Explore 15 Engineering Degrees out There: What's the Best Fit for You?

Engineering to an outside observer may just seem like one giant profession of people who like math. The reality of the matter is though that within engineering there's a massive breadth of disciplines that are about as different as astronomers and astrologists. 

For example, civil engineers might design bridges or a wastewater treatment system for a large municipality; while electrical engineers might design electricity transmission towers or circuits for a small robotics firm. All the while, each has little ability to do what the other does (unless, of course, they studied that field of engineering too).

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All this means is that if you're looking to become an engineer, you need to spend some time figuring out just what type of engineer you want to become. To do just that, we've compiled a detailed – and alphabetized – list of the most common engineering degrees and even listed some of the subcategories of engineering you can specialize in for each.

Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace engineers work on designing, researching, simulating aircraft. That doesn't just mean planes, that can mean anything from rockets to missiles. If it flies through the air at some point in its design life, chances are an aerospace engineer was involved in the design process.

More specifically, Aerospace engineers will focus in on aerodynamics and aerodynamic principles, like wings, airfoils, properties of lift and drag and more.

Subcategories: Food Security, GMOs, Pesticides, Environmental

Audio Engineering

Audio engineering requires equal parts technology and creative passion. Audio engineers will work on audio equipment, whether in the design process or during operation. Creativity comes into play as audio engineers are often responsible for sound design for films, musicians, or even just electronic devices.

Audio engineering is particularly unique because engineers in this space can be highly technical on the equipment design side of things or highly creative on the audio mastering side of things. 

Subcategories: Acoustics, Audio Mastering, Machine Design

Chemical Engineering

Chemical engineers are responsible for more things around you than you might think. While they are involved in creating things like pesticides and other household chemicals, they also work on developing materials like new plastics, new foods like lab-grown meat, and new medicines or medical treatments as well.

Regardless of the specialty in this field, chemical engineers almost always do the same thing, work with chemicals and chemical equations, it's usually just the desired outcome that changes the materials, food, medicine, etc. 

Subcategories: Biochemical, Ceramics, Nanotechnology

Environmental Engineering

Environmental engineering is a subset of civil engineering that involves a significant focus on environmental stability, water purity, air purity, and reduction of pollution or other hazards. Environmental engineers work to reduce hazardous waste, predict the effects of contaminants and pollution, and manage the proper disposal of chemicals. 

Subcategories: Waste Management, Chemical Management

Materials Science Engineering

Materials Science engineers work to improve or create new materials to bring to the market. That can mean anything from new aluminum alloys for the automotive market all the way to new medical gels that aide in tissue regrowth.

Materials Science Engineers also have a huge part in space and aerospace industry as they can help improve or design the raw materials of different spacecraft.

Subcategories: Consumer Goods, Rocketry, Research

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering is the most common engineering degree and is by far the broadest. In all practicality, around half of the disciplines on this list could be grouped in this field.

This degree will focus on two major things: thermal systems and mechanical systems. If it's supposed to move heat up or cool it down, chances are a mechanical engineer was involved in the creation of it. 

Subcategories: Aerospace, Manufacturing, Thermal Simulation, Automotive

Nuclear Engineering

Nuclear engineering is a fairly integrated field, meaning it requires significant knowledge of different parts of engineering.

Nuclear engineers can work on medical imaging technologies all the way to nuclear reactors. It requires knowledge of mechanical, environmental, chemical, and even electrical engineering principles.  

Subcategories: Medical Imaging, Power Generation, Electronics

Petroleum Engineering

Petroleum engineering focuses in on the extraction and production of hydrocarbon fuels. That's anything from crude oil to natural gas. While this field may not be the most well looked upon in the age of global warming, its still an essential part of modern energy production.

Petroleum engineers will need a good understanding of environmental engineering as well as geotechnical engineering.  

Subcategories: Natural Gas, Pipeline Engineering, Fracking

Software Engineering

Software engineering is the newest of the engineering disciplines and with that, possibly the most unstructured one that is rapidly evolving.

It is vitally important to our modern world and can play a role in any engineering discipline's work. If programming or computers are involved in a device, then a software engineer worked on it at some point.

Subcategories: Computer Programming, Data Storage, Front End/Back End Engineering