My Discipline

The following is a short explanation of what aerospace engineering is, and what people in the field do.

Mark, David. "NASA, Earth, Outer Space, Aerospace, Technology" 2013 via Pixabay.

Public Domain Dedication License.

1. What do students learn learn in this field?

For the most part, aerospace engineering is focused toward designing air- and space-craft. The two portions overlap quite a bit. At a basic level, aeronautical deals with designs for planes, and how they interact with the air, but I am far more interested in the whole 'not on earth' aspect of astronautical engineering. In either case, students have to learn the physics of whatever kind of model or design they may come across, whether it's for a wing on a plane, or a rocket engine, etc.

2. What do graduates do for work?

Many graduates go to work for large companies like Boeing, which need aeronautical engineers for airplane design and testing. Others can usually find work with NASA or a private space organization, which is what I hope to do.

3. what drew you to this field?

I'm not really sure why I like space so much. It could be that it's just so unknown and alien to every human ever, and full of potential (considering that even if we knew everything about this solar system, which we don't - not even close - we would have explored 1/100000000000 of the star systems in this galaxy, and this galaxy is only 1/100000000000 of the galaxies in the observable universe (not to mention all of the not-as-completely-empty-as-one-might-assume space in between everything).

It might also just be that I played and watched a lot of space-based sci-fi games and shows, where most things are idealized.

4. Exciting people in the field

For me, Harold White and his work are the most exciting thing in the realm of space science. He and his team are working to create warp drives. This is the early stage of the kind of progress necessary if humanity is ever going to travel far beyond the solar system.

Also, there are other exciting things in the field, like Space-x, which is a private, space-faring organization, Mars One, which plans to put humans on Mars (one-way) to form a lasting colony (though actually it's really sketchy at best), as well as some other private organizations.

5. Leading journals

Journal of Aerospace Engineering at the ASCE library (ascelibrary.org)
Aerospace Science and Technology at sciencedirect.com
Progress in Aerospace Sciences at sciencedirect.com

Reflection:

After reading posts from my peers, Iv'e realized that I share a lot of their interests. It worries me because now I am less certain about my personal decision. Or maybe I'll wish later in life that I had gone a different route.

What if 30 years from now, aerospace is at a standstill, and another interesting field like the one Chloe talked about in her blog, or what if it's true that robots will replace us all (like this video says) except for ECE's like Clayton and other people who do the kind of thing he talked about on his blog.
Regardless, I think I have to just stay my course.