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I take it this was before LexisNexis?</p>
<p>My mom was an attorney, and I remember the huge bookcase she had full of law books. I guess some lawyers still have those books but I’m not sure how much they use them. I don’t see our lawyers at work iin the legal library much.</p>
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<p>Most of them - except music. We had a few art/humanities electives in my first degree (Civil Eng in Europe) then lots more more when I did a second undergrad in Comp Sci; language wise I’m bilingual (born outside the US) and took additional English classes in the US as elective classes (technical writing, creative writing). As I toiled in grad school for two more degrees I took an occasional fun elective here and there while doing my research and so on…</p>
<p>The ‘soft’ classes paid off, incidentally, as my graduate Comp Sci research was computational linguistics :-). The product I am working on incorporates a number of elements from that domain as well (think Siri :-))</p>
<p>As a prefrosh going into engineering next fall 
I have taken 2 years of each, chemistry, physics, biology and calculus as well as English, history, art, music, Spanish etc. </p>
<p>I really wish that I had some computer science/programming experience of some sort, however, my school doesn’t offer computer classes beyond typing. Yeah seriously typing. Sigh. I digress. If you have any way to get involved with computers, robotics, things of that nature, I would highly recommend it. Also, something I am struggling with is figuring out what engineering actually means, like what kinds of topics would I study and what kinds of thinks I would do as a job. I haven’t had any real experience with this elusive catchall phrase “engineering”…I mean sure, math and science are my favorite subjects and I can look stuff up online about the specifics of the field. I will find out what engineering is when I start taking classes, but I also discovered (once it was too late to benefit from them) that there are summer programs and weekend programs at various universities meant to expose kids to engineering, so I would also recommend looking into those.</p>
<p>One class I rather wish they would add to the engineering curriculum is Intro to Management. Many engineers rise to management level, and I’ve had the misfortune to work for several who were great engineers and crappy managers. I DID take an Intro to Management course along the way somewhere, and I really think it would have helped some of the people I eventually had to work for.</p>
<p>^ True. And this is a required course for engineers at our university. Not sure it’s enough but it’s something :)</p>
<p>S had a summer job on a machine shop floor. I think that was invaluable experience for knowing how things actually get made and by whom, and a good window into how management comes across at the receiving end of the “managing”.</p>
<p>“A typical engineering bachelor’s degree program probably has about 15-20% of its course work in (required) humanities and social studies.” </p>
<p>True. I didn’t mean to imply there were none. But it ends up being about one course a semester, and often it is a specified class (sometimes a required flavor - freshman English, econ, mgt etc). My engineering student son surprised me by opting for IB HL/2-year psych. In retrospect, I’m glad he did.</p>
<p>OP my S is a junior and sounds just like your S. Perhaps you already know this, but if not . . . the advice I wish someone would have given my S as an 8th grader, or even a freshman, is stick with honors English. He too is more into math/science (and art/history, but not reading/writing), so whenever he couldnt fit everything in during scheduling, his GC would recommend just taking regular English since he’s a “science/math kid.” This year it has become very apparent to him how much better off he would have been had he been in Honors English the last 2.5 years. The SAT/ACT are huge in college admissions . . . the SAT is only 1/3 quantitative and the ACT is only 1/4 quantitative the rest is reading/writing. (He says all the grammar, vocabulary, and cold prompt writing he knows he learned in grades 6-8 when he was in GATE.) Plus, the more selective the school, the essays become incredibly important . . . then all the writing you do once youre in college . . . and communication in life! </p>
<p>I agree with everyone about the summer programs. College is so expensive as it is, and more so if you change majors. I really hoped that S could experience different fields so he would have a semi-good idea of what he wanted to do going in. Last year, when it occurred to me that S might like engineering, I sought out summer camps that would give him some exposure to the field. He went to STEM camp at the Naval Academy for 6 days . . . they really exposed them to a lot of different engineering fields. He LOVED the computer programming, much to his surprise. He was also accepted to UMichs MITES 4 week program . . . when they gave them the option between mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical/computer, he knew what he wanted to do. (As a side note, they stressed the importance of written/verbal communication so much that they dedicated a lot of the program to it.) He got so much out of both the programs, and they were virtually free. </p>
