Maximizing Your Robotics Career: Choosing the Right Major and Minors

[scooby dooku]

Would it be possible to triple major in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science? I am a sophomore in high school who wants to go into robotics. Due to me doing college courses in high school, I would be able to skip my freshman year in college. Would there be overlap in these majors to make it slightly easier? If this is not a viable plan, how can i combine my interest in these fields? Preferable college would be Georgia Tech.

 

[berkeman]

Would it be possible to triple major in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science? I am a sophomore in high school who wants to go into robotics. Due to me doing college courses in high school, I would be able to skip my freshman year in college. Would there be overlap in these majors to make it slightly easier? If this is not a viable plan, how can i combine my interest in these fields? Preferable college would be Georgia Tech.

Welcome to the PF.

Good job getting a year ahead before you get to university -- that should be a big help.

Depending on the university you go to, they may have a combined EE/CS degree available. That's what my undergrad EE degree was from UC Davis in California. It was a mix of circuits, E&M and advanced software classes, and has served me well in my career. I do mostly hardware design, but also write a lot of my own test and application software.

Doubling up with the ME degree and classes will add some time to your undergraduate degrees, but with the year head-start, it may only take you 5 years to finish the EE/CS + ME double major. You probably need to look more closely at some schools that you would like to attend, to see how they structure those degrees and how different the classes are. For the UC, many of the engineering classes were common for the first 2 years, and then you had to declare your specific major.

Here is the current info page from UC Davis FYI:

https://www.ucdavis.edu/taxonomy/term/19?page=1

 

[Dr.D]

What is possible in principle is not always a good idea. You are looking at a very broad spectrum of classes, and if you want to do this in four or five years, it will be a killer course load. I suspect you will find yourself spread too thin.

 

[donpacino]

Would it be possible to triple major in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science? I am a sophomore in high school who wants to go into robotics. Due to me doing college courses in high school, I would be able to skip my freshman year in college. Would there be overlap in these majors to make it slightly easier? If this is not a viable plan, how can i combine my interest in these fields? Preferable college would be Georgia Tech.

When I took my undergrad, I took my gen eds at my local community college during the summer and winter, to free up elective space during the regular semester.

I'd like to point out that it is sometimes possible to take classes in the other majors and get a concentration or minor in the other engineering disciplines.
Do you want to triple major because you want to be a robotics engineer, or do you want to triple major for other reasons. If your goal is just to be a robotics engineer, then there are better ways to get there than a triple major. Keep in mind that if you double or triple major, it is likely that you will take less electives in each field, therefore you will have less depth.

As an EE, you will have the chances in control courses and such to work on robotics platforms and do software. the same goes for ME and CS. I would recommend doing a double or single major, then getting a masters degree in robotics (often an EE or MEdegree with a concentration in robotics)

 

[scooby dooku]

Would it be better to just double major in ee and me and just teach myself computer science? I don't know how hard computer science really is, but it seems like something I could teach myself. Also, I do want to become a robotics engineer.

 

[Dr.D]

Are you concerned most about what the diploma says (double major in xx and yy) or are you mostly concerned about what you can learn? The value of the diploma fades over the years; the information and learning do not. That is where the value lies.

 

[scooby dooku]

I just want to learn as much as I can. However, I really don't want to spend more than 6-7 years at college.

 

[maughanster]

There is no need to triple major in these three majors to go into robotics. Professionally, you will likely not build a robot by yourself. As part of a team, you will design some part of a robot.

If I were you, I would pick the major that interests me the most, minor in computer science, and then take ONLY the specific classes that interest me/would be useful from the other major.

You are very young, so don't worry too much now. Enjoy your free time while you are young, because you'll never get it back, haha. This just got deep.