College/University Major Help

[KinLM]

Hi!

I desperately need help. I'm 16, which means it's time to start thinking about College/University.

My problem is, I don't know what to major in. I would really like to either:

A) be a race engineer in F1 who helps design cutting edge parts for a winning edge over the competition.

B) be a car designer (like those seen for all of the VGT projects) who designs the cars of tomorrow.


There are so many different majors that I'm very confused as to what to do.

So, do any of you knowledgeable GTP members have suggestions for what my major should be?

Even better, are there any GTP members who know of good colleges/Universities to go to for said degrees?

I believe that Loughborough has a close connection to F1, but I don't know how hard it would be to study at an out of country University like that.


Any feedback is widely appreciated. Thanks.

-KLM

 

[Beeblebrox237]

I think I might be able to help. Grew up in Pittsburgh, currently sitting in a lecture at the University of Leeds, one of the top schools for automotive engineering in the UK. I can't say much for being an international student; I feel more at home here than in America, and my dad grew up in Leeds and attended the uni, and I'm a UK citizen.

I applied to Leeds, Loughborough, Bath, Brunel, and Coventry. They're all good for mechanical and automotive engineering, but Leeds is definitely the best uni as a whole. Coventry is great for automotive degrees, as is Loughborough, but you don't really want to live there from what I've heard. Everything in London is really, really expensive, so that's a mark against Brunel.

If you want to apply to schools in the UK, take as many AP tests as possible. I got a 5 on Physics C: Mechanics, 5 on Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, 4 on French, and 4 on Environmental Geoscience. I also got a 2100 on my SAT and good SAT II scores. They won't look at your transcript. My offers were as follows:

(conditional means I needed to graduate with a certain GPA, unconditional means I was in based on my application, I didn't even have to graduate)

Leeds: unconditional
Bath: conditional
Brunel: conditional
Coventry: conditional
Loughborough: No offer as I had decided not to take the AP BC Calc exam, which they require

The application process is infinitely simpler than any American uni, and it's probably cheaper, too. I'm paying $25,000 a year, and that's about the most you'll ever pay in the UK. It's one application for up to 5 unis through a system called UCAS.


As for degrees, if you want to do the styling of cars, you probably want to get a degree in automotive design, or industrial design. That requires taking lots of art and CAD courses and having a portfolio of work to submit to the uni you apply to.

For Race Engineer, you'll want mechanical or automotive engineering. In fact, quite recently I attended a talk by Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes GP chief race engineer, who graduated form Leeds uni with a degree in mechanical engineering.

The UK is definitely the place to go if you want to get into F1 or motorsport in general. Most of the good mechanical engineering unis have ties to F1, I know that Leeds has a student right now on placement (internship to you) with Red Bull Renault, and they have pretty good ties to Mercedes.


I hope that helps a little bit, I'm happy to answer any questions you have

 

[KinLM]

I think I might be able to help. Grew up in Pittsburgh, currently sitting in a lecture at the University of Leeds, one of the top schools for automotive engineering in the UK. I can't say much for being an international student; I feel more at home here than in America, and my dad grew up in Leeds and attended the uni, and I'm a UK citizen.

I applied to Leeds, Loughborough, Bath, Brunel, and Coventry. They're all good for mechanical and automotive engineering, but Leeds is definitely the best uni as a whole. Coventry is great for automotive degrees, as is Loughborough, but you don't really want to live there from what I've heard. Everything in London is really, really expensive, so that's a mark against Brunel.

If you want to apply to schools in the UK, take as many AP tests as possible. I got a 5 on Physics C: Mechanics, 5 on Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism, 4 on French, and 4 on Environmental Geoscience. I also got a 2100 on my SAT and good SAT II scores. They won't look at your transcript. My offers were as follows:

(conditional means I needed to graduate with a certain GPA, unconditional means I was in based on my application, I didn't even have to graduate)

Leeds: unconditional
Bath: conditional
Brunel: conditional
Coventry: conditional
Loughborough: No offer as I had decided not to take the AP BC Calc exam, which they require

The application process is infinitely simpler than any American uni, and it's probably cheaper, too. I'm paying $25,000 a year, and that's about the most you'll ever pay in the UK. It's one application for up to 5 unis through a system called UCAS.


