The world of engineering in academia and industry is an ever changing landscape -- however much like with physics and mathematics, there are still some core topics that stand the test of time.
While unable to provide as detailed and thorough of a treatment as do universities at this time, we aim to provide a fair treatment of what all is out there -- and perhaps do some "semantic" and "genealogical" linking later so that students will not have to be pigeonholed into thinking that one topic belongs to a particular major or another.
Some topics will be unique -- such as aerodynamics, being something that only aerospace/aeronautical engineering majors may learn -- but aerodynamics is a subset of fluid dynamics (studied by a wide variety of majors such as chemical and mechanical engineering students), which itself is a form of continuum mechanics, part of classical mechanical physics.
One advantage of having a network or "branch of life" of topics and fields of study that is major-agnostic will be that students can pick and choose what they wish to study without the fear or perception that doing so deviates from their chosen field -- hopefully this freedom gives rise to new insights and in turn new fields of study.
But there is tremendous merit in mapping these various fields of study and topics onto well characterized majors and academic clans, if not just for historical purposes, but for some practical ones as well -- such as being able to compare and formulate a study plan, and to have confidence that your study plan includes most if not all elements that comprise a typical and accepted-by-the-community degree or course of study.
So what are the typical engineering majors?
Aerospace / Aeronautical / Astronautical Sciences & Engineering
Biological / Biomolecular / Biomedical Sciences & Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering / Environmental Sciences & Engineering
Electrical Engineering / Computer Science & Engineering
Materials Science & Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Nuclear Science & Engineering
Industrial / Systems / Management / Financial Engineering
-- one can immediately see the various overlaps and redundancies in listing out some of the more common engineering disciplines taught at the university level.
These divisions are mostly due to historical reasons, such as the development of different technologies at different times, as with the rise and fall of different industries and also the need to train engineers specific to that industry.
This is why we often see dynamic groupings and ungroupings of several engineering disciplines under one or more umbrella terms. There is arguably some well deserved division between what kind of basic science and branches of maths and physics the emphasis is placed upon, depending on each major.
In later posts we will explore the typical make-up of the common "core" subjects (so, the basics that everyone ends up learning) for each particular major. This post may also be edited for clarity and completeness as well. It will also be worthwhile to explore how different institutions catalog and structure their engineering courses and majors.
While unable to provide as detailed and thorough of a treatment as do universities at this time, we aim to provide a fair treatment of what all is out there -- and perhaps do some "semantic" and "genealogical" linking later so that students will not have to be pigeonholed into thinking that one topic belongs to a particular major or another.
Some topics will be unique -- such as aerodynamics, being something that only aerospace/aeronautical engineering majors may learn -- but aerodynamics is a subset of fluid dynamics (studied by a wide variety of majors such as chemical and mechanical engineering students), which itself is a form of continuum mechanics, part of classical mechanical physics.
One advantage of having a network or "branch of life" of topics and fields of study that is major-agnostic will be that students can pick and choose what they wish to study without the fear or perception that doing so deviates from their chosen field -- hopefully this freedom gives rise to new insights and in turn new fields of study.
But there is tremendous merit in mapping these various fields of study and topics onto well characterized majors and academic clans, if not just for historical purposes, but for some practical ones as well -- such as being able to compare and formulate a study plan, and to have confidence that your study plan includes most if not all elements that comprise a typical and accepted-by-the-community degree or course of study.
So what are the typical engineering majors?
Aerospace / Aeronautical / Astronautical Sciences & Engineering
Biological / Biomolecular / Biomedical Sciences & Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Civil Engineering / Environmental Sciences & Engineering
Electrical Engineering / Computer Science & Engineering
Materials Science & Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Nuclear Science & Engineering
Industrial / Systems / Management / Financial Engineering
-- one can immediately see the various overlaps and redundancies in listing out some of the more common engineering disciplines taught at the university level.
These divisions are mostly due to historical reasons, such as the development of different technologies at different times, as with the rise and fall of different industries and also the need to train engineers specific to that industry.
This is why we often see dynamic groupings and ungroupings of several engineering disciplines under one or more umbrella terms. There is arguably some well deserved division between what kind of basic science and branches of maths and physics the emphasis is placed upon, depending on each major.
In later posts we will explore the typical make-up of the common "core" subjects (so, the basics that everyone ends up learning) for each particular major. This post may also be edited for clarity and completeness as well. It will also be worthwhile to explore how different institutions catalog and structure their engineering courses and majors.
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