<p>Im not sure if its already been mentioned, but shadowing is another great way to see firsthand what engineers do. (Also a good lesson in networking, which is extremely important!) At MITE, they toured Dow Chemical . . . he said from that, he KNEW he did not want to be a chemical engineer! (No offense to any Dow Chemical Engineers on this thread!) S is planning on doing some shadowing this year at some of the local companies. One of the experiences is set up through his HS, but others we are arranging through friends. </p>
<p>This year in school, S was able to take Physics, Chemistry, and JAVA for the first time (another school with a comparatively weak science/math track.) Hes getting a better idea of what he wants to study now (and what he doesnt .) Had he waited until senior year to take these classes (as most in our district do), he might not have known exactly which program to apply to (at least during early admissions), and at some schools, you have to choose. Something to think about when scheduling!</p>
<p>sendemsoaring - thanks; that is helpful. Yes, we would look for him to challenge himself in reading/writing. But, the thoughts on Summer Programs look smart to pursue. Did it take a lot of convincing of your son to attend the Summer programs? I know my son’s first reaction to that thought.</p>
<p>W&G -</p>
<p>My S2 is a first year in engineering (mechE or aero) this year. I would also echo sendemsoring’s advise to encourage your son to stick with honors/AP English if at all possible. My son was very strong in math/science and did very well, but had to work harder in humanities. Guess what? Engineers have to communicate too! As it turns out his top choice ended up being our top in-state public that puts a very high value on humanities (including foreign language). We could not have foreseen this when he was a hs freshman but it sure kept his options open by keeping up rigor in humanities as much as possible.</p>
<p>He stressed math through AP calc, AP Chem, AP Physics, several IT classes including CAD and programming classes which led to a two year full time summer internship where he was hired over college students. This allowed him to not work during the school year and focus on his main EC (robotics) which was typically 25+hrs/week. He didn’t take AP humanities (history, etc.) however did take 5yrs of foreign language, and did take AP English/Comp. For him it was the right mix. </p>
<p>My son did go to one summer program (not stem based, however the class he took there was stem based). It did take some convincing, but he LOVED it and still keeps in touch with some of the kids he met there.</p>
<p>Best of luck to your student!</p>
<p>Wayneandgarth . . . had my Mom suggested to me to spend four weeks of my summer doing math/engineering (or anything other than going to parties), I would have thought she was nuts . . . my S on the other hand, was really excited about the idea. In a way, he kind of started it . . . he wanted to apply for an internship that would have meant a 150 mile roundtrip commute every day in the summer for a brand new driver that didn’t own a car! D’oh! So I started looking for camps at local colleges . . . just by chance I came across a list of programs in the US – I had no idea these things even existed. There are also tons of research internships if you live in the right area (ie, near military bases, etc.)</p>
<p>You might want to try a shorter camp this summer, just to see if he’s interested. Then see if he would go for a longer program later summers (most of them are for rising seniors, or juniors in some cases.) I highly recommend the Navy’s STEM program . . . [Naval</a> Academy Admissions STEM Camp](<a href=“http://www.usna.edu/admissions/stem.html]Naval”>http://www.usna.edu/admissions/stem.html) . The do have a week for your S’s grade level. It’s only 6 days and you only have to pay for transportation. They bus the kids to/from BWI. There is no recruitment involved, but S said most the kids were there because they planned on applying, even though that’s not the intent of the program. On the app, they do ask for height/weight and are very interested in athletic participation. It is selective – only 375 chosen from 4,000+ applicants. </p>
<p>He had the time of his life at both USNA and UMich . . . if he could have, he would have stayed! He has a bunch of kids he’s FB friends with, so he’s able to keep in touch. He is applying to a bunch of programs for this summer . . . he would be severely bummed if he had to stay home this summer!</p>
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Question - does he feel like it, too?</p>
<p>Certainly all the suggestions on this thread are excellent for the student who wants to be an engineer. But I think for an undecided kid, they’re a bit much. Let him discover his own interests. Even though he’s good at it, he may not want to do it.</p>
<p>I know a brilliant student to whom everything engineering came easily. He went to college and studied engineering since everyone told him that with his talent, not doing so would be a waste. He breezed through engineering, graduating in the top 10 students overall in his college (the only engineer to break the even the top 10 percent). Guess what? He hated every minute of it.</p>
