Help Picking a Major (Especially from any Engineers)
 

Was wondering if any of you guys could offer some advice toward picking my major. I'm a freshman at Rutgers for engineering and I have to pick my department now. I've been leaning towards Electrical/Computer but I also have some interest in Mechanical and Civil. When I get a job I'd like to maybe design things on a computer in a CAD but I'm not really sure if that falls under ECE or ME. I'd appreciate any general words of advice for picking a major as well... Thanks guys.

there is always work in ME related fields. the skills learned can be applied very broadly and there is always someone looking to reinvent the wheel and pay you a good salary while you are doing it :)
another way to look at it, would you rather build the target(civil engineering) or the missle(mechanical engineering)? :p

curt86iroc is a ME, I'm sure he'll either chime in or you could PM him any questions you have.

CAD is used for ME. You might want to talk to some professors too.

if you are interested in the sciences i would vote for biomedical engineering. theres a pretty decent job market out there for BME.

X2 for anything biomedical related. I work with Solidworks, Pro-E, AutoCAD and some UG on a daily basis. Take a look at Becton Dickenson (BD.com) or Stryker, Zimmer, Wright Medical, Boston Scientific, Jonson & Jonson's web sites, look at the Careers link and see what a good Bio-Medical engineer is making working in a state of the art, clean office and not some machine shop like me making parts for those companies.

hey man, I'm an ME at Rutgers now as we speak, you wanna see some of the stuff we work on, drop me an e-mail or im me at SURFER1316

I'm a Mechanical Engineer but now I work for the cable company. With a basic ME degree you can do *anything*.

PM me with any questions.

I am recent grad of Rutgers ME dept and I can tell you that a lot of my friends who are ME's have work in CAD, ProE, Etc at their current jobs. There are a couple classes you go through to teach you how to model different things on the computer which aren't too bad. ME are known to be very "universal" when applied to different engineering positions so I liked the flexibilty which has landed me a job as an engineer that designs energy retrofits to conserve energy usage. PM me if you have questions about classes, professors, etc. Its still pretty fresh in my mind so take advantage if you want.

-Brian

stryker is involved in the development of the artificial spinal discs... (something i am very interested in for the near future)

another vote for biomed. the more brains in that field, the better. assuming you have brains, of course. :mrgreen:

Stay out of CS or IT unless you want to work in India or China

Former ME major, there is always a place for an ME. Probably the most flexible type of engineer out there. Good luck with it man.

:stupid: Just make sure you LOVE all science and math :lol:

Environmental enginering, if rutgers offers it the demand has just started. But whatever you pick make sure you really looked into it know and make sure your going to enjoy it. good luck...