Did our first visit at A&M today. My son wants to major in Aerospace engineering, but the engineering acceptance scared him. You get accepted into the school of engineering(but not uner the top 10% program) and then at the end of you fish year you ask to join a particular engineering discipline. Engineers of TexAgs did you have issues getting your first choice in engineering while at A&M?

You should be able to find some statistics on it, but the vast majority of students get into their first choice major. The ones who don't are students who didn't perform well academically as a freshman. In the old system, they brought students in as "lower-level," and then if you didn't perform freshman year, you got forced to change your major (either to an easier engineering major or outside of engineering). Same thing now with starting in general engineering, except the lower performers just go straight into the "easier" engineering major.

Appreciate it. I am not an engineer and did not know how the engineering admissions worked. I perused reddit, thanks for the tip, and got a better idea of how it works and what to expect.

Most get their first choice , however a few majors are more in demand, so they don't. Unfortunately aerospace is one that is competitive only about ~60%. Here are the numbers for 2023.

https://engineering.tamu.edu/_files/_documents/_content-documents/ETAM-2023-placement-outcomes-report-2Aug2023.pdf

If you look at the info Another Doug posted you can see Aero, Computer, Chem and Mechanical are all high demand majors so they become very competitive on GPA/review to get into the programs. The Professors of Practice (POP) group across engineering typically do some sessions in the mid spring called "so it doesn't look like you will get your first choice...now what?" The general theme of most of these sessions is "Just because you didn't get your first choice in *E doesn't mean you can't work in that industry. Most companies have multidisciplinary groups of engineers working on any given project. The Aero folks always talk about the groups they worked in at the big companies where Aeros, ME, EE and IE's all work together on design or redesign of a part/system/plane. The fairly new Environmental Engr degree has been interesting to watch. Civil and Bio & Ag competed to administer it but Civil, as the 800 lb gorilla in size was always going to administer it through their dept. Both departments offer lots of courses that qualify for the major and Bio & Ag has their own separate "Environmental track." Word from the big consulting and land development firms that hire grads from both departments is the Environmental Engrs from Civil have a very deep/strong concentration in water and wastewater while the Bio & Ag Engineers on the Environmental track in their department get a much more diverse exposure to air, soil and water regulations, permitting and remediation. Picking an engineering major based on what industry you want to go into isn't as easy as it used to be since multidisciplinary teams are so much more common today on projects.

Thanks for the further information. I need to talk to him some more about this and see if I can find the true motivation of a teenage boy. He wants to fly in the USAF. I'm not sure if he wants aeronatical engineering because he thinks that will help with flight, if he is actually interested in engineering of any discipline or if he really wants to be an aeronatical engineer.

I work in aerospace related field and the number of engineers who also have a pilots license surprised me. I've had so many co-workers over the years who are pilots, I guess just goes along with aerospace and makes sense as a popular hobby for aerospace and mechanical engineers as well. Flying planes is a very popular hobby for aerospace and mechanical engineers. So I would take his desire to be a pilot as a sign aerospace or mechanical could be a good major for him.

It won't hurt ambitions to be a military pilot.
I actually had a friend at A&M in grad school getting his masters in mechanical engineering who was in the marine corps but super smart and went to fighter pilot training after A&M.

Also, aerospace and mechanical are nearly the same degree except aerospace has more focus on design of things that fly, like propulsion and airfoils/planes/lift. Mechanical is a little more general and fundamental vibrations, thermodynamics, heat transfer, materials, fluids…

Once in the workforce, mechanical engineers do just about everything aerospace engineers do, maybe with the exception in my experience being that most airfoil design is aerospace engineers. I'd say propulsion groups I've seen in general are like 50/50.

Job posts will nearly always say a degree in Aerospace or Mechanical engineering. Just the curriculum and specialization of aerospace major makes them more well suited for some roles, however a Mech-e who had some experience in that through clubs, hobbies, or electives would be qualified too.

I graduated aerospace, if your kid gets As and Bs I would be suprised if they don't get first choice. Also if 2nd choice is mechanical that won't be detrimental in getting an aerospace job, honestly probably easier to get an aerospace job with a mech degree...

Z3phyr said:

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I graduated aerospace, if your kid gets As and Bs I would be suprised if they don't get first choice. Also if 2nd choice is mechanical that won't be detrimental in getting an aerospace job, honestly probably easier to get an aerospace job with a mech degree...

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And if at the time of graduation the aerospace industry is in the tank, a MEEN opens up a lot more opportunities in other fields.

With Top Gun Maverick having been out recently, I would expect Aero majors across the country to be up so it will be more competitive for jobs. Maybe not like after the original movie came out and I think Freshmen enrollment was up 300-400% and it stayed elevated for a few years. Those early 90s classes had harder times getting jobs.