I am planning on attending university next year, and am definetly inclined to physics. I am aware of the marketability of having an engineering degree, so i was thinking of coming to mac to do eng phys. so i have a few questions:

1. should I be thinking about my interests or how i am going to make a living? i am interested in modern theoretical/particle/experimental physics but feel like i will be missing out on learning some of the things i am most interested in when taking my BEng. am i settling?

2. I have never been great with CAD, and i took woodworking a couple of times but didnt think it was anything crazy. from this i can deduce that traditional engineering would not be for me, but how much does design apply to something tied closely to physics like eng phys?

thanks for your time

Originally Posted by DeeNos

I am planning on attending university next year, and am definetly inclined to physics. I am aware of the marketability of having an engineering degree, so i was thinking of coming to mac to do eng phys. so i have a few questions:

1. should I be thinking about my interests or how i am going to make a living? i am interested in modern theoretical/particle/experimental physics but feel like i will be missing out on learning some of the things i am most interested in when taking my BEng. am i settling?

2. I have never been great with CAD, and i took woodworking a couple of times but didnt think it was anything crazy. from this i can deduce that traditional engineering would not be for me, but how much does design apply to something tied closely to physics like eng phys?

thanks for your time

Well, I'm a first year at the moment, but I live off campus and one of the guys in my house is in second year Engineering Physics. From what I understand, they have the hardest math courses in the whole university.

If you like neutrons, bosons electrons and all that crap, then you should probably look into the nuclear engineering physics, which is one of the strands you can specialize into I think. You get to learn how to build cool things like nuclear reactors and large hadron colliders. If you're freaking out about possibly not having high enough marks to get in, don't worry, it's not usually on the top of people's lists from what I hear. Engineering physics has either the smartest people out of all of engineering, or unfortunate ones whose marks weren't high enough to get into any other engineering strands.

In first year you have to take a course in technical drawing and 3D modeling. I have it right now, and it's a bit of a pain in the ass because you aren't allowed to use tools such as rulers. It's all by hand. The 3D modeling stuff is pretty easy though - but then again, that's just me. I like computer stuff better :p. You only have to continue taking courses like this if you go into mechanical engineering or mechantronics I think. It may tie into a few others partially as well. I highly doubt you'll need it for Eng Phys.

The best part is, if it turns out that you do not like engineering physics, and would rather do something else such as normal theoretical physics, it's really easy to switch into the science faculty. Engineers get a lot of options since we have to take a lot of random courses from the science faculties.

I wish I shared an interest in physics like you. It would really motivate me to start studying for my physics test next Friday.

Whatever you choose, good luck!

DeeNos, I highly recommend that you enroll in a program that you are the most interested in! We've already had a 1P03 lecture where an Engineering counselor made it very clear that you should not pick your discipline based on what makes the most money. Chances are you'll end up looking back and wishing you could've done the studies you actually loved.

I'm not really sure why you're placing a difference between Eng. Phys and a B.Eng.... You will obtain a B. Eng. and most likely start working your way into an M. Eng. and PhD with all of the material you can work with if you choose to do Eng. Phys.


Regardless, work at what you want to do and everything else will take care of itself. I would highly recommend that you enroll in first year engineering (all Eng students have a common first year) and attend the career and information panels that McMaster offers throughout the course of the school year for each discipline.

Engineering is more about applying what you learn, whereas science is more about research. I'm not sure which you'd rather be doing, but you should definitely take that into consideration.

However, science and engineering at Mac are both general first years - you take courses from all over the place and the courses tend to overlap as well, so if you decide to switch from one to the other, it's not that difficult at all. I personally would suggest going into engineering first because we have a cooler welcome week (just from the general "meh" consensus from my science friends compared to the "it was AMAZING" from fellow engineers). :D

sjager, eng phys is a discipline like mech or tron. :P

Originally Posted by Iman

Engineering is more about applying what you learn, whereas science is more about research. I'm not sure which you'd rather be doing, but you should definitely take that into consideration.

However, science and engineering at Mac are both general first years - you take courses from all over the place and the courses tend to overlap as well, so if you decide to switch from one to the other, it's not that difficult at all. I personally would suggest going into engineering first because we have a cooler welcome week (just from the general "meh" consensus from my science friends compared to the "it was AMAZING" from fellow engineers).

sjager, eng phys is a discipline like mech or tron.

You also can't forget that Engineers themselves are also cooler that anyone else in pretty much every aspect.

I wanted a degree in Physics too, but a lot of people tell me that engineering is more 'marketable' in the real world.

You should definitely look into Eng Phys. That's why I chose Mac.. (plus, no chemistry involved, if you hate it, like me!)

And it's not one of the popular programs, so it is relatively easy to get into. Although I heard that it has killer Math courses.

Whatever it is, always go by interest, that way when you feel half dead from all the uni work, you can always go back to that dream and reason out with yourself why you're actually doing all this. Trust me, it helps. Good luck!

Job opportunities are more limiting in physics compared to Engineering; Engineering = more versatile. Of course, the knowledge is a bit broad range first year (considering you have things like Chemistry/Design/Progrmaming etc in first year) so it's a bit more requiring in terms of overall knowledge before you get into your specific field of interest second year, but the math in physics = horrifying from what I'm told.

In that, I think engineering was a bit more reasonable, but really, it's up to you bro.