Well im a senior in high school, and ive got 7-8 weeks to pick what university i want to go to. Right now im really interested in 3 totally unrelated things: neuroscience, astrophysics, and electrical engineering in that particular.
Now im not really that interested in money… i mean id like to make at least 50k a year after 6+ years in college, but if making more than that requires waking up and going to a job that i hate, id rather do what i like and make less. Im sure that after a masters in any of those subjects, making more than 50k shouldnt be a problem.
So the questions are, what job could i get if i had a degree in either neuroscience, astrophysics, and electrical engineering? Lets assume that i can get accepted to any school (that would be great…). What universities would you recommend for those specific majors?
Any other suggestions for a kid about to start college applications would be greatly appreciated.
I’m currently at the University of California Santa Cruz, which supposedly has one of the best Astrophysics programs in the world (the reason I’m here). But if you want something more technical you might want a more technical-oriented school.
culov:
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There’s a good chance that your eventual career(s) may have little bearing on your actual choice of major. In my experience, your major won’t start closing off options until your junior year or thereabouts. (Reducing your options is, sadly, the inevitable result of every decision you make, which was a big obsession of mine in college.) Judging from my friends and coworkers, one’s major may have little bearing on one’s eventual career.
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I have a small amount of info regarding your OP: I work in radar software design, and we pay physics, math and EE majors a (very) healthy salary. I don’t think I’m living a dream where “I’d work there even if they didn’t pay me,” but it is pretty nice to be doing something that’s interesting and challenging.
Here’s some good advice:
In your freshman and sophomore years, rent yourself out to grad students or professors or local businesses and get a taste of things. When I was thinking about geology, I ended up going on some weekend excursions with grad students, wandering through the desert carrying stadia rods and finding out that I didn’t really want to wander around the desert carrying stadia rods for a living. Then I did some data reduction for one of the Voyager experiments (when it flew by Saturn!), and it was pretty darn cool. Then I did some wirewrapping for an electronics startup, and though my job was mind-numblingly boring, I did spend time hanging around a real business putting together a product that hadn’t existed before they built it. (If you get goose bumps reading that, engineering might be in your future…) Those experiences helped me figure out what I was interested in. However, at the time, I wasn’t actually following a plan – I just took any job I could find. It’s only in retrospect that it seems to have been a good idea.
Well, you’d probably have to go to grad school to make the kind of money you’re talking about for neuroscience or astrophysics. You could probably combine some elements of neuroscience and electrical engineering, but you may have to find a biomedical engineering program to do it. Electrical engineers at my school (University of Wisconsin) averaged a $52,000 starting salary as undergrads and $64,000 as masters grads. But your mileage may vary.
Head for engineering. Don’t get a masters. (Seriously, don’t. Currently, for ChemE, the average salary goes down with a masters compared to a bachelors.)
If you are into the bioeng side of it with a medical slant, look into U of Pittsburgh. I’m not saying that just because I go there and love it, there’s a huge medical influence and lots of really cutting edge research in neuroscience and biomedical engineering. One of my professors is a doctor who developed a liver transplant something that people fly in from all over the world to have him study/do. Another one does artificial organ research, and pretty sucessfully. (You’ll have to excuse my vagueness, I’m a christian scientist trying to explain complicated medical stuff. Cool biomed stuff goes on here at Pitt, I just don’t pay much attention to it.)
If you want to get more information about Pitt’s engineering, the websites are decent and you can always e-mail me. I’m in ChemE, but I can find the EE floor and go ask questions if you want.