Majors/degrees/whatever you all are doing

[Jubba_Man]

Are you kidding? First of all, Mech Es start with classical mechanics as their first physics course and multi variable calculus is only the third semester math. You take applied linear and statistics for engineers after that. Electricity and magnetism is also a must, and vector physics after that. There is also both regular mechanics (statics and dynamics) as well as fluid mechanics. Then there is thermodynamics and lastly heat transfer courses. Where the hell do you guys live for engineering to be so easy? Someone mentioned earlier how you could bypass physics and get an engineering degree.

Sorry bruh, but most people do not consider that "physics". Unless you've seen this and dealt with this equation:

You haven't seen any physics. You speak of classical mechanics. Do you know what a Lagrangian is? A Hamiltonian? Do you know any variational calculus? Have you seen and learned the mathematical treatment of nutations of a gyroscope? To you, Newton's laws and the solution to the most basic harmonic oscillator is what you know as "classical mechanics". And don't get me started on your struggle fluid dynamics. You can't even talk about Navier-Stokes in any serious way without knowing how to handle PDEs, something I have never seen any ME department require of its graduates.


As I said before, you could learn all of the serious physics required in an ME curriculum in a typical Halliday and Resnick book. Everything after that are just applications of that physics and natural extensions to three dimensions. It's almost as disingenuous as saying a dishwasher needs to know "a lot" about chemistry.


And before you start trying shit on my school, how many graduates from your school Bumfuck, Nowhere, Scandinavia working at SV? Working for top defense contractors on cutting edge military tech in North America?

 

[Galaeri]

Stay away from :
Civil engineering & Architecture - No jobs
Biomedical Engineering - Too specialized, get a bachelors in Mechanical then master in Biomedical
Chemical & Petroleum engineering - Western Oil fields are becoming slow and they would rather hire seniors rather than new grauduates

Be cautious of:
Mechanical engineering: While there are jobs you need to network constantly and always keep on the lookout,
most people take this degree and more often than not they dont end up with a job due to the market and not having the right contacts.
Especially if you are a somali, don't befriend other somalis in your program, befriend ajnabis and others and always go to career fair.

Mechatronics: Mostly designing robotics this program is referred to jack of all trades as it incorporates Electrical engineering and Mechanical engineering
disciplines together. Not a bad field you just need to be smart about it.

Recommended:
Electrical engineering: Steady market, although its one of the most challenging degrees its also really rewarding.
Computer engineering: Another tough program but with the booming tech industry you can never go wrong with this degree.
Software engineering: Jobs and Jobs everywhere.... You don't even need to network or make friends, just need to be competent in programming
and you are good to go

Your advice is for the most part relevant only to your country. Construction in Australia is booming whilst manufacturing is dying, hence civil > mech + aero.

Also oil and gas are big in some nations. When they are chem is good.

Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking of course?

 

[GeKo]

Stay away from :
Civil engineering & Architecture - No jobs
Biomedical Engineering - Too specialized, get a bachelors in Mechanical then master in Biomedical
Chemical & Petroleum engineering - Western Oil fields are becoming slow and they would rather hire seniors rather than new grauduates

Be cautious of:
Mechanical engineering: While there are jobs you need to network constantly and always keep on the lookout,
most people take this degree and more often than not they dont end up with a job due to the market and not having the right contacts.
Especially if you are a somali, don't befriend other somalis in your program, befriend ajnabis and others and always go to career fair.

Mechatronics: Mostly designing robotics this program is referred to jack of all trades as it incorporates Electrical engineering and Mechanical engineering
disciplines together. Not a bad field you just need to be smart about it.

Recommended:
Electrical engineering: Steady market, although its one of the most challenging degrees its also really rewarding.
Computer engineering: Another tough program but with the booming tech industry you can never go wrong with this degree.
Software engineering: Jobs and Jobs everywhere.... You don't even need to network or make friends, just need to be competent in programming
and you are good to go

This depends on alot of factors bro. Country,location,politics,economy, can change your job prospect dramatically and they constantly keep changing. 5 years ago, everyone was saying petroleum and chemical were the best and now that oil is down software is good. The Canadian gov't is heavily investing in our outdated infrastructure for the next decade so civil has jobs. Manufacturing has been really hard to find lately as well. Chemical depends on the city and isn't limited to O&G; pharmaceuticals, healthcare,food etc. is other sectors they can get into.
Your recommended list also applies in Canada too tbh.
Overall you can't go wrong with any eng. degree

 

[XawoTako]

Alright guys this is aimed at people who are currently university students or have finished.I would like to know the various different majors you guys are doing and the pro's and con's of these majors.This will be very helpful for me as i will soon be completing school and entering uni.
trolls will not be tolerated kapiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish

I would recommend health sciences majors respiratory therapy, radiology, MLT.If you get bachelors in one of these majors it will take you two years to get masters and become PA.

