Is an aerospace engineering major limitting

boneh3ad
Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:33:33 +0000

It depends a lot on the jobs you are looking for. Aerospace engineers don’t work exclusively in the aerospace industry, but the vast majority of them do. Because of that, I usually suggest that if you are having reasonable doubt about going into aerospace then just do mechanical engineering and use your electives to take some of the additional aerospace-specific courses and you will be be good to go. Otherwise, if you know you want to work in aerospace, just do aerospace engineering. Ultimately, though, many jobs will look at more than just the title on your degree, including the classes you took in their consideration as HPuck35 said. For that reason, there is a fairly large overlap between ME and AE.

FWIW, I was on the fence when I was deciding what to study so I studied ME as an undergraduate and lo and behold, here I am working on a PhD in aerospace. I know lots of people who have done similar things to me, and slightly fewer who have gone the other direction.