<p>He’s getting a PhD in biology.</p>
<p>Chedva - yes, so right. In the end it is definately his choice but I want him to get some exposure to what Engineering is all about and to be prepared for it if he so chooses. My wife and I don’t know enough about Engineering (both Accountants) and his older brother, a Freshman at UMich (Business or Econ) is not in Engineering. But, he is the one that said his favorite subject is Math (which I can’t actually conceive of and breezes through the advanced course work. I suspect when he takes Physics, he’ll also enjoy and be successful at that course work.</p>
<p>He is a very conscientious student who I know has the drive and intelligence to be successful in Engineering (a tough major) or anything else HE so chooses. I completely agree he will likely either not be successful or not stick to what he doesn’t choose.</p>
<p>A Summer event/course exposure seems to make some sense. The problem is he is a big baseball player who uses up a lot of his Summer with that. I think we could fit in something anytime in August.</p>
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<p>Majoring in engineering typically requires starting the prerequisites as a freshman in college, with sufficient high school math and science preparation. It may also require getting admitted to a college’s engineering division in the first place, since it may be difficult to switch into later.</p>
<p>So a student who “may” be interested in engineering may want to start along that path, but use breadth courses to explore and allow for switching into something else later, which is typically easier to do than switching into engineering (both in terms of course sequencing and administratively). Most other majors have less constraining course sequencing, and some which do need prerequisites taken early (like physical and mathematical sciences) have substantial overlap with freshman and sophomore engineering course prerequisites.</p>
<p>^^Agreed, ucbalumnus. But the kid is a freshman in high school. At this point, taking a rigorous math & science sequence offered at his high school, with the potential of a summer session to explore actual engineering, should be sufficient, without the need to look for additional “enhancements.”</p>
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<p>I worked in business applications for a while back in the dark ages
and back then we had Business Systems Analysts that developed
requirements that worked with the Programmer/Analysts to develop
applications software. The BSAs worked with end-users and management
to get the functional requirements and then worked with the
Programmer/Analysts to come up with a technical model that could be
implemented. For the most part, the business people didn’t really get
the technical side that well. The more common model today is where the
software engineer does a lot more of the BSA role - my opinion is that
this doesn’t work out so well most of the time.</p>
<p>I also managed an IS group in a marketing department later on. We did
pricing analysis and competitive marketing. We recieved large data
feeds from around the world and loaded it into a database to process
information requests on the data. Back then, there were quasi-english
interfaces and some of the marketing people ran their queries on their
own. Others submitted requests for information by writing out what
they wanted in English - we would then do the coding for them. One
aspect of our value added was our familiarity with the data. In any
large data feed, you typically have some amount of garbage data and we
had an AI filter for automatically converting the garbage into
something more useful or something that wouldn’t return as high a
level of bad information.</p>
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<p>Did this guy have a CS degree or an CIS degree? The CS degree is
mostly math, programming, hardware and and algorithms. The CIS degree
is a business degree with a programming concentration. The former can
probably do a better job at building an efficient solution from specs
but may not understand your business or may not have the best in
communication skills. The latter isn’t as good at software engineering
and efficiency but will be much better at understanding the business
side and should be much better in dealing with the average person.</p>
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<p>I’ve known many DBAs and Database Design Consultants and the skills
that they have include and require programming but usually not to any
sophisticated level - you can certainly design and program database
applications without any expertise in algorithms.</p>
<p>The folks that command the big bucks usually work on database systems
that require near 100% uptime and/or very large databases where
performance in transaction processing, data warehouse, backup/restore
and high throughput are important. Being able to configure hardware
and communications, hot standby, federated databases, database
clusters, etc. are important.</p>
<p>In the Boston Area, there was a lot of demand for DBAs in the 1990s.
