Should I do Aerospace Engineering or Applied Physics for undergrad?

You are freaking annoying. Not that your sentence and word choices for online forum posting reflect your intellect, but if they did you'd be incapable of contributing to science on any grand scale. However, that is probably the case anyway. I am 17 and I can see that your various interests and goals are suoerficial and you are bound to be a quality assurance man. Not that it is a bad thing. In summation, shut up, kid.

Thanks for bumping my thread :)

Logical Man wrote:

My main concern with the physics is, what would I do with that? I don't want to be a teacher...

You're already off to a bad start. Trust me when I say that these days you can't just choose a major that sounds interesting, study hard and then graduate and figure out what you're gonna do with your degree.

I've probably looked at 5000 job listings on my university's job board, LinkedIn and Indeed, and not a single one of those listings was for a decent position that would've conceivably taken a Physics major because they need someone who can do particle-in-a-box problems or because they think a Physics major could be trained into a position. I'm not dissing Physics majors; obviously Physics is one of the most abstract and rigorous disciplines, and it is true that a lot of people who get advanced degrees in Physics are able to get jobs as quants at Goldman Sachs or whatever. I'm just bringing up the fact that a B.S. in Physics, unless you have some demonstrable, marketable skills to go along with it, will not get you anywhere in the job market. Same goes for almost every major.

So yea, Physics is cool, and so is Aerospace, but if you're trying to make those studies into a career, you're going to have to be very proactive and work your way into internships, involvement in science clubs at school, etc., if you want to have a good enough resume to get a job doing something worthwhile for the amount of time and mental energy that goes into studying Physics. Otherwise, from a career perspective, there's no point in doing Physics; you'll be able to get only the same jobs you could've if you partied your entire college career and majored in Ethnic Studies.

Annoying attention seeker wrote:

You are freaking annoying. Not that your sentence and word choices for online forum posting reflect your intellect, but if they did you'd be incapable of contributing to science on any grand scale. However, that is probably the case anyway. I am 17 and I can see that your various interests and goals are suoerficial and you are bound to be a quality assurance man. Not that it is a bad thing. In summation, shut up, kid.

I bet you aspire to major in the liberal arts. Anthropology?

I would add that studying CFD (compressible and inviscid) with a ME or AE would be a good career option at the moment.

Applied sciences would be one of the two. But ridiculing anthropology is fine with me. It is not like it is a real science that solves complex problems within evolutionary biology. The thread deserved the bump though, there are many people out there that can and should help you with your problem. I just think you are a little girl.

Logical Man wrote:

Annoying attention seeker wrote:

You are freaking annoying. Not that your sentence and word choices for online forum posting reflect your intellect, but if they did you'd be incapable of contributing to science on any grand scale. However, that is probably the case anyway. I am 17 and I can see that your various interests and goals are suoerficial and you are bound to be a quality assurance man. Not that it is a bad thing. In summation, shut up, kid.

I bet you aspire to major in the liberal arts. Anthropology?

Let it be clear that the above was not typed by me. I laughed though.

Go into EE. Tons of opportunities for a solid EE in aerospace corporations. You can do analog and digital circuit design. You can do FPGA firmware, and embedded software. And everything in between. You're young, so by the time you get some experience, you will be able to select your favorite specialization. Nothing gives you a fast track to aerospace systems engineering than being an embedded software engineer on a major aerospace program. You know all the commands, telemetry, CONOPS, etc. You're a critical resource during launch, debugging, integration. You learn all the subsystems because you interface to them all.

Not only that, but if aerospace goes down the drain in 10 years, your skills are still useful in tons of other industries.

I work for an aerospace company, and aerospace engineers are kind of a joke. We don't hire many physics majors, but as has been said before, most have advanced degrees, and most of them are well respected, no matter what they do.

The thing about EE: I enjoyed mechanics much more than Electricity & Magnetism.

And how are Aerospace Engineers a joke?

The thing about EE: I enjoyed mechanics much more than Electricity & Magnetism.

And how are Aerospace Engineers a joke?

Well, the first page did not have too many trolls on it...

Hello jenglan3, I saw your post in response to the other user and I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I recently graduated from the University of St. Francis. I ran for them for all 4 years and had an amazing athletic career, but now it is over. I am exploring other academic areas and I really enjoy working with physics and mathematics, unfortunately our school is very underdeveloped in those areas. I graduated with a BS in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. I would really like to do something like pursue AE at a school like U of M, U of I or purdue university, but I am a post-BAC student and getting into those types of programs becomes very difficult when you already have a degree because of spacing. I am currently enrolled at NIU and can pursue applied physics there. Ultimately I would like to work as an officer in the military and hopefully be nominated for NASA's astronaut candidate school. I just am trying to find the right route because there are so many. I could study applied physics and mechanical engineering and work towards a grad program in AE. What are your thoughts? Can you give me more details on how you did it? I would greatly appreciate any advice you can offer.

Sincerely,

Michael Topp

Update: Graduating this year with aerospace degree and doing masters or PhD next year in autonomous systems (robotics or CS)

With physics you can go into banking/finance. Energy. Telecoms.

All sorts.

Engineering can also get you into similar places.

You don't have to be a teacher if you dont want.

Logical Man wrote:

Update: Graduating this year with aerospace degree and doing masters or PhD next year in autonomous systems (robotics or CS)

Okay very cool stuff.

Hello

This pdf file may be helpful for you :

http://aerospaceengineering.aero/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/aerospaceengineersalary.pdf