Pemo123

Nanotech is very interesting to me, which engineering major would most prepare me for entry into the field?

JHB619

^^^^^ bump

wobudong

Depending on the particular undergraduate program, probably ChemE or BioE. Much of the early pioneering in Nano was done by people in the chemistry dept at Rice, which has established multiple interdisciplinary nanotechnology programs with extensive sharing of faculty from chemistry, chemical engineering, bioenginieering and environmental engineering as well as researchers from Baylor College of Medicine.

Pemo123

glad to hear about ChemE


I assume nanotech is a very exclusive field?

RacinReaver

It depends on what sort of nanotech you want to do. ChemE and Materials would be the two best bets for it, though I'm sure you'd be able to find people doing nanotech type stuff in EE and MechE too.

Also, people have been using nanotechnology ever since man started molding his environment. Carbon nanotubes and C60 buckyballs were found in Damascus Steel swords.

Slorg

ChemE, EE, MatSci, even bioE, biology, mechE. Nanotechnology is a bit of a misnomer. You can do stuff with chemistry, with semiconductors, with protein folding all at the nanoscale.

jmilton90

In a traditional undergraduate level sense, chemE or matsci will be the two engineering disciplines which will get you prepared for nanotechnology related work. The rest are a bit of a stretch, literally, and that includes EE who are more focused on the circuits and signals and less on the actual hardware. Explaining physical phenomena are what chemEs and matscis are basically trained for.

Actually, I think MatSci would be the strongest relation to nanotech and nanomaterials, but I don't think MatSci is appropriate at the undergraduate level.

steevee

PhD in chemical, electrical, mechanical, biomedical engineering, materials science, biochemistry, chemistry, or physics. Did I mention that you need a PhD?

carnelian

Pretty much all of engineering touches nano in some way...what "aspect" of it are you interested in?

Prism123

matsci (10char)

Pemo123

I'm more interested in Nanomaterials and Nanoelectronics.

jmilton90

then matsci hands down, no questions.

GShine_1989

EE specializing in solid state.

MiPerson80

Nanotechnology is too broad of a term, don't get sucked into the hype, companies just want the undergrad engineers to have good basic engineering skills. I interview engineering grads, we are looking for solid engineers from decent schools, with GPA>3.4 but more importantly, good social skills and can work with people well. Also, need to speak good, coloquial english. No nerds.