Then jobs dried up pretty quickly as these high-paying jobs were
off-shored. I don’t know what the current state of the DBA job market
looks like today but I don’t know that I’d want to run such an
important and security-sensitive operation off-shore.</p>
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<p>There are free programming course materials on the web offered by some
of the best schools in the world. You might give MIT’s Python course a
try between now and when you start college.</p>
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<p>I work in a very large software engineering organization. Our product
cycle goes as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Gather requirements from customers and potential customers as to
what they want in a proposed product. This is often done by marketing
and engineering. The marketing guys should figure out what the proposed
product should be priced at and make projections on profits from the
product.</p></li>
<li><p>Look at the requirements and determine what functionality the product
will have. You will generally get a ton of requirements and then prune
that down to what you want to do in terms of your resources, and what
your business goals are.</p></li>
<li><p>Create a functional specification that the business, marketing and
technical folks agree on.</p></li>
<li><p>Take the functional specification and turn it into a high-level
technical design. Create rough estimates for doing the detailed
technical design, coding, testing, training and documentation. Work
on a rough schedule.</p></li>
<li><p>Do the detail design. Then the coding. Then the testing.</p></li>
<li><p>Launch the product.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Software engineering is a little different in that you don’t make an
actual physical product. For physical products, you have to know that
you can manufacture the products that you design so you may have to
design manufacturing equipment or contract it out.</p>
<p>This is just one aspect of engineering - there are many other models
out there for different kinds of engineering that I can’t tell you
about. If you want to learn more, you could try asking a variety of
engineers as to what they and their organizations do.</p>
<p>As several previous posters have mentioned, one of the best things to do now is look at the admission requirements for some target schools. Preparing with 4 years of English, math, science, history and foreign language is good practice. Exceptions can always be made (opt for a 5th year of science instead of a 4th year of foreign language) but why not have a 4 year plan that starts with this. </p>
<p>Biology, chemistry, and physics should be included.</p>
<p>Plan for SAT subject tests NOW. Take the classes that will allow you to take the required subject tests before senior year. Some engineering schools require you to take the chemistry or physics subject test. Be sure that you have the classes for these junior year or earlier. Take the Math II subject test May or June of the year that you are taking Precalc.</p>
<p>Wayneandgarth - My S found his passion during winter of freshman year while looking for soph elective. He was considering programming but wasn’t that excited about that and stumbled upon our robotics program. Everything clicked from there on out. He was a year ahead in math so he was eligible for higher level sciences and chose to learn the programming through robotics and use his elective space for an extra science. His school offers physics honors which he paired with Chem honors sophomore year ( and Math Analysis/Calc H) now taking AP calc BC, AP Physical Mech and AP Chem. Will take E and M next year since we offer it, and Adv topics in calc. Three yeats of physics before engineering school. Chose not to do AP world or AP us even though he enjoys history. His 6 classes, varsity sports, music and robotics were plenty. Kept the Honors and AP English though, for writing skills and SAT prep. He does not regret it. His friends found the AP history demands huge with extra science courses. I’m sure an extra programming course would have been great, but he chose to go a different route. Balance is good. Looking at selective ME programs, as he’s a builder not a programmer.
Also did some great Engineering summer programs like JHU’s Engineering Innovations at a satellite campus. You won’t find many summer programs in August; giveup baseball for one summer or cut the season short as painful as that may be.
You are smart to plan this out now! Good luck.</p>
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<p>True. But make sure that the math education at the high school is of decent quality. Too many high schools’ “college prep” math courses are inadequate, resulting in students who get to college, take placement tests, and get placed into precalculus or lower math (a college freshman should be ready to take calculus (or a more advanced course if already taken and done well) in his/her first semester of college; while not being ready to take calculus may not delay a humanities major, it will likely prevent an engineering major from graduating on time, or at all in the major). The fact that most universities have to offer precalculus or lower math courses indicates a huge problem in the high schools.</p>
<p>Getting under a 600 in the SAT math sections as a high school junior or senior should be a big warning sign – the math on the SAT math sections is not that hard, but if the student has had poor high school math course work, college math and other subjects depending on it will be a struggle.</p>
<p>Beyond that, the usual recommendation of doing well in all subjects of a rigorous high school curriculum applies.</p>