Mechanical engineering or Computer science?

Hi
I can’t decide between these two subjects
I have these two careers in mind: Aerospace Engineer or a software engineer.

I feel like I would enjoy the content and what you learn in engineering because I love math and would like to apply science and maths to the real world.
However I don’t know if il like the practical work in engineering and I won’t like doing lab reports.

Now with coding I have an interest in this, after learning how to code using YouTube vids.
I have learnt different programming languages like C, java and other ones like html and css.
How can I have a rough idea if il enjoy CS because there is more to that than coding.

Can someone help me how to decide between these two subjects?
Thank you :smile:

Reply 1

username4750728

Depends on the modules you get but roughly speaking discrete maths, some continuous maths, databases and some machine learning are common in most courses. In my course u also do robotics (but idk if most unis do that) which is more software side of robotics (computer vision, path planning, kinematics) which is quite maths-y.

For software eng stuff maybe learn more about data structures and algorithms.

Reply 2

blackugo

I had this same struggle. One of the deciding factors was that I can do all the software stuff easily at home with pretty much no cost. But the machines you get to work with and the stuff you learn in engineering is not as easy to access at home. On top of that you still get to do programming in Engineering like C or Arudino for the robotics & electronics and then MatLab or some python.

An engineer would find it relevatively easy to land in a software job but the reverse is probably much harder.

Reply 3

blackugo

But yeah I also don't look forward to the lab reports. You could always go for something like engineering mathematics, electronic & information engineering or computer engineering which will give you best of both worlds. There is some design engineering courses or general engineering courses that have a heavy focus on robotics and algorithms. It's really down to the specific modules.

Reply 4

User_3012

Original post by blackugo

Thank you for your response
What course are you studying or planning to study?

Reply 5

blackugo

Original post by User_3012

Thank you for your response
What course are you studying or planning to study?

General engineering is what I'm going to study in October. Avoiding making the hard choices for now. 🤣

Reply 6

User_3012

Original post by blackugo

General engineering is what I'm going to study in October. Avoiding making the hard choices for now. 🤣

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “Avoiding making the hard choices for now" 😂

Reply 7

blackugo

Original post by User_3012

Can you elaborate on what you mean by “Avoiding making the hard choices for now" 😂

I'm not sure which discipline of engineering I like because if never done any of them before. Like I said I had a similar problem to you I didn't know if I wanted to do computer science, or physics/engineering but after looking at the general engineering courses I figured out that this would allow me to get a bit of everything and narrow my choices later. I could still end up doing computer related stuff because you specialise (or continue with general depending on the uni). So basically I don't have to pick which engineering I want to do until 2nd or 3rd year depending on the uni.

If I pick computer science it's a bit harder to do engineering stuff, the closest would be robotics that some courses have and all the top uni's needed further maths a level for computer science whereas it was only a recommendation for general engineering.

Reply 8

blackugo

For reference I do Maths, Physics, Chemistry (shouldve done further maths) and Computer Science (as a private candidate) . I applied for general engineering at Cambridge Warwick and King's and Birmingham then Design Engineering at imperial.