As for degrees, if you want to do the styling of cars, you probably want to get a degree in automotive design, or industrial design. That requires taking lots of art and CAD courses and having a portfolio of work to submit to the uni you apply to.

For Race Engineer, you'll want mechanical or automotive engineering. In fact, quite recently I attended a talk by Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes GP chief race engineer, who graduated form Leeds uni with a degree in mechanical engineering.

The UK is definitely the place to go if you want to get into F1 or motorsport in general. Most of the good mechanical engineering unis have ties to F1, I know that Leeds has a student right now on placement (internship to you) with Red Bull Renault, and they have pretty good ties to Mercedes.


I hope that helps a little bit, I'm happy to answer any questions you have

Incredibly helpful! Not sure I have many questions as that is very well written, but I do have to ask if you took the PSAT test as a Sophomore, and what your score was on that if you did?

I just took the PSAT as a Sophomore with a score of 201 (apparently equivalent to a 2010 on the SAT). I get to take it again next year, as well as the actual SAT next year.

Oh, and also, what is the SAT II?

EDIT: By the way, extremely impressive scores. Nobody at my whole school got a 2100. I'm very impressed.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

I took the PSATs, but I can't remember my scores. They were, IIRC, above the 90th percentile. I could be wrong, though.

The SAT IIs are just the SAT subject tests. I took one for French, higher maths, and physics. I think I got 640, 770, and 740 respectively.

Thank you. Many of my friends scored higher than me, so I never really thought about it as being that great. I went to a very good high school, I had the benefit of some very good teachers and a great selection of courses to take. For example, my course load during my senior year went as follows:

Honours Linear Algebra
AP BC Calculus
Study hall / Applied Power Technology 1 (?)
English / Lunch
Lunch / English
Electricity and Magnetism
Honours Research into Contemporary America / Health
Honours International Relations / Astronomy

It was hard work, harder than uni, but it was such a good year. So much learning. I'm really glad I had the benefit of all of those advanced courses. Universities in the UK love AP courses, as they are somewhat equivalent to A levels. I applied with 300 "tariff points" because of my AP scores. Tariff points are essentially an easy way to quantify A level results. 300 is pretty good for a UK student, so for an international student I'd imagine it was very good.

I don't know if you've selected courses for next year, but the important ones for me junior year were AP Mechanics, AP Environmental Geosciences (substitute any AP science course here, APEGS was a bit of a waste of time, but I got a good AP test score for a science course out of it, and it was fairly educational), Honours Advanced Precalculus (a grade above honours, unique to that course at my school), and AP French 5 (which likely doesn't apply to you).

 

[Exorcet]

A) be a race engineer in F1 who helps design cutting edge parts for a winning edge over the competition.

B) be a car designer (like those seen for all of the VGT projects) who designs the cars of tomorrow.

Does it have to be F1? And with VGT, do you mean the look or more than that like the technology and design?

Mechanical Engineer and Aero engineering are pretty obvious places to consider. I took the latter. However don't just get hung up on the major. Start planning for internships and activities out of class. In particular look at Formula SAE or any equivalent:

http://students.sae.org/cds/formulaseries/

This is at least as important as classes. It gives you the opportunity to explore on your own and possibly invent, and it's a giant billboard for job recruiters. I spent the summer of my junior year in college running CFD simulations to make 500+ page research logs for FSAE aero design and it basically lead to me getting a job. It also lead to me learning far more than I would have from just going to class.

I think school choice, while important, shouldn't be the deciding the factor unless there is something very specific you want that they offer or you pick a really bad school (don't do that). At the moment search for you interests and then see what school would make a good match.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

Re: Formula SAE - they have that here, too, under the name formula student. I believe Brunel has a very strong team, I've seen and talked with the Leeds team but it's usually something you do as part of your degree for a mark, rather than extracurricular.

