I wrote a
fairly long post a while back about going into engineering. It may not exactly apply 100% to your situation right now, but may give you an idea of what you are more interested in doing.
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@Crash, I'm still sort of figuring that out myself, but I would have to say at least at this point I am probably leaning more towards just working on cars...I was never much of a science guy in school and while i believe I'm intelligent enough to learn it if I was really passionate about it...I don't want to jump straight into an extensive engineering path if I'm not sure developing new technologies is for me.
Unfortunately, the only way to know for sure if you like anything or not is to do it first hand. With that said, if there's some program or thing out there that allows you some hands on experience, it may be a good way to get a taste of it without committing to it. Otherwise, there are certain propensities that indicate that you may like engineering more than others.
Otherwise, you wouldn't need an automotive engineering or an engineering degree at all to open and run a tuning shop, though it would help you better understand how to extract more out of a car.
Basically, they won't teach you about diesels in cars, and they might be a bit behind the times, though likely not a lot. Think GM/Chrysler/Ford Engineering rather than BMW/MB/JLR engineering. Not at all bad, and you'll still be very employable, but your education might not be quite as diverse.
I'm sorry, but this is a load of tripe.
Four stroke diesel and gasoline internal combustion engines operate the same way fundamentally. They both mix air with fuel in a combustion chamber, and have an external heat source to provide the energy needed to cause an explosion (in the case of gasoline engines, a spark plug; in the case of diesel engines, compression of the fluid by the piston). They both use the same basic laws of thermodynamics to have that spark. They are merely slightly different methods and applications of the same theory.
In a bachelor level engineering degree, they teach you the fundamentals of engineering, and then you apply it to specific applications. You use physics and chemistry to describe phenomena, which is then written in equations. You then take those equations and apply it to the problem in order to find out what the theoretical answer would be. You learn about how materials behave when force is applied to it, or how a flowing fluid behaves when met with an object, or what the application of energy would do to a system. They don't teach you, "this is how a diesel works and this is how a gasoline engine works;" they teach you: "this is how the basic laws governing combustion works, and in this system (diesel), these inputs slightly differ from the inputs in this other system (gasoline), now calculate what happens if you change 'x' in both systems"
By the way, the "best" engine designers are typically senior engineers with loads of experience designing engines, at which point you have so much real world experience your first degree really going to determine what you do and don't know anymore. When you first get out of college and start a job, you'll likely work on a team, under the supervision of a senior engineer, and you'll be learning many of the details and intricacies that they never taught you in engineering school.
Personal Note: That American automotive engineering is inferior is my opinion and it is quite biased. I feel that American cars are generally, though not always, inferior to their foreign competition, and that the engineering is not as good. Kettering works closely with GM, as they were once GM Institute of Technology, as well as Chrysler and Ford. I think that this weakens them.
Different perspective. Engineering is finding the solution to a given problem set, which of course, requires the problem set to be defined. American car companies have framed the problem of how to build a car that sells well differently than the Europeans and Asians in the past couple of decades. American car companies have framed that problem incorrectly, so they designed and built cars that people ended up not liking.
It's not necessarily their engineering is bad, or that there's no ingenuity in America. It's that the business people just decided that there's no need to push the boundaries, and that what they have is good enough. The business people in charge made the wrong decisions, and the companies have been paying for it for the past couple of decades.
In the UK, by the way, you apply directly to the course you want to take, so you know straight away what you're doing. I like this because I knew I was doing automotive engineering, whereas in an American school you generally won't know if they offer something that specialised. Also, it means that from first year you take only engineering courses, so there's no mucking about with, say, English.
When you apply to universities, you can see what degree programs are offered, it's not like universities hide that from you until the first day of class Freshman year.
Also, I'm glad that they make you take English classes and other general education requirements. You have no idea how many engineers out there can't communicate at all, or know very little about how the world works beyond their engineering specialty.
In terms of cost, it really depends on what country you're interested in studying in. I My parents are paying roughly $24,000 a year, but that's as an international student on an advanced course. Pricey, but still cheaper than most American schools.
Most state schools are cheaper than that, and there are plenty of good state schools with good engineering programs.
Finally, one thing to consider is that if you come to Europe, prepare to drink alcohol. I hadn't had a drop of it in my life until 12 days ago (and intended to stay away from booze), and I've already had vodka, tequila, cider, beer, and some chocolatey orange drink which was utterly delicious. It's a way of life here, so be warned. That was the biggest shock for me, though now I enjoy it.
That's not just a European thing; that's a college thing. Even in the US, after a couple of days, you can get white girl wasted with your dorm mates and such every night if you want.
Yes, alcohol is more readily accessible in Europe because of the difference in drinking age, but let's be honest, that hasn't stopped any US college kids that want to drink.
Basically if you want to work in the American automotive industry you need to get a degree at a Southeast Michigan university and get hooked up with an internship at one of auto companies or an automotive supplier as soon as possible. It comes down to who you know though and really finding someone to know in Southeast Michigan is about the easiest thing in the world.
Internships are going to be one of the best ways to get your foot in the door. Michigan and Midwest schools have an advantage since a lot of car companies go recruit there, but if you're a good enough student and show enough passion, you can make it into the industry even going to a school now in that area.
But, if you want to design rotaries, you'll probably have to work for Mazda, which may mean you would need to learn Japanese and go work over in Japan. But then again, your interests may not even require you to go for an engineering degree, making this moot.
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Let me go on and clarify that automotive engineering is merely a specialty that combines various engineering disciplines into a course set that gives you exposure to all the various stuff that goes into engineering a complete car. Even within automotive engineering, you would have to choose a specialty or two that focuses on a couple of things, whether that be structures, or combustion, or aerodynamics, or electrical, or manufacturing, or kinematics, or whatever.
In the US, I've noticed that most schools offer a mechanical, electrical, material science, aerospace, etc. engineering degree, then you can choose specialties within those. These specialties may have automotive applications, and you can make them into automotive related, but they will be broad enough that you'll also have exposure to how these specialties relate to other fields and how they can be applied.
Just because you didn't do automotive engineering, it absolutely does not mean that you cannot and will not ever work in the automotive industry.
