Schools Engineering Technology to Engineering graduate school?

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Switching from an engineering technology degree to a graduate program in engineering poses significant challenges, primarily due to the differences in curriculum focus. Engineering technology programs typically emphasize hands-on skills and practical applications, often resulting in less rigorous mathematical training compared to traditional engineering degrees. This lack of theoretical grounding, particularly in advanced mathematics like differential equations, can severely impact a student's preparedness for graduate-level engineering studies. Admissions committees may view applicants from technology backgrounds as less qualified, potentially disqualifying them without additional math coursework or extenuating circumstances. Therefore, prospective students should carefully consider these factors before making a decision.
CaptainAtom1996
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Hello all, a friend of mine is considering switching to an engineering technology degree but still plans to attend graduate school for engineering. This just got me thinking, what would the draw backs be? How easy or hard would it be for someone in a engineering technology program to go to graduate school for engineering? Since the technology programs tend to be more focused on "hands on, rather than theoretical", how would this lack of theoretical backing effect your preparedness for graduate school? Are the undergraduate degrees usually that different in material covered from one another, other than one perhaps being more "cut and dry" than the other? For example: met vs me or eet vs ee, and etc etc. I am not very familiar with the technology programs, so I apologize if my notions are incorrect. Thanks!
 
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Well for one, the technology programs generally have a lot less math, and their versions of core courses therefore feature far less math. This is going to negatively impact preparedness for engineering graduate programs, and pretty substantially, at that. I would imagine that at most programs it would be disqualifying as well without some kind of extenuating circumstances and/or additional math background.
 
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boneh3ad said:
Well for one, the technology programs generally have a lot less math, and their versions of core courses therefore feature far less math. This is going to negatively impact preparedness for engineering graduate programs, and pretty substantially, at that. I would imagine that at most programs it would be disqualifying as well without some kind of extenuating circumstances and/or additional math background.
So in most cases they wouldn't even be able to get into the program to begin with? Something my friend definitely needs to look into then.
 
I mean, I don't make admissions decisions, but if I am looking to hire a graduate student as a professor, someone who never had to take differential equations and whose core classes didn't rely on differential equations is not going to be very high on my list.
 
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Hey, I am Andreas from Germany. I am currently 35 years old and I want to relearn math and physics. This is not one of these regular questions when it comes to this matter. So... I am very realistic about it. I know that there are severe contraints when it comes to selfstudy compared to a regular school and/or university (structure, peers, teachers, learning groups, tests, access to papers and so on) . I will never get a job in this field and I will never be taken serious by "real"...
Yesterday, 9/5/2025, when I was surfing, I found an article The Schwarzschild solution contains three problems, which can be easily solved - Journal of King Saud University - Science ABUNDANCE ESTIMATION IN AN ARID ENVIRONMENT https://jksus.org/the-schwarzschild-solution-contains-three-problems-which-can-be-easily-solved/ that has the derivation of a line element as a corrected version of the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein’s field equation. This article's date received is 2022-11-15...

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