Architectural Engineering vs. Architecture (Courses/Salary)

Cowgirl101
Sun, 30 Mar 2014 08:21:15 +0000

I am in Architectural engineering school at Okstate and I must say Architectural Engineering(AE) is a big umbrella term as with any engineer. For instance, a petroleum engineer is a branch of chemical engineering. There are 3 specializations I know of for AE. Those are structural engineering , which is what PSU focuses on ; however, we are now planning on adding 2 other branches, one of those being mechanical, electrical and plumbing(MEP), and those are some rare people out there and they make a ton of money. The third I know of is construction project management and this is different than construction management. Whichever branch of engineering under AE you choose, they all have to do with buildings. Civil engineering deals with bridges and roads etc, however there is much overlap with AE in Arch and civil. They are all five year degrees. You don’t need to know if you want to be an arch or AE until professional school (3rd year). To name a few differences, Arch’s take all the studio design classes, only Calc 1 and trig based physics, while AEs take a few of those design classes plus Calc 1-3 and differential equations, chem for engineers, steel 1 and 2, concretes and all those other materials, foundations, Calc based physics 1 and 2, thermodynamics etc. I say go to school undecided between the 2 and figure out if you’d rather have more math and physics or design studios (which I hate because they are tougher than math)