Which engineering path should I follow?

[eataei]

How did you find PF?: Google

Hi,
I am very undecided and confused about what engineering path(I don't know if I should say path or field) I should follow, so I am here to get some information about each engineering path. At first, I was interested in biomedical engineering, but then I changed my mind to major in electrical just because my school was not offering biomedical. Now that I decided to transfer to another college, which is a huge college with all of the engineering majors I don't know what exactly I want to do. I don't know what is the best fit for me. FYI I just finished my freshman year, so yeah I am pretty new to this whole STEM world. One thing for sure is that I am not interested in civil or biochemistry engineering although biochemistry is kind of close to biomedical(class curriculum).

I am also thinking about losing some fat and joining military or at least national guards, so I was considering STEM majors that would get me a good job in the military. However, as I said I am still at figuring out stage, which means I might not join the military at all.
Well, here was a summary of why I visited this Web tonight.

 

[fresh_42]

Hello and !

These are difficult questions. If you are not sure what you are really interested in, you might better take some time to figure it out. Latest during your studies some fields should come up which interests you most.

 

[eataei]

Yeah, so I decided to just take 3 classes, which is just 13 credits in the coming fall to have more time to think.

 

[berkeman]

Now that I decided to transfer to another college, which is a huge college with all of the engineering majors I don't know what exactly I want to do.

So it sounds like EE, ME and Biomedical are on the table? What kind of reading have you been doing about these fields? Do you know anybody who works in those fields that you can talk to about their work?

On the ME front, have you done any 3-D printing of projects? Do you like working with your hands on vehicles and mechanical projects? Have you taken metal shop or wood shop in high school?

On the EE front, have you done any personal projects with Arduino or other microcontroller (uC) boards? Do you have any friends who are HAM radio operators that you can talk with? How did your calculus classes go so far in freshman year? Did the Differential Equations class go okay?

On the Biomed front, do you have an interest in biology/physiology and the medical field? You might do some reading about the various medical imaging technologies (X-ray, CAT scan, MRI scan, PET imaging, etc.). There are some pretty amazing capabilities in imaging technologies nowadays.

 

[Jody]

It might be okay for your to be lost during the first two years. Most of the classes are very fundamental physics and mathematics, and so if you changed your mind later I don't think you'll be too far behind.

I changed my major a few times too. I was going to be a mechanical engineer and I changed my mind at the very last second taking a risk on electrical engineering. I didn't do too well in my electromagnetics classes so it wasn't something that I felt like I'd be better at; it was something I wanted to learn more about and improve on, and so you don't necessarily have to pick something you're great at. My GPA was not too great, but I had very little difficulty with work afterwards.

The university I want to it's very popular for bioengineering. I admit I don't know too much about it, but what I did notice is for majors like mine students would be like "I didn't get into Berkeley or UCLA and so I came here" sort of deal, but it was different for bioengineering friends who went elsewhere they were like "Damn, I didn't get into XYZ (arbitrarily fake name the university I was attending)". Students at the university I was attending, though, they definitely had the passion as I saw them in the Engineers for World Health organization. The only dissatisfaction I heard from some of the students is the major is a bit scattered learn a little of everything of other majors and combine it, but maybe it's perfect for scattered people ;) I never took any of their classes so I don't know how it all converges, but they all seem well off from what I can on my social media.