sources then you may want to consider a degree in biomedical engineering, biological systems engineering, chemical engineering, or environmental engineering. A college education that leads to two engineering degrees will almost definitely provide room to fit in plenty of study in programming and control theory. A proper choice in majors will allow you to take some courses that may be open to only those people in certain degree programs. For example a course on control systems will almost always be open to anyone majoring in engineering but a course on microorganisms might only be open to someone majoring in biology or biological systems engineering. (I use a microorganism class as an example because if you want to work on bio-diesel or ethanol that is something you might find very interesting.)
Where I went to school there is a program called "agricultural engineering" which has an interesting mix of mechanical and biological systems engineering. That is something that might be right up your alley. Farm machinery use a lot of interesting means to transfer power so they cover mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic systems. Moving and processing grain leads to some interesting courses on control theory and biology. There is also the possibility of taking course that might be of a side interest to you like erosion control, sustainable farming, and natural resources.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
There are too many problems with engineering as a career. I know because I was one for 22 years. Now I am a dentist.
Here's some of what's wrong with engineering:
As you age your pay keeps going up until you hit 40 YO and start to have a life outside work, then they want you to go into management or marketing. Try to stay in engineering and you'll get laid off because you make too much money- after all, they can hire two guys right out of school and work them 80 hours per week for what they pay you... All those years they were giving you pay raises no one ever asked if you'd like to have a few more days off instead of a pay raise and even if you talk to HR people about it, all you'll get is a blank stare.
These days it's nearly impossible to stay at any engineering job for very long. Every time the stock drops a point or two, they start tossing bodies out onto the street. When you go to interviews for new jobs they say "I see you skip around a lot. If I were to hire you why should I believe you'll stay here?". If you did manage to stay at your last job long enough to get a little more vacation time that will reset at your new job.
Part of the problem is that the bigger companies collude to fix benefits and salaries for engineers (and all their other employees) because it makes it hard for any of them to steal people from each other. When I worked for HP, every year at annual pay-raise time they herded all of us engineers into a meeting room then proudly told us about how the HR guys had gotten together will all the other big engineering employers (Motorola, Intel, Cisco, etc., etc.) HR people to decide what the benefits and pay were going to be. Every time I sat through one of those meetings I would talk to coworkers who seemed oblivious to the implications of what they just heard. The essential message was this: "here's what we're going to pay you and don't bother looking for a job elsewhere because you won't get any more pay or better benefits".
The manufacturing jobs are going to third-world, pollution loving toilets. Following right behind them are the engineering jobs. The "good" news is that the way things are going, and if the GOP gets what they want, this country will soon become one of those pollution loving third-world toilets and the manufacturing jobs will start to come back, and maybe engineering jobs, too.
Engineering can be interesting work but it often becomes drudgery. Never take a job that isn't exactly what you want to do because you will get pigeon-holed into whatever the company wants and then it becomes difficult to break out and do something else. Never feel bad about leaving a company in the middle of some project you're working on if it isn't the right work for you. The company doesn't deserve any more loyalty than it would extend to you, and it would extend none.
Find work that is fulfilling. I switched to dentistry after years of sitting in dark rooms running circuit simulations all day then going home and asking myself who benefited from all that work. With dentistry I know exactly who benefits and how. Relieving the pain of a toothache or improving someone's appearance so they have confidence to go to a job interview, or even just to open their mouth in public has a major impact on their lives and is very satisfying for me. I sleep very well at night.
After 50 years in ME and other things, clarify what you want.
- for reward in cash, marry the boss's daughter , take control of business. This needs understanding of business, economics and law, that is a lot more than a second major. Part time study for life required.
- for reward of doing things , get a job, develop job, maybe lower pay but very satisfying and do voluntary work to help others, again part time study for life required.
It does not stop at 'formal learning.
Regards Eion MacDonald