Am I cut out for Engineering?

Wien2NC
Tue, 15 Mar 2016 15:55:48 +0000

@Lambchoppi6

what city are you in? are you closest to Columbus, Cleveland, or Cincinnati?

well, a 4.0 is a good sign.

if you are close to Columbus, schedule a campus visit to Ohio State, specifically the Engineering Overview & Tour as described here:
https://engineering.osu.edu/future-students/visit

wow they have some engineering fields I didn’t know about. anyway, that will give you an overview of all of their different engineering disciplines, plus you will be able to tour the engineering facilities and see all the cool stuff they have and ask your student engineering guide some questions.

in addition, see if you can schedule some extra time with a dean / professor / student in one or more of the disciplines you find most interesting at this time. prepare some basic questions before your trip that you most want to get answered. try to get the a perspective from both student and professor / dean.

if you are closer to Cleveland then schedule your visit to case Western Reserve University and their Engineering School
https://go.case.edu/portal/campus-visit?_ga=1.131938639.177628121.1458056102

or U of Cincinnati and their Engineering School
http://ceas.uc.edu/visit_us.html

or Pitt, or Toledo visits if you are closer to them.

the point is, any of these campus visits that include the Engineering School will not only give you an idea of what engineers do, but will also give you a sense of what differences there are between different types of engineering, what it will take to succeed, what courses you will need, the opportunities for undergrad research, co-ops, and internships, the facilities, labs, and equipment you might get to wok with, feedback from other engineering students, etc. it will give you a small taste of what it might be like to study engineering at that particular campus.

you might decide engineering is not for you, but at least you will have investigated it more thoroughly and seen with your own two eyes, than getting advice from random people on the internet.

if you like what you see at one campus, check out another that is not too far away.

see what kinds of scholarships you can get for staying in-state. i don’t know your money situation, but if funds are tight, and the Ohio schools are still too expensive after financial aid, then a 32 on the ACT will get you a full-tuition scholarship from U of Alabama, plus $2500 per year from their engineering school.