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"General" Degrees
- Thread starter Thisguy
- Start date
Different people have different reasons for getting a general engineering degree.....but when i was there most of the people i knew who graduated with Gen. Eng. had started out in other engineering disciplines and had some troubles maintaining their GPA....so general engineering was offered to them as a broader base of study
Is it like an Information Technology major compared to a Computer Science major? We didn't have "general engineering" at my college, so I'm not familiar. The general idea on IT guys were they couldn't "cut it" at CS, so they went IT (obviously not all of them were in that position).
There is no "just go to class" major at the academy. Even English majors will have to take 3 semesters of calc or diffe Q's, 2 semesters of chem, physics, etc. More guys probably get in to trouble there for going in to a major that they believe will be "easy" only to find out that it is not going to be a walk in the park. What they told us is to major in what interests you and that will probably be the easiest major for you. Sure Aero majors may have to take an a@# load of very difficult classes all the way through senior year, but if you have that engineering kind of mind, then it may be easier for YOU than majoring in Poli sci (although an aero major would never admitt this). And as far as oceanography is concerned... that was considered a football player major when I was there...
I think the biggest thing that gets people in trouble is when they say "I like airplanes and being an aero major will look good to the pilot selection boards." Then they realize that they arent really cut out to be an engineer. Many people struggle through, some switch majors, and some quit or get kicked out. Believe it or not I have a few friends that switched from a non-engineering major to an engineering major. All USNA midshipman have those first couple of years of calc, chem, and physics. Some guys excell and discover that they prefer numbers to words. The bottom line is it's all in the person. Unlike civillian schools, which I now have a great deal of knowledge about, there are not majors or classes that you can pass by just showing up every now and then.
I think the biggest thing that gets people in trouble is when they say "I like airplanes and being an aero major will look good to the pilot selection boards." Then they realize that they arent really cut out to be an engineer. Many people struggle through, some switch majors, and some quit or get kicked out. Believe it or not I have a few friends that switched from a non-engineering major to an engineering major. All USNA midshipman have those first couple of years of calc, chem, and physics. Some guys excell and discover that they prefer numbers to words. The bottom line is it's all in the person. Unlike civillian schools, which I now have a great deal of knowledge about, there are not majors or classes that you can pass by just showing up every now and then.
Thisguy
Pain-in-the-dick
xmid said:
I understand that everyone has to take the calc, physics etc, and wasn't trying to cut on english and poli sci. My question from the previous post was asking if general science was taking say Bio I, Chem I, Ocean I, etc, instead of majoring in Chemistry by taking Chem I, II, O Chem, etc.
(offtopic, not about USNA)
Of course I'm bringing the average starting salary down by going the Navy route... but somehow "Student Naval Aviator" sounds cooler than "IT Consultant/Analyst"
Why you gotta hate on the IT/IS/IST guys? Some of us just don't want to spend our lives writing code when we could make the big bucks bumping elbows with executive types. We get a few dropouts from Compsci and Compeng in IST here at Penn State, but they usually can't cut in IST either because they can't handle the business aspects of the major.Fly Navy said:
Of course I'm bringing the average starting salary down by going the Navy route... but somehow "Student Naval Aviator" sounds cooler than "IT Consultant/Analyst"
pennst8 said:
I'm not hating. Read what I said. Obviously not all IT guys are CS can't-hack-its. I realize some of you are there by your own volition, which is A-OK. Shoot, I started out a CS and couldn't stand it. I love programming, but I HATED CS. It was the definition of boring to me. So I went EE... doesn't really make much sense, does it? lol
Cry me a river. I was EE in college.
gaijin6423
Ask me about ninjas!
I started off as an EE major at USNA. Big mistake. My brain housing group's resident skill sets were definitely NOT up to par with that field of study, and I almost failed out. (Think square root club GPA.) I got a second chance though, but as a political science major. I wound up doing fairly well, too. My plebe (freshman) year, there was a huge push for people to seek engineering degrees, which is understandable, considering that USNA is essentially an engineering school. Many people who aren't doing so well in a specific engineering or scientific field are given the nudge towards a general degree, but I one-upped them and went for a humanities major.
Thisguy said:
There are General Engineering Degrees from the USNA and there are General Science degrees. Both cover a broad spectrum of math/science/engineering courses, with no specialization. Neither are an "easy street" program.
USNA only confers Bachelor of Science degrees in the following majors:
Aerospace Engineering
Chemistry
Computer Science
Economics
Electrical Engineering
English
General Engineering
General Science
History
Information Technology
Mathematics
Mechanical Engineering
Naval Architecture
Ocean Engineering
Oceanography
Physics
Political Science
Quantitative Economics
Systems Engineering
Thisguy said:
Think of a general engineering degree as having a minor in mech E, EE, Aero, etc. all rolled in to one. While you may not be taking advanced level of any of them, you are not taking all entry level courses. 16 credit hours first semester plebe year (freshman) is the lowest load you will have your entire time at USNA, save maybe some seniors that are ahead of the game through AP tests, or prior college. Some majors basically require you to take loads in the range of 21-24 credit hours a semester sometimes. This is because of the wide range of courses that midshipman are required to take. That being said general engineering majors will take classes like fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, etc. (not necessarily easy classes). The way I looked at it most USNA grads are recruited to fill executive positions after they get out of the navy, and it seems your degree (to a certain extant) is irrelevant. Obviously this is very dependent on the person, and I think that your degree is what you make of it regardless of what school you went to. The important thing at USNA is to graduate with the grades you need to get the service selection that you want. The next 5-30 years of your life are going to be largely dependent on your grades during those 4 years, so struggling through a "hard" major is not really a wise choice. I know I sort of got away from the point of your post, but hopefully I conveyed the mentality that causes a lot of USNA guys to go for "easier" majors rather than struggle through something they aren't good at.
The Chief said:
Chief, your USNA gouge is usually dead on, but this is slightly inaccurate, or atleast was (maybe your gouge is correct these days). If you earn a General Engineering degree you can get an area of concentration in one of the "main" engineering disciplines. This amounts to you being a few courses short of the degree in the "main" (e.g. aero, mech, EE, etc.) subject. It does not appear on your diploma, but it shows up on your transcript. My point is you can specialize, just not as far as the regular major.