Physics/CS DMajor, for a career in Aerospace?

[Alexandros101]

I want to get into Aerospace engineering, so I am thinking of doing:

B.A. in Physics/CS (hopefully if I get accepted in UChicago)
then an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering (hopefully in Stanford/GTech/MIT/CalTech)

Is the double major I am thinking of poor if I want to do an Aero M.S. next?
Would these qualifications give me a good standing in the Aerospace market for jobs in NASA/SpaceX/Boeing...etc?

 

[micromass]

If you want to get into aerospace engineering, why are you doing a BA in physics and computer science?

 

[Alexandros101]

If you want to get into aerospace engineering, why are you doing a BA in physics and computer science?

I think a Physics/CS DMajor will give me some excellent skills and way of thinking that I will find useful once I become an engineer. Programming is essential in aerospace, and physics will provide me with an understanding of various topics, and a creative problem solving method.

Also, not many colleges provide a B.S. in Aerospace (only Stanford, to which I will apply, and MIT. The others are public, so no FA for internationals) and a B.S. in MechEng does not interest me.

Moreover, a Physics/CS Dmajor will pay good money for a couple of years before I get into grad school.

 

[clope023]

I think a Physics/CS DMajor will give me some excellent skills and way of thinking that I will find useful once I become an engineer. Programming is essential in aerospace, and physics will provide me with an understanding of various topics, and a creative problem solving method.

Also, not many colleges provide a B.S. in Aerospace (only Stanford, to which I will apply, and MIT. The others are public, so no FA for internationals) and a B.S. in MechEng does not interest me.

Moreover, a Physics/CS Dmajor will pay good money for a couple of years before I get into grad school.

You know degrees in Aerospace Engineering are basically specialized versions of degrees in Mechanical Engineering, right?

I would think a better double major would be majors in Physics/Aerospace or Physics/ME with a focus on more computationally heavy subjects of the engineering discipline like finite element analysis (FEA) or computational fluid dynamics (CFD), I don't think you need an entire degree in CS to do what will essentially be numerical analysis in engineering (assuming you're not doing things related to data science which would require data structures and such like).

Not that I don't think your original plan wouldn't work but being a Physics/Electrical Engineering graduate myself, I can tell you the physics major grants one expertise in general mathematical modeling of physical problems but depending on your electives a standard physics major would leave you playing catchup on some more aerospace specific subjects like fluids, structures, controls, machine design using CAD software and such like.

I know plenty of people who moved from general degrees like physics and math to more specific ones like nuclear engineering and electrical engineering in grad school, but it's always more advantageous to get experience in the path you want to go to, so definitely do at least some undergrad work in aerospace.

 

[Alexandros101]

Thank you for the advice!