EE Student Seeks Advice on What Area to Focus On for Career in Aerospace

Hello EEWEB,I have just transferred from a community college to Drexel University and will be starting my Junior year in their Electrical Engineering program in September. I am deeply passionate about space and know, with my entire genetic makeup, I want to work in the Aerospace industry. I would like to solicit any advice on what I should chose as my focus? I think my dream jobs would be to work in Launch Operations (as close to Mission Control at NASA as I could get), or to work hands on in a clean room and helping construct a satellite or space telescope. My areas of focus to choose from are as follows:
-Telecommunications and Digital Signals ProcessingThe curriculum includes core courses in electromagnetic propagation, communication devices and media, signal processing, analog and digital communication
-ElectronicsThe electronics area of study constitutes the study of electronic and optical semiconductor devices; analog and digital electronic circuits; and generation, transmission, and reception of information both in optical and microwave frequency ranges and guided or free-space conditions.
-Power and Systems/ControlThese areas of study explores subjects such as modeling, analysis and control of dynamic systems including power systems, planning and optimization, electromechanical energy conversion, motor operation and control, transformers, power electronics, sensors and actuators, and the electrical and economic structure of the power industry.

Any relevant and constructive advice will be greatly appreciated!

Hi Xavier,
I grew up in Philly. In high school, a friend attended a summer class at Drexel and I would sometimes tag along and write programs on their Burroughs B5500 computer using punched cards. They thought I was a student there, so no one asked questions.You've obviously got passion, which is great. My advice is to take classes in all 3 fields and decide which one is more interesting or fun. Then pour yourself into it. One of the things I learned in life is that if you're passionate about something and willing to work hard, things will work out. Basically, don't worry that you picked the wrong field. Pick one you like, go to work, and later, you can always switch to one of the other fields or something completely different if you want. What it requires is desire to learn and passion.
I went into college thinking I'd major in math and physics. I switched to EE and physics. I got a job in semiconductors. After a few years, I switched to system design, then firmware, then application software, then intellectual property, and even dabbled in lots of other non-engineering things. Some people don't want to study and learn new things after college, so they pick one career and stick to it. That's fine. But if you're passionate, and remain so, you can always learn new skills later. And there's no right choice. You pick something and it works out or it doesn't. If it doesn't, don't be afraid to make a change.Best wishes in your studies!
-Bob Zeidman

XavierI concur with Bob. Do what interests you. I graduated 40 years ago, so maybe things have changed, but it always seemed to me that whatever you specialized in was a guarantee that you would not work in that specialization. At ant rate your education’s half life is probably only 5 years (the point where 1/2 your education is obsolete). The point is to leave you open to learn new things, to be able to create new ideas based on the fundamentals that you will learnI came into the space sector via the industrial automation field. And I returned there afterwards, somewhat disappointed. You can read about it here:My Time as a Rocket Scientisthttps://www.embedded.com/my-time-as-a-rocket-scientist/

I concur with Bob and Aubrey: do what interests you. You can get involved with space right now through CubeSat and AMSAT and amateur radio. Investigate Drexel's ham radio club, if the university has one. I recommend you build stuff, to get non-academic practical perspectives.Expect to learn new things. Keep your horizons broad. Having a broad combination of skills means few employers will need all you have to offer, but those employers who do need all your breadth will be very hungry. In my career, employers sought me out. A project that requires intimate integration of skills taught in different university departments, will be starved for engineers with the needed diversity of knowledge. In my case, the rare combination was electromagnetics and small bare-metal calculation-heavy embedded processors.
I spent my career doing work for which I had no formal training, other than high-school calculus and college punched-card and time-sharing FORTRAN and BASIC programming I picked up before I entered the workforce in 1973. I successfully designed analog signal-processing circuitry without using the Laplace Transform. Instead, I used physics and math I had learned from The Radio Amateur's Handbook (now ARRL Handbook). Then, I replaced the analog signal processing with digital signal processing.  Over the years, I continually learned from vendors' data sheets and application notes.

Excellent and decent post. I found this much informative, as to what I was exactly searching for. Thanks for such post and please keep on sharing with us.Thanks a lot for sharing us about this update. Hope you will not get tired on making posts as informative as this. I appreciate your effort and thanks for sharing.The top App Development Dubai provides good service of app development.​​​​​​​

I want to study aeronautical engineering. What are the best schools in the US or Australia that offer such programs? My dream job is Aerospace engineering technician, though I'm already interning at GKN Aerospace (a paid internship), but I can study part-time or online. I'm ready to visit https://writemyessaytoday.net and practice with a tutor to improve my technical writing skills.

I advise you to try to focus on developing programs and systems for School safety because it is a very interesting field, more here. I think this will give you the opportunity to develop in your field, because such systems are very necessary for many areas, especially for schools and colleges, because security is above all. I also think it's interesting as a branch of science.