 

[RedPartyhat]

I'm assuming you are a HS Sophomore seeing as you just took the PSATS. Junior year in High School is going to be the toughest for you as that is when you are going to take more advanced maths and mechanical classes (depending on your school?) Focus on the SAT and your classes for now, it's bit too early for you to begin looking into Universities. Senior year of High School was a breeze for me because I took most of the important classes I needed in Junior Year. Senior Year is mainly the year you begin looking for colleges or trade schools you wish to attend. I think something you'll need to look into is visiting whichever University you are planning to attend and see which AP classes from High School will be allowed to transfer to University (it's rare but there are few classes that colleges accept from high school). If that class is part of the curriculum for your major, TAKE IT IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL! Also some other factors you want to consider is looking into taking some non-major related courses at a community college. Universities usually require two writing and two history classes as part of a major and you could save some money taking those classes at a community college and taking your core classes at the University.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

@RedPartyhat As I mentioned, I had a different experience because I took some very difficult courses in my senior year, and found it really rewarding. Also, I should mention that in the UK, you get a bachelor's degree in three years, and a master's in four. This is because you take only modules relevant to your course, so for engineering I have no English, no History, just maths, various types of physics, design and manufacture, materials science, and programming. And FYI, they don't let you skip courses with AP tests over here, they're used as an entry requirement, but if you can't take an AP course until the end of senior year you can put down the score you think you'll get, and they'll give you a conditional offer based on you getting certain score(s) on that year's AP test(s), which is how they do it here with A levels.

 

[Danoff]

@KinLM

Mechanical Engineer and Aero engineering are pretty obvious places to consider. I took the latter.

I concur, Aero Engineering and Mechanical engineering are the way to go for car development. I also went with Aero engineering. If you like fluid dynamics "pressure, temperature, viscosity, downforce", maybe Aero is the way to go. If you like structures, materials, thermodynamics, then Mechanical Engineering. Both degrees have a lot of overlap, so if you change your mind after you arrive you can probably transfer from one to the other with almost no loss in credits. My buddy was a mechanical engineer and he designs aircraft.

In the grand scheme of things, engineering is a great undergraduate that won't close any doors for you. If, after 4 years of engineering and some internship experience you still like engineering, I'd recommend getting a master's degree (but not a PhD). Engineering is a great major, and a good career (not the other way around). It will place you solidly in middle class income, with something of a ceiling. If you want to make bank, and you're not totally sold on engineering when you're done with undergraduate, consider business or law. Much more lucrative in the end, and in both cases you can leverage your engineering degree.

 

[phillgt2002]

Sorry to kind-of crush your dreams but in college you may want to start with lower expectations. When I was back in highschool I had high standards on what I wanted to do, like design cars and test F1 cars. I wasn't exactly cut out for that, now you may have a different story. You need to be pretty damn good in math if you want to do anything with the word Engineering in it and math is definitely not my strong point.

I reckon keep looking for things along race engineering or automotive design but if you're still interested in design but can't reach the automotive part of it then go into industrial design or something else along the fields. If I recall correctly, Industrial Design is basically making already existing things better through a new design though. (It'd be better to look that up)

To build up your portfolio definitely take CAD classes or mechanical classes like drafting and such. I did almost 3 things of drafting and architecture classes, I also did some metalworking and woodworking classes but I don't know what use that'd have.

I'm not too sure on engineering colleges in the US that deal with race engineering. You'd probably be good going to one if you find one and go do internships at somewhere like SRT or some place that does race specialty.

Above all, just keep you mind set on one potential major. Letting your mind get flooded with a bunch of options will only hinder what you want to do and will end up with you taking classes that will be useless if you decide to change, and do forget that you have a decent amount of time so thinking of this right now is great.

 

[Danoff]

@KinLM

One other point about engineering, select a school that is highly ranked in the engineering discipline you want to go into. Don't pick a school because it has ties with one ting or another, you never know what will happen after you start and you may change your mind. A school that is generally well respected (especially in your chosen field) is better for you at this point than one that is a pipeline for a specific employer.