<p>I agree with the above posts. Our S had to declare engineering when he applied to colleges and yes, it is a good background for some fields of law & medicine. As was said, you can major in most anything for law or medicine, as long as you have a good background so you can handle the work if & when you go to those schools at some later date.</p>
<p>Engineering is a great background for patent, intellectual property and products liability law. Our S is an EE & has taken the LSAT, in case he decides to go on to law school. His starting salary is much higher than many starting law school grads.</p>
<p>Yes I have completed applications but no, I haven’t declared yet since I’m still thinking whether I should choose EE or CE. I’ve been accepted to my state’s Tech school and I think I’ll be attending there (waiting on finaid stuff).</p>
<p>My parents are aware of the different software engineers who “made it big”. In any case, I don’t think they’re ignorant of the U.S. society (my father’s been here for some thirty odd years and my mom about eighteen to twenty, have lived in nearly every major city) but they just don’t find it worth their time at all to look more into how college here works.
I apologize if I may seem like an arse here but saying that my parents are ignorant of how the society here works is quite a stretch too.</p>
<p>I see everyone else’s point that ‘I’ shouldn’t worry about what ‘they’ think with what I’ll do because they’re not gonna support me financially anyway. But the thing is, I want to at least leave when they stop acting like I’m a disgrace to the family (yeah, I know, some of you will probably think it’s an annoying cultural thing but its hard to break away from it when that’s how you’re raised).</p>
Parents with that mindset are going to act that way no matter what you do. You could suddenly discover a cure for cancer and be awarded the Nobel Prize next week… and they still would act like you are a disgrace to the family.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether it is cultural or not. I think that a lot of emotional abuse within families gets written off as “cultural” but there are plenty of families within that same culture who don’t act that way – it’s far more likely a case of one generation’s bad parenting practices being passed on to the next. </p>
<p>If your parent’s are not going to support you, you will be far better off getting the practical, technical degree – it will pay the bills, and you can still go to medical school or law school later on if you want. An EE degree (or similar) would in fact be a huge asset in applying to law schools, because it would make you stand out in the applicant pool… and it might actually help you get a job later on. (As I pointed out above, there are far more lawyers being churned out of law schools every year than there are jobs – at least an engineer-lawyer would have a set of skills that might be valuable to law firms involved in any sort of tech-focused litigation or transactional work. )</p>
<p>Don’t worry. Go to the school that works best academically and financially. You can’t major in prelaw or premed so you won’t lie when you talk about your major with your parents. You also need preengineering classes as a freshman that are mainly the science courses that also serve premed intentions so you can satisfy your parents this year that you are on the path leading to a profession that they like. Likewise with prelaw- any breadth courses you choose will suffice for that path. </p>
<p>Privacy laws do not permit them to know about your college courses, including grades, without your permission. Add any freshman intro to engineering courses recommended for YOUR desired choices. Only YOU meet with your college advisor and YOU do the class registration, it can be none of your parents’ business what you take. If you are like our son you will have no trouble sidestepping your parents’ requests. Once you are safely away from home and in your college you will have much more power and be able to take the courses you want. No need to decide between fields in engineering until you are on campus and have some more background.</p>
<p>Be sure you do not give your parents any passwords. Schools do have ways of letting parents pay for things without the student needing to let them see anything.</p>
<p>Both my Indian immigrant husband and I are physicians. We tell people our son is too smart to become a doctor- you can tell your parents this. You can PM me about this also. He chose math and is adding computer science. We had no input despite being willing to pay the public school bills, even when he was under 18.</p>
<p>Diffuse the issue for now by telling your parents it is too soon to be able to choose law or medicine. Eventually you will take those courses leading to the degree in the major of your choice, with or without the prerequisites for medical school (none for law school). By then you will have more knowledge and power when discussing your future plans and your parents will also be more knowledgeable about the American college system. At this time you also don’t need to worry about which engineering field to choose- the freshman courses will be the same and once you are in college it will be much easier to get the info you need to decide.</p>
<p>Let time be on your side. Enjoy your final semester as a HS senior without worrying about the distant future. You will be in college and on the path to YOUR desired future as well as being able to honestly satisfy your parents’ goals next fall. A year from now so much will change and you will find ways to continue your path and teach your parents how it is a good one.</p>
<p>My reference to ignorance of the society here was just in the context of the stereotypical view that to succeed financially one must be either a doctor or lawyer. That’s simply not true in this society and usually the only people who have that view are immigrants - usually form Asia/India.</p>
<p>When I made a reference to CS/engineers who have done very well I’m not talking about just Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - I’m referring to thousands of people including some I know personally.</p>
