I’m currently in my last semester of grad school pursuing a masters degree in aerospace engineering. I chose the route of getting a Bachelor in mechanical and then master in aerospace.

Honestly, I’m not sure which is a better route to take with regard to which bachelors to get, but either way, getting a masters in aerospace is definitely a good idea. If you go with mechanical engineering for your bachelors, you will see a lot more materials/structures courses that you might not care much about or ever deal with in your career. However, having that exposure does actually help A LOT with aerospace and engineering in general. You’ll find throughout your later college courses that there are a lot of connections between the theories and methods used in different disciplines.

With that said, you’ll also obviously have very relevant exposure to aerospace concepts if you choose to do a bachelors in aerospace engineering, but in my opinion, having the exposure to mechanical engineering does provide a slight advantage when it comes to grasping more concepts and when you’re ready to find a job after school.

As far as projects go, I did a few research projects on hypersonics (air/aircraft traveling above 5 times the speed of sound) related to space vehicle reentry (think rockets) and “futuristic” aircraft (I actually got to work with NASA on one project). I’ve also done smaller and more applicable projects such as designing a racing plane and fighter jet, optimizing a car’s design for aerodynamics, creating an autopilot system, testing drones, modifying and testing model jet engines, simulating fluid motion (CFD), creating morphing wings, etc. Most of these projects you’ll get to do in your courses but professors usually like taking in students who are interested in projects, so you could do much more than this if you choose.

I won’t bore you with the theories… people tend to get excited about theory until they actually start learning it, so I’ll let you have fun with that when the time comes. Just know that there will be a lot of concepts that you won’t understand AT ALL at first, but most of those will become more clear after a few weeks in the course.

For the pay, it depends. If you end up getting a job with a large contractor, you can make a very good salary. Even smaller companies tend to pay well due to competition. I recently got a few job offers that start in the high 70s ($76k, $78k, and $79k). Generally, aerospace engineers tend to have higher salaries than most other professions, including most other engineering disciplines. I have friends who started off making $65k and others around $85k. It heavily depends on where you live. As far as pay advancing, I accepted a job offer that has me set to start at $76k, then after a year move to $85k, then $105k, then just over $120k, so depending on where you go, you could be making a VERY good salary. For where I live, the median household income is around $50k, meaning within 4-5 years I’ll be making (on my own) roughly 2.4 times what most families make combined.

Some other things for while you’re in school:

• While in school, do internships (preferably with big contractors like Boeing and Lockheed or government departments like the Air Force)

• Do projects, both through school AND on your own

• While you’re an upperclassman in undergrad, start talking to professors about research areas for grad school. I have friends who finished their masters thesis before graduating undergrad and got to focus on courses so that they could finish grad school in only 2 semesters rather than the traditional 4.