land_of_ice said:
( a B.Sc. in mathematics and physics and an M.A. and Ph.D. in engineering, that is ) ?
When people have multiple degrees do they work on each simultaneously, or do they usually work on one at a time, and do the classes that they took previously ever count towards another degree?
Other people chime in here but I think that getting a Masters in Engineering (and a PhD) require a an accredited undergraduate bachelors in the appropriate engineering. There are graduate courses that may take in majors from other backgrounds but it is not often the case especially when a PhD is involved.
A standard bachelors in engineering is 4 years and a masters is 2 years. I'm not quite sure about the PhD but for physics it can be around 3-5 years (after coursework).
I am currently doing a BSc in mathematics and I can tell you that you will not get the sort of training that an engineer would get. Engineers typically do applied math all the way through so I guess if you had an applied math major that would help. If you majored in statistics you could possibly do telecommunications engineering as a masters but don't quote me on that: a core component of electrical/telecommunications engineering is information theory and statistics especially markovian statistics and applied probability.
Engineers usually take "crash courses" in math. Sometimes they take courses administered by the math faculties and sometimes they take them administered by the engineering faculties. This really depends on the uni and their resources.
If you like math you could consider electrical/telecommunications/computer engineering. There is a lot of shared topics between these three and it is mathematically intensive.
Telecommunications analyzes information so you will have to get to know information theory after you learn about base line electrical and computer physics and science. The math I have heard for engineering can get funky in this disciplinary area.
What I have found in my course is that it takes years to actually do something "useful" in maths. I have taken a few physics courses and I am guessing that engineers learn to apply science a lot earlier than math majors. I think there is two signs to this:
The first one is that math majors are taught to think higher level and that this can be a positive thing when it comes to putting everything in perspective. But engineers tend to get their "feet wet" earlier on and learn to do something "useful" earlier on.
A similar career to an engineer is an actuary. These guys are basically statisticians in insurance companies and banks. There's a lot of jokes about how boring these people are but jokes aside they can command quite attractive salaries and get nice increases in pay as their qualifications grow.
I'm not quite sure what your motivations are for the courses so I've thrown some advice around for you. Hope it helps.
