Expert: Paul Soderman - 8/13/2008

Question
Hello Paul,

Currently, I am entering my first year of college on my path to an M.S./M.E. in Aerospace.  I will be attending a junior college for my first year to get my general education requirements out of the way and then continue on to KU to get my M.S./M.E..  My question:  If I were to successfully attain my M.S./M.E. in Aerospace with an average ranking/GPA, what would it take to go into a different field such as Robotics or Electrical engineering assuming that I was not satisfied with what I was doing in an Aerospace field?

Answer
Brock
Aerospace is very close to Mechanical Engineering and it would be fairly easy to move to robotics.  In your studies and work you should be exposed to mechanical system design and analysis, sensors of all types, computer controlled devices, control systems, lasers, data processing, and more that is close to robotics.  At NASA we built simple robots to capture wind tunnel data. You will also learn a lot about electricity, but not nearly as much as a EE major.  For that field, you might have to go back and pick up some courses or even a degree. It depends on your work experience and aptitude for electrical systems.

Good luck.
Paul