Dear Veeky Forums

Dear Veeky Forums,

The university I am applying to does not have a physics program, and I'm in need of advice to choose between mechanical/electric and electronic engineering.

Which one would generally be a better option for me to continue my studies in Physics after university, i.e, get a masters in Physics and focus in research?

I would appreciate any help and advice you can give me.

a school with the physics degree

And you assume I haven't thought of that already based on what?

Why can't you apply somewhere that has a physics program?

Financial issues.

Because of this fucking retarded thread?

We're giving you the benefit of doubt here user

go into mechanical. 99% sure youre gonna change your mind about grad school down the road

Mechanical engineering > electrical engineering > electronic engineering

ME is the broadest engineering discipline. You you will learn calculus and differential equations. Fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, classical mechanics. If the uni is any good it will offer electives in advanced math/physics.

Besides, Bill Nye is a mechanical engineer, but he pretends to be a physicists and a scientist. So i guess it worked for him.

Depends what kinda physics you wanna do. I happen to think electrical is by far the most versatile major out there right now, but I'm highly biased.

I'm not OP.

I've wanted to do some sort of engineering but I absolutely hate hate hate autoCAD shit.


Is there one where I'm not very likely to have to do it?

I don't think that electrical engineering has a lot of CAD

Not too much AutoCAD afaik.
There's specialized CADs for electronics, some for drawing traces for PCBs and some for just drawing circuits.
I use KiCAD because free, but the documentation is hard to find.

Anyone know the standard one? Maybe with SPICE and stuff?

Also AutoCAD is a bit outdated even in MechE. A lot of businesses have switched to Inventor or Solidworks.

I just didn't like CAD that much in general and autoCAD was the only CAD software I could think of off the top of my head.

It's like making something except you don't get any of the fun parts of actually making something.

Our first exposure to AutoCAD in school was to 3D print nose cones for model rockets.
Hands on stuff always helps

Yeah, I most likely just had a bad experience with it.

>high school
>some engineering class thing
>ok
>literally sit in a room and given a printout of what to make in autocad and what the specifications should be
>did this the whole year
>that's it
>do the next class next year because i thought it would be different
>same thing
>was boring as hell

They should have more hands on stuff in high school to get kids interested in engineering.
FIRST tends to be a good program, but they're just gonna teach you to do technical drawing in engineering school anyway. Not everyone has coded or done any CADing before undergrad.

Take a small course load of math and gen ed. Fill out loads of scholarships (go for small ones). Apply to a school which has a physics program. You can't get into physics graduate school unless you have a degree.

Both Inventor and SolidWorks are pretty low tier CAD tools. CATIA and Unigraphics NX is more widely used.

I really just don't even know what I want to do.

I'm in CS now but it's not very fun and I'd rather do hands-on stuff and learn stuff that's useful and not super specific and focused like CS is.

EEE.

OP here,

I am asking which one would prepare me better for a Master's in physics, I would love to pursue Physics as a science, and to major in it but I'm sadly unable to do so because the university I am admitted at is my only choice without taking huge debts. I am not living in the U.S which is why I am unable to receive any grants or scholarships, all scholarships where I reside are given to citizens.
I am going back to my home country which I left when I was 9 years old, there, as a citizen, I am able to attend a private university which is a part of ERASMUS + with minimal tuition fees and living expenses.

I'll admit I've been out of industry for the past couple years, but I don't think I've even heard of those.
My work uses some cheap knockoff of AutoCAD that I can't even remember the name of and most places we ordered parts from either used AutoCAD or Solidworks.

My advice is not to go to college.
Go intern at a machine/welding shop, work repairing electronics, calibrating tools, or join a hackerspace.

College is expensive (at least if you are in the US) and fairly useless if you don't like your degree. I think the statistic is now that people change their career on average seven times in your life.

Getting an internship isn't something you can "just do".


I might as well go to college since I'm not paying for it and I don't know what else to do.

I'd say go with mechanical since their research generally aligns more with the physics type stuff, such as acoustics/thermo/material science, and you learn a good deal of classical mechanics. Whereas if you look for electrical research in undergrad, they're mostly signals processing or very electronics/hardware based, with the closest to physics being the more niche topics like photonics or electrodynamics stuff. Plus, if you decide not to pursue physics after this, you'd still have all the design/fabrication skills, which I don't believe EE's place as much of a focus on. With that having been said, I believe the best way to go is an ME degree with some EE electives to broaden your knowledge on things such as controls/filters, which will come in handy in the lab, keeping in mind that your ME peers will be slightly less intelligent than the EE's on average.