Conversation with Selahattin Pamuk - Explore Engineering

Hello everyone! As I am aware, I know that many of you guys are interested in engineering, but it can be pretty tough when you first start out researching this major. That is why today, I would like to bring here a conversation that I have had with Selahattin Pamuk, who is currently a student at Istanbul Technical University in Istanbul, Türkiye. As the purpose of this conversation is to aid students in the first steps of researching for the engineering major, it will be a very concise conversation (relative to those I’ve conducted in the past) so that you can get the idea right away. Note that some parts of this conversation have been slightly altered (the questions I “asked” here have been changed so there is a smoother continuity between the questions and the answers), yet the content stays the same, so I hope you can gain something from this, especially for those wanting to start out with this major but don’t know where to start yet. Alright, let’s start right away!

- What do you think I should be aware of when starting out as an engineering major?

- Actually it depends on which engineering because there are plenty of working areas for engineering. For example, I'm an industrial engineering student. My field is more likely about production, logistics, etc. but if you wanna be a computer engineer, it is a completely different area. But in all engineering departments, you have to have good math and physics (skills) mostly. If you wanna study university physics lessons you can do it from the book named University Physics with Modern Physics by Freedman.

- I understand math and physics quite well, but don’t know if engineering is completely different or not (from those subjects).

- Yeah it is completely different but math and physics are the basics of it - they are tools for engineering actually. For example you will learn thermodynamics in mechanical engineering, you have to be good at physics for that.

- Do you use any external sources to learn more about engineering?

- Yeah, for each lesson we have different books but you need to decide which engineering you want first.

After this conversation, I have searched about the field of engineering and it turns out there are many types of engineering. Look at this list, research each of these majors, and decide what is something that aligns with your interest! Credit goes to https://typesofengineeringdegrees.org/ (40 types are mentioned but I only mention 25 here)

Architectural Engineering

Civil Engineering

Computer Engineering

Engineering Management

Environmental Engineering

Software Engineering

Structural Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Electrical Engineering

Biomedical Engineering

Chemical Engineering

Geotechnical Engineering

Aerospace Engineering

Automotive Engineering

Industrial Engineering

Materials Science Engineering

Mining Engineering

Marine Engineering

Nuclear Engineering

Petroleum Engineering

Robotics Engineering

Mechatronics Engineering

Photonics Engineering

Nanotechnology Engineering

Sustainability Design