- #1
Feodalherren
- 604
- 6
Hello everyone,
First a little history:
I have one more year left after this semester until I finally get my BS in Mechanical Engineering. My GPA is 3.7 right now and I've taken all expect 1 of the hardest classes, I predict that I will be somewhere around 3.8 to 3.9 by the time I graduate. But all isn't sunshine and rainbows. I've struggled financially with college - I have to take summer classes to finish before I run out of money. Basically I had to start from scratch, I started college at the age of 22 with some savings from working. Anyway, this means that I won't be able to intern. If I intern I won't have money to finish my BS. I'd have to take time off and I really don't want to (I'm already 26). It has taken me this long because I had to start all the way from Algebra with my mathematics. I'm proud to say that I did very well. Through endless hours of studying I managed to get A's in all of my math classes, all of my physics and chemistry classes and almost all of my engineering classes.
Anyway, sadly it took me this long to realize that I'm really much more passionate about programming than I am about mechanical engineering. I'm bored out of my mind in my design classes. Who could have thought that picking a specific screw and thread count could be such a massive project? I sure didn't, and I sure ain't interested in it. Really I enjoyed my sophomore year the most. My physics professor was absolutely amazing and I looked forward to his classes (I was originally an economics major but his lectures blew my mind and I switched). I loved my science classes and I enjoyed my math classes. The only classes in engineering that I really liked were thermodynamics and heat transfer. Fluid mechanics was interesting but my professor really didn't help me understand any of it, anyway, I digress. At this point in my college career I realized that I really like programming. I especially like to program for engineering purposes. I would love to work as a programmer but I feel like most companies wouldn't hire an ME to do programming for them. All of this has led me to consider graduate school. I found a really cool program that I think sounds about right for me:
https://me.ucsb.edu/research/computational-science-engineering
The only problem here is that I would need some kind of funding to actually complete it, as I said, I don't have the money and my parents are working class and do not have the money to support me. In addition, I am not a US citizen - I am a EU-citizen. For personal reasons I would like to stay within the US. So finally after this wall of text I get to my questions:
1. Are there jobs in this area? Does it seem like an area that will grow in the future outside of academia (I'd rather work in industry)?
2. Does anyone know of a similar program at a university where I could perhaps get paid for being a research assistant or TA?
Thank you very much for reading all of this :)!
First a little history:
I have one more year left after this semester until I finally get my BS in Mechanical Engineering. My GPA is 3.7 right now and I've taken all expect 1 of the hardest classes, I predict that I will be somewhere around 3.8 to 3.9 by the time I graduate. But all isn't sunshine and rainbows. I've struggled financially with college - I have to take summer classes to finish before I run out of money. Basically I had to start from scratch, I started college at the age of 22 with some savings from working. Anyway, this means that I won't be able to intern. If I intern I won't have money to finish my BS. I'd have to take time off and I really don't want to (I'm already 26). It has taken me this long because I had to start all the way from Algebra with my mathematics. I'm proud to say that I did very well. Through endless hours of studying I managed to get A's in all of my math classes, all of my physics and chemistry classes and almost all of my engineering classes.
Anyway, sadly it took me this long to realize that I'm really much more passionate about programming than I am about mechanical engineering. I'm bored out of my mind in my design classes. Who could have thought that picking a specific screw and thread count could be such a massive project? I sure didn't, and I sure ain't interested in it. Really I enjoyed my sophomore year the most. My physics professor was absolutely amazing and I looked forward to his classes (I was originally an economics major but his lectures blew my mind and I switched). I loved my science classes and I enjoyed my math classes. The only classes in engineering that I really liked were thermodynamics and heat transfer. Fluid mechanics was interesting but my professor really didn't help me understand any of it, anyway, I digress. At this point in my college career I realized that I really like programming. I especially like to program for engineering purposes. I would love to work as a programmer but I feel like most companies wouldn't hire an ME to do programming for them. All of this has led me to consider graduate school. I found a really cool program that I think sounds about right for me:
https://me.ucsb.edu/research/computational-science-engineering
The only problem here is that I would need some kind of funding to actually complete it, as I said, I don't have the money and my parents are working class and do not have the money to support me. In addition, I am not a US citizen - I am a EU-citizen. For personal reasons I would like to stay within the US. So finally after this wall of text I get to my questions:
1. Are there jobs in this area? Does it seem like an area that will grow in the future outside of academia (I'd rather work in industry)?
2. Does anyone know of a similar program at a university where I could perhaps get paid for being a research assistant or TA?
Thank you very much for reading all of this :)!