What is the hardest/easiest engineering major?

College Life
41

<p>In fact, EE is not about building things at all :slight_smile: Even microelectronics classes will only teach you how to compute and build a circuit theoritically using paper and simulation software only.</p>

42

<p>True, you don’t need much practical experience to earn your degree in EE. I already proved that as an undergraduate. I could have earned my MSEE WITHOUT ever picking up a soldering iron or electronic component.</p>

<p>But you must realize that unlike history or math, engineering is a PRACTICAL subject. Engineering exists to make things work.</p>

<p>I wish I had been an amateur radio operator as an undergraduate student. I would have been able to relate to transmission line theory, input impedance, output impedance, transistors, etc. I don’t know how I managed to earn my BSEE at a Top 3 EE school. I completely blew off the practical parts of EE. I was just going through the motions of studying and waiting for a mysterious flash of divine inspiration to enlighten me. I never got involved with any projects, my senior project was probably the biggest joke in the department’s history, and it was no accident that the job I ended up with had NOTHING to do with what I studied.</p>

<p>If it weren’t for amateur radio, I’d have no business in engineering. I earned my MSEE this year. As a graduate student, I was everything I should have been as an undergraduate but wasn’t. I took on plenty of academic risk, because I knew what I wanted to do after graduation. My specialty was control systems even though my undergraduate specialty was RF engineering. (I felt that I needed diversity. I also didn’t want to limit myself to RF engineering jobs.) I took practical EE very seriously and worked on hardware PROJECTS even though the school I attended was not hardware oriented (was devoted mainly to information technology, CS, computer engineering, and communications). The first project was a better SWR/wattmeter for amateur radio. It worked, but I’m STILL working on it even though I officially finished it long ago. The second project was an automatic noise canceller project. It was a flop because I was too ambitious, and I just barely graduated because of it. But I learned a lot from it, and I have no regrets about being near the bottom of my graduating class.</p>

<p>I now work as an electrical hardware engineer at a company that makes military radio systems. And it involves RF engineering even though I hadn’t studied it FORMALLY since Britney Spears was in the Mickey Mouse Club.</p>

43

<p>Does a Biochemical engineering major exist? Also, what types of hobbies should a prospective chemical engineering major have?</p>

44

<p>That major by itself is not so common, however, it’s normal for bio-eng students to take chemistry and vice versa and they can call themselves bio-chem-eng major. Similar to mix of EE and CS -> comp. eng.</p>

<p>As far as I know, chemical eng. has a lot to do with chemical plant control, which I think is not so related to any typical hobby.</p>

45

<p>“Does a Biochemical engineering major exist? Also, what types of hobbies should a prospective chemical engineering major have?”</p>

<p>Distilling liquor in your dorm room.</p>

<p>Heh I have no idea, that just popped into my head. </p>

<p>Anyways

biochemical sounds way too specialized to be a safe undergrad major
 most people suggest a more meat&potatoes major like chem, electrical, mech, etc.</p>

46

<p>

</p>

<p>No that’s for ChemE majors! But they do it in the lab</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.rowan.edu/open/colleges/engineering/departments/chemical/BeerBrewing.html[/url]”>http://www.rowan.edu/open/colleges/engineering/departments/chemical/BeerBrewing.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;