<p>In your case the controlling is even worse since you said they want to select your undergard major for you - I guess in order to maximize your chances to get into med/law school but I don’t know why they have that very narrow view since it just doesn’t apply.</p>
<p>At the end of the day you’ll need to decide whether to succumb to their (IMO) misguided plan for you or if you’ll pursue your own path regardless. You might be able to educate them and swing them on your side to emotionally (if not financially) support you or you might not but you’ll need to make up your own mind one way or the other.</p>
<p>Some ammunition for you:<br>
Law school admissions are driven by GPA and LSAT scores. This table of LSAT scores for different majors, shows that on average, engineering majors have higher LSAT scores than political science majors. Engineering majors have the 5th highest scores, poli sci majors the 16th.<br>
[TaxProf</a> Blog: Physics/Math, Economics Majors Ace the LSAT; Criminal Justice, Prelaw Majors Bomb the Test](<a href=“TaxProf Blog”>TaxProf Blog)</p>
<p>Political science is fine as a pre-law major, and indeed is a popular pre-law major, but there is no evidence that it is a better pre-law major than others.</p>
<p>It is hard to finish an engineering degree if 4 years if you don’t start out as an engineering major. (You wouldn’t have to choose between EE/CE yet however.) My advice to you is to postpone the law school/med school fight with your parents until you have some college under your belt. For now, just try to convince them that engineering is path that leaves lots of future options open to you, including the options they want for you. A year or two or three from now, all of you will know more, and you will be in a better position to make post-undergrad plans.</p>
<p>It’s funny to me that you have to convince your parents to let you study engineering. I’ve more often seen it the other way around, that parents are trying to force their students to study engineering, rather than political science.</p>
<p>Which is odd, considering how many immigrants from Asia (including India) came to the US to do engineering or computer science. Yes, there are also a lot of physicians, but you would think that they would have noticed others in their ethnic communities doing well in engineering or computer science.</p>
<p>Consider Medical Physics - undergrad major in physics, grad major interdisciplinary in Med Phys. Use terms like “hot field”, “interdisciplinary is the new paradigm” on the 'loids. The physics major equally good for Med School, so keeps parents happy.</p>
<p>Biomedical engineering is also a very popular field for aspiring docs & also people who like engineering. It also gives folks another career if they don’t get in to med school or decide they don’t like it.</p>
<p>^^^biomed. engr. is a great field, and some students use it as a pre-med, but this student is interested in EE or CE, with a specific interest in AI and robotics (which is CS in some programs). I suspect he would rather stick to his guns and study something he is interested in.</p>
<p>Well, bakkara, you could try telling your parents that you’ve found out that the US government would be happy to pay your way through school so they needn’t worry about your personal goals anymore… the only downside is that you’ll have to go fight in Afghanistan for a couple of years after you graduate.</p>
<p>They might become somewhat more accommodating.</p>
<p>I agree that you generally can be an undeclared engineering student as a freshman. At my S’s U, they let students take an intro to engineering course where they had about 1.5-2 weeks intro to each type of engineering so the students could have a “taste” of the different fields before deciding, as many were like S and hadn’t narrowed it down before they started. So far, he has been happy with EE. At his U, there are slightly different requirements for CS (e.g. that field has a foreign language requirement but the other engineering specialties don’t). </p>
<p>Good luck–hopefully you applied to some Us where you may get merit awards to help reduce the cost of your schooling, especially if your folks don’t want to help.</p>
<p>My son got a BS in computer science, and got a very well-paying job in Silicon Valley, right out of college, as did most of his CS classmates. He also had well-paying internships for every summer of his college years, which helped him make a final choice of where to work (and paid his tuition). And yes, I mean “choice”: the CS majors all got flown out to CA or wherever, in the fall of senior year, and had multiple job offers to choose from. Plus, he absolutely loves his work.</p>
<p>As you enter college, I would say don’t even think about med or law school. As others have pointed out, you can major in anything for these eventual careers.</p>
<p>I would not try to take pre-med classes during undergrad years. CS and engineering are quite demanding enough. Instead, if you actually want to go to med school (which sounds doubtful) you can take the prerequisites after graduating with a BS. There are some good programs for that, actually.</p>
<p>It sounds to me as if this is about prestige, not money or happiness. For some, a medical or law career is the only path to prestige. It may also be a class thing: perhaps one or both of your parents see doctors and lawyers as the only members of a certain professional class.</p>
<p>If you can’t see yourself getting free of these ideas, which seem to come from cultural values or class distinctions from another time and another place, then perhaps you could see a counselor or therapist to help you through this transition, help with communication with your parents, and support your choices. Choose someone who has worked with young people dealing with cultural transitions/immigrant parents etc.</p>
<p>It is very, very healthy to pursue what you love, and you are lucky that you love an area of study that will lead to a career and economic self-sufficiency. Good luck!</p>
<p>(Thanks to BCEagle for the link, on another thread)</p>
<p>I know a very successful lawyer, makes a ton of money. Both his son and daughter are talented math students, regularly winning and/or placing at regional and national math competitions. I’m curious now, and I’m going to ask him if he envisions them going into law, or rather, using their math skills for another field.</p>