UA Offers the First Corrosion Engineering Program

[jimmyzee]

The University of Akron's proposed new corrosion engineering program (http://bit.ly/aujkcF) — the first bachelor's degree program of its kind in the United States — is moving closer to development due to $500,000 in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)....


Hi! I am an engineering student and I came across this article stating that the university of Akron will have a corrosion engineering program. I am interested to know more about corrosion engineering and whether it is a course worth doing as I am tempted to take it up...

I came across the corrconnect (http://www.corrconnect.com) website and they also offer free courses online which I have gone through and enjoyed. Just wondering if anyone has done this course yet?

[MagnetDave]

As a materials engineer, let put this proposition in front you (btw, corrosion was a significant subset of my studies, and I'm not sure that there is quite enough to learn there to fill a whole bachelor's program, but it definitely merits at least a year of study):

Think about the problems you ask certain engineers to solve:

Mechanical engineer: Build a machine that does ______
Electrical engineer: Design an electrical system that does ______
Civil engineer: Design a structure that does _____

Get the idea?

Now, as a materials engineer here are the type of tasks people get:

- tell me what steel to make this out of
- tell me what coating to use so it won't rust
- tell me which type of magnet I should use in this application.

It's very, very rare that you get an interesting problem like: Design a composite for this application. While you graduate with a very diverse toolbox, an employer doesn't look at you and think: "I have all kinds of work I can get done!" They tend to think: "Can't I just look that up in a book somewhere?" There is a very, very narrow set of companies that really appreciate what a materials engineer is for.

As a corrosion engineer, this problem gets amplified. You will probably be out there on a lot of systems where people "have it all figured out" and they want you to slap the magic no-rust on there. I know enough about corrosion to know that the science runs much, MUCH deeper, and that this is a very underappreciated science. But you are going to face a serious uphill climb with a degree in "corrosion engineering," and almost everyone is going to start by asking you, "So what do you do?" followed by "So, what else do you do?" (I have answered these questions more times than I can count).

Again - I am NOT trying to dump on what I think IS a very valid course of study that more people should look into to appreciate. Corrosion is extremely complicated, very specialized, and OUGHT to be attacked by specialists. I just see you having a very tough time marketing that skill.