My son is a 4th year ME at Cal Poly. He was fortunate to bring credit in and has done well, so all he has left after this quarter is the remainder of his senior project. He just officially became a Masters candidate. He likes mechatronics (his undergrad concentration), heat transfer and fluids and isn't certain which area interest him the most. Additionally, Cal Poly is a VERY undergraduate centric school. Unlike graduate focused schools like UCB for instance, CP doesn't really have big ongoing research programs that he could tag onto. There are a few, but all the research is student driven.
The MS is 45 hours. It's a 4+1 so he can dual count 8 towards both his BS and MS. That leaves 37 hours. A thesis counts as 9, leaving 28 course hours, or he can do those hours as coursework forgoing the thesis. He's intrigued by doing a thesis, but isn't dead set on any of the three areas he's still interested in.
Would doing a thesis pigeon hole him into careers in the area of his thesis only?
Is a course only thesis looked down upon for a terminal MS in engineering for a student who has no interest in academia?
Thanks!
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