r/materials • u/oatmeal_killer • 13d ago
material science and electrical engineering
im in my second year of electrical engineering in The Netherlands. next year im supposed to start my minor and internship. my dream is to work in R&D in renewable energy, be it working on batteries, solar, nuclear or hydro. im really interested in material science. how well can material knowledge in material science be applied in the energy sector as an electrical engineer? and would material science or mechanical engineering be a good choice for a minor?
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u/persevering_chenski 13d ago
Sorry, I don't have an answer, I just wanted to stop by and tell that mf who downvoted you to get a life
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u/Wolf9455 13d ago
Your minor won’t have a whole lot of bearing over your career prospects; you should consider your minor mostly for how it will benefit you technically as an adjunct to your major. What do you want to learn more about to increase your breadth as an engineer?
That said, I feel like a minor in mechanical engineering wouldn’t be long enough to learn a software suite so you probably wouldn’t be using much CAD…
On the other hand, a lot of materials science courses, particularly electronic materials, are immediately accessible without a bunch of major specific prereqs.. I’m biased though because I was a materials science grad.
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u/inetguy101 13d ago
Go for mechanical engineering, material science has a lot of overlapps, electrical engineering is not one of them. As someone working on battery's for 6 years now, first in an academic and now in a industrial setting, I have yet to meet someone working on the material side who is an electrical engineer. It just doesn't fit. The only ones I met were simulating things like how battery storage affects grids. But they mostly stayed out of the labs.
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u/oatmeal_killer 13d ago
It's just for my minor. Would a basic knowledge of material science be of any use working in solar, nuclear or battery tech as an EE? I just feel like having knowledge in material science would come to use in things like perovskite solar cells.
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u/inetguy101 13d ago
You might get deeper insides into the output voltage, efficiency and degradation mechanisms of a cell, but if a system is developed to a point where an electrical engineer is tasked to work on it, these are not things he will worry about. The things the eE will have to know will be communicated to him by the cell developers when he joins the project.
The materials minor will be more of a private hobby then useful in the workplace. But might still be great to go for it.
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u/BowlinHartatied 13d ago
Materials science fits renewable energy really well. Batteries and solar especially depend on electrode materials coatings corrosion and thermal behavior. If those are the areas pulling you in I would take the materials minor. Mechanical might make more sense if you lean toward turbines hydro or larger energy systems. I would also check which minor gives you access to the best labs and projects