 

[Ferrari]

Sorry bruh, but most people do not consider that "physics". Unless you've seen this and dealt with this equation:

You haven't seen any physics. You speak of classical mechanics. Do you know what a Lagrangian is? A Hamiltonian? Do you know any variational calculus? Have you seen and learned the mathematical treatment of nutations of a gyroscope? To you, Newton's laws and the solution to the most basic harmonic oscillator is what you know as "classical mechanics". And don't get me started on your struggle fluid dynamics. You can't even talk about Navier-Stokes in any serious way without knowing how to handle PDEs, something I have never seen any ME department require of its graduates.


As I said before, you could learn all of the serious physics required in an ME curriculum in a typical Halliday and Resnick book. Everything after that are just applications of that physics and natural extensions to three dimensions. It's almost as disingenuous as saying a dishwasher needs to know "a lot" about chemistry.


And before you start trying shit on my school, how many graduates from your school Bumfuck, Nowhere, Scandinavia working at SV? Working for top defense contractors on cutting edge military tech in North America?

you must be a genius then sxb. I have never seen any engineering who thinks EM level physics was easy. Heck even newton's laws aren't that easy. Did you just say fluid mechanics wasn't hard to grasp? I have never seen anyone that good. Either you are talking garbage or you are a genius. Which one is it? I will post a basic Newtonian physics question for you to solve so be careful which one you pick.

 

[GeKo]

Sorry bruh, but most people do not consider that "physics". Unless you've seen this and dealt with this equation:

You haven't seen any physics. You speak of classical mechanics. Do you know what a Lagrangian is? A Hamiltonian? Do you know any variational calculus? Have you seen and learned the mathematical treatment of nutations of a gyroscope? To you, Newton's laws and the solution to the most basic harmonic oscillator is what you know as "classical mechanics". And don't get me started on your struggle fluid dynamics. You can't even talk about Navier-Stokes in any serious way without knowing how to handle PDEs, something I have never seen any ME department require of its graduates.


As I said before, you could learn all of the serious physics required in an ME curriculum in a typical Halliday and Resnick book. Everything after that are just applications of that physics and natural extensions to three dimensions. It's almost as disingenuous as saying a dishwasher needs to know "a lot" about chemistry.


And before you start trying shit on my school, how many graduates from your school Bumfuck, Nowhere, Scandinavia working at SV? Working for top defense contractors on cutting edge military tech in North America?

I remember learning a bit about Langrangian /Eulerian fluid flows in fluid mechanics but didn't go to deep into the theoretical side of why it exist and proving it. I think thats when theoretical physics majors step in. Engineers deal with more of how it exist and how it can be applied so that we can work in industry.
Are you doing a bachelor or masters? and are you working in the R&D sector? Also what do theoretical physics majors have against engineering majors?? Our calc prof is in theoretical physics and he's constantly shitting on us engineers

 

[Rorschach]

Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering, and an MSc in Mechanical Engineering design modelling.

Before you choose your subject, list out what fields interest you. Energy, water, law, medicine, research, etc. Then for each item list out the number of disciplines in that industry. List out what course subjects you're strong in/confident in and match that up with the discipline that focuses on it.

Make sure you're aware of the big players in each industry, and even contact some early doors. You're initiative as an undergrad might impress them and they might let you work your holidays there for experience. I've spoken to some green first year students who were working their summers at my workplace. They were smart enough to think ahead, and some have been almost guaranteed a position after graduation.

Best of luck.

 

[Jubba_Man]

you must be a genius then sxb. I have never seen any engineering who thinks EM level physics was easy. Heck even newton's laws aren't that easy. Did you just say fluid mechanics wasn't hard to grasp? I have never seen anyone that good. Either you are talking garbage or you are a genius. Which one is it? I will post a basic Newtonian physics question for you to solve so be careful which one you pick.

I ain't no genius. I work with legit geniuses though. Electrodynamics can get messy quickly, especially when you're talking about time-varying fields and retarding potentials. Not those simple Gauss's Law problems you're likely talking about.

I ain't doing your problem set for you bruh. You're going to have to drop $$$ for that.

 

[Jubba_Man]

I remember learning a bit about Langrangian /Eulerian fluid flows in fluid mechanics but didn't go to deep into the theoretical side of why it exist and proving it. I think thats when theoretical physics majors step in. Engineers deal with more of how it exist and how it can be applied so that we can work in industry.
Are you doing a bachelor or masters? and are you working in the R&D sector? Also what do theoretical physics majors have against engineering majors?? Our calc prof is in theoretical physics and he's constantly shitting on us engineers

Lagrangian reformulation of classical mechanics is a different beast than Lagrangian treatment of fluid flow. It's a completely different and elegant way to think about mechanics than Newtonian approach of drawing FBDs and determining the direction of the resultant force and proceeding to solve Newton's equation of motion. The hard part is setting up the generalized coordinates, but once you have them and then find the Lagrangian L = T - U, where T is the kinetic energy and U is the potential energy, you can solve problems that become very messy using Newtonian mechanics almost blindly by taking a few partial derivatives. There is also some deeper variational calculus it is based on that is the language of quantum field theory.


