<p>Greetings,</p>
<p>I’m a transfer beginning this fall as a junior in EECS. If possible, I intend to minor in physics. Do EECS majors have enough time and unit room to tackle a technical minor without making extreme social and academic sacrifices?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Edit: If anyone has had any experience with the EECS/NE joint major, I am interested in hearing about that too.</p>
<p>i strongly advise against it. but it u really want to, be prepared to take above average unit loads and sacrifice ur summers.</p>
<p>I can understand the above average unit loads. Why would I be sacrificing my summers though? I thought upper division courses weren’t available in the summer. I also already have all of the lower division completed for a physics minor.</p>
<p>Yes, EECS majors do. Definitively so. However, as with everything, you should be sure you’re comfortable with your major coursework before taking on anything else, but there’s no reason someone with dedication cannot pick up a minor on the side. Physics is a terrific minor. </p>
<p>Note: how extreme is “extreme” depends on you. Obviously you’re doing more than the bare minimum to get an EECS degree, which isn’t the easiest degree to get, but I’d not worry too much.</p>
<p>It really depends on how well you get the course materials. If you can understand everything and have a good grade in class, then you can go for a minor without sacrificing much. But if you are one of those people who struggles in class, get low grades on midterms, and doesn’t understand the homework or course materials, then no, highly advise against that.</p>
<p>sorry, i thought it was double major when i read it. but an EECS degree is more than enough to land u a decent job. don’t do it unless ur one of those overly ambitious types.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the responses and insight. I should have mentioned that I am an elitist overachiever and actually intend to pursue graduate work in physics. </p>
<p>Have any of you taken UD physics courses as an engineering major – and if so, what were your thoughts? Obviously my success will depend on my performance, but a realistic assessment from experience could be nice.</p>
<p>I haven’t, but I do know friends who have to take some physics for their engineering majors (I think a friend in EECS and MSE is taking Physics 137A, Quantum Mechanics). I hear upper division physics is actually quite challenging, and not easily graded. Other friends took a course on quantum computing, which was also not very easy. </p>
<p>I would recommend having solid foundation in linear algebra going into 137A, as a math (formerly EECS) major (and elitist graduate school hopeful) who’s looked a good bit into some physics coursework. Your plan is certainly not for the faint of heart, but then again, neither is a good graduate school. </p>
<p>I would, however, recommend that you be careful to look into what you need to do to get into physics graduate school. I was thinking of grabbing an EECS degree along with a math degree on my way to graduate school, and decided that I’d better be very careful because it’s damn tough to have an impressive profile for the better math schools, and many applicants are very, very accomplished people from terrific schools. You may have to focus much more on physics, unless that is you want to do some form of graduate study that will explicitly combine your focuses in the two concentrations you’re considering.</p>