Are these Dual degrees any good?

G.P.Burdell
Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:13:50 +0000

Buffalo offers that “dual degree” because their department is a combination of the two fields. The program is not pure aerospace or pure mechanical, but a combination of the two. The consequence? Look at where the program is ranked in the Aerospace or Mechanical specialties (hint: #64 of 95 for ME and literally last - #39 of 39 - for AE) . Buffalo covers the same material as the other ABET programs, but has to compress some material to account for the dual role of the department (e.g. most schools teach one class in high speed aerodynamics and one class in low speed aerodynamics - at UB it’s just one class).

At the end of the day, people on this website make too big of a deal about “double majoring”, as if it makes you a “better” engineering. In fact, it probably makes you a worse engineer. You’ll spend more time in your undergraduate with an unfocused course of study. Recruiters will be less interested in you if they want a pure ME or pure AE (which 99% of recruiters want) because it appears that you are uncertain in your career goals.

Your best bet: just don’t worry about it. Pick a school with a good engineering program, start off as undecided engineering for the first year, intern with an ME or AE company in the summer, then declare a major in your second year. That’s the best way to do it.

And if you get an ME degree and decide later that you should have earned an AE degree - it takes a year to earn an MS in AE (yes, they let engineers get master’s degrees in other types of engineering).