Choosing an Engineering Major In College

Dear Mr. Bradshaw — I’m a female and I’m struggling to determine on a main when I apply to college. My family members believes engineering is my finest choice. I’m not so sure.

I am extremely excellent at math and science, but I also like to solve practical difficulties that are a lot more down to earth. My female friends in college are disappointed that most of their engineering classes are too theoretical and not hands-on sufficient.

My dad and uncle are engineers with advanced degrees from MIT and the Georgia Institute of Technologies. So there is pressure for me to continue the family tradition and turn into an engineer.

I’m a junior in high school, but I feel I am much more interested in business as a major. How do I decide what is proper for me? I hope you have some insight. — Engineering or business?

Dear Engineering — 1st, a short history to location your question in context. A couple of years ago, most engineering students came from blue-collar families. Most engineers were the first members of their families to earn college degrees.

Generally, the father was a skilled worker, such as a machinist or electrician, who saw becoming an engineer as a ticket off the shop floor and into management. Now that the economy has slowed, engineering again is beginning to appeal to students, as job security takes on a higher priority. But this time, parents of engineering majors are less likely to be found on the factory floor and a lot more likely to be in management at high-tech firms such as Google or Microsoft.

Today’s engineers own and manage numerous of the most critical firms in America. But I need to give a caveat and point out that along with geniuses such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the owners of Google also dropped out of engineering programs (Stanford) that were too restrictive and stifled their vision on how to alter the world.

Engineers are at the forefront of a revolution, and a lot of engineering programs resist change. An old saying suggests most professors wished Gates had stayed at Harvard and earned his degree. Life would have been a lot less difficult for them.

Your concern that engineering majors are too narrowly focused on theoretical troubles and not obtaining sufficient hands-on experience is well-documented. There appears to be a gap between course work and the real world of engineering. Maybe that has some thing to do with why Gates and other people left college just before graduating. Engineering schools are slow to alter.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the National Science Foundation reported in the Chronicle of Greater Education that “engineering education’s widespread emphasis on theory over practice at numerous of the nation’s 1,740 college-level engineering programs discourages a lot of possible students, even though leaving graduates with too small exposure to actual-world troubles.”

The report concluded “engineering programs aren’t meeting the needs of students or employers who want a much more relevant curriculum.”

The two areas most resistant to alter are engineering faculties and accreditation agencies. Both seek to reinforce old habits and justify staying with the old curricula. Millions of dollars have been given to universities to diversify their engineering curricula, but have failed to get past the “cultural problems of alter,” said Sheri Sheppard, vice provost of graduate education at Stanford.

One happy exception is Georgia Tech’s biotechnology engineering program. The issue-based approach taken by Tech permits students to take a semester to work on practical issues. One such program focuses on how to maintain the blood supply secure from the AIDS virus.

1 critical benefit of the hands-on approach to engineering is, it attracts more women who normally would not think about it as a career. The breakdown of enrollment in biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech is revealing: 39 percent females, compared to 9 percent in electrical and laptop or computer engineering, and 12 percent in mechanical engineering.

I suggest that engineering is a wonderful significant, as lengthy as you do your analysis beforehand.

Georgia Tech and programs like it are places to feel about when you apply.