Engineering Can I Pursue Engineering and Astrophysics Simultaneously?

[vinetpillai]

Hey guys I'm new to this website. I'm from India and my problem is quite simple.

So I want to do engineering and astrophysics.Both are completely different right?
This may sound dumb but..
Anyway to take up engineering and then specialize in astrophysics or something?
I've searched around the internet a bit and found something interesting under the academics section:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Institute_of_Astrophysics

There's something called integrated mtech ..
I don't understand it properly can somebody explain.
Any insights would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.

 

[jedishrfu]

Welcome to PF!

I looked at the reference you gave and noticed an external link that may answer your question:

http://www.iiap.res.in/intmtech.html

It apparently focuses on the instrumentation used in Astrophysical research which sounds like the ideal mix of engineering and astrophysics since in essence that's what you'd be using to do your research.

 

[vinetpillai]

Nice!
Do you know any foreign universities which offer something similar?
I really don't want to study in India after Btech (undergrad)

 

[jedishrfu]

I'm not sure which universities have explicit programs in this field. Texas A7M seems to have some programs on instrumentation:

http://instrumentation.tamu.edu/

However on another note, the Hubble Space Telescope is celebrating 25 years of discovery and the PBS show NOVA talked about its construction recently.



Wikipedia also has a detailed discussion on its initial problems which you may find interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope

 

[Laura Forczyk]

Why not simply dual-major in both astronomy/astrophysics and some kind of engineering (mechanical, electrical, or computer most usefully)? That would make your skill set very in demand for any kind of astrophysics instrumentation research. Speaking from the astrophysics side, I had to teach myself more of the engineering and hands-on technical skills and I had to informally teach engineers who we hired to help us who had no astro training. To have both skill sets in one person is killer! Dual-majoring would accomplish the same thing as trying to find a very specialized program and it opens up the number of universities that you can apply to. There are also more specialized physics engineering degrees as well.

 

[vinetpillai]

Thank you guys and laura..
How do I do a dual degree again?
Does it mean I got to study astrophysics and engineering separately like 2 completely different courses?
Won't it be hard to do that ?

 

[jedishrfu]

For related degree programs, the course lists often overlap and with a few courses you can bridge two majors.