Read more: Lagrangian Mechanics


Some places like MIT teach this to MEs, but most places do not which is incomprehensible to me because it is an incredibly useful tool to have. for MEs.



Theoretical physics is more concerned with the fundamental theorems and their predictions and derivations, and at times applying those fundamental theorems to solve important problems in nature like the Hydrogen atom or the cosmic expansion of the universe. Engineering in most cases deals with physics that is more than a couple hundred years old and and uses those results to either help solve practical problems or build new and useful devices. There can be some overlap between theoretical physics and engineering like the fields of quantum information and solid state physics. All of that from theorists is mostly just banter. Don't take it seriously.



As for myself, I'm just finishing up with grad school and going to take a well-deserved break. I don't know if I will do more grad school at this point or go into industry. R&D has a very low ceiling without a PhD so I might be forced to go back into the grinder again for the piled higher and deeper.

 

[Jujuman]

I ain't no genius. I work with legit geniuses though. Electrodynamics can get messy quickly, especially when you're talking about time-varying fields and retarding potentials. Not those simple Gauss's Law problems you're likely talking about.

I ain't doing your problem set for you bruh. You're going to have to drop $$$ for that.

You and @AirJawdan kill me

 

[Jujuman]

Criminology + Sociology

 

[Ferrari]

I ain't no genius. I work with legit geniuses though. Electrodynamics can get messy quickly, especially when you're talking about time-varying fields and retarding potentials. Not those simple Gauss's Law problems you're likely talking about.

I ain't doing your problem set for you bruh. You're going to have to drop $$$ for that.

That's more like it. Physics 1 for engineers was hard enough and here you were down playing thermodynamics for God's sake. That class had a fail rate of over 70%.

 

[cantspeak]

That's more like it. Physics 1 for engineers was hard enough and here you were down playing thermodynamics for God's sake. That class had a fail rate of over 70%.

Thermodynamics was hard???


That was my favourite class, got 93% on that.


I do chemical engineering by the way.

 

[Ferrari]

Thermodynamics was hard???


That was my favourite class, got 93% on that.


I do chemical engineering by the way.

93%? 50% is an A in our school for thermodynamics. Who the hell is teaching you guys? The entire class save for several of us out 40 students are repeating and still getting Fs on quizzes.

What topics did you cover in that class?

 

[ሕጊ።።]

93%? 50% is an A in our school for thermodynamics. Who the hell is teaching you guys? The entire class save for several of us out 40 students are repeating and still getting Fs on quizzes.

What topics did you cover in that class?

In our uni, in the first year we covered simple topics like energy forms/transfers, ideal gases, property tables, first law, specific heat, steady flow, efficiency etc.
It was boring to say the least. 2nd year was a bit more interesting.

Fluid Mechanics>>>>>>>>>>>>>Thermodynamics.

 

[cantspeak]

93%? 50% is an A in our school for thermodynamics. Who the hell is teaching you guys? The entire class save for several of us out 40 students are repeating and still getting Fs on quizzes.

What topics did you cover in that class?

Im guessing this is your weeder class for ME

 

[Ferrari]

Im guessing this is your weeder class for ME

No. This class isn't taken until junior level. The weed out classes are physics 2 and multi variable calculus apparently. I remember struggling with both but in hindsight, I'd take them over what I am doing right now.

 

[Ferrari]

In our uni, in the first year we covered simple topics like energy forms/transfers, ideal gases, property tables, first law, specific heat, steady flow, efficiency etc.
It was boring to say the least. 2nd year was a bit more interesting.

Fluid Mechanics>>>>>>>>>>>>>Thermodynamics.

Sounds quite different. They cover the first laws by definition only and easy problems in the first year through chemistry. But the actual stuff is reserved third year. It breaks students. Even the asians and the Indians who have no life outside of school and do not work struggle here.

 

[ሕጊ።።]

Sounds quite different. They cover the first laws by definition only and easy problems in the first year through chemistry. But the actual stuff is reserved third year. It breaks students. Even the asians and the Indians who have no life outside of school and do not work struggle here.

Oh that's quite different then. But in our university we actually shared Fluid Mechanics&Thermodynamics lectures with Chemical Engineering students.
I struggled with it because I just did not find it interesting at all. Too many assumptions are made as well.

 

[Ferrari]

Oh that's quite different then. But in our university we actually shared Fluid Mechanics&Thermodynamics lectures with Chemical Engineering students.
I struggled with it because I just did not find it interesting at all. Too many assumptions are made as well.

To be honest, a lot of the thermo stuff goes right over my head. I understand bits and pieces through homeworks. It doesn't help that our teacher is professional asshole from Greece.