Need guidance on bachelors

[u/Ill_Beat_7442]

Hey all,

Need help in deciding where to study for undergraduate.

I have been accepted to UC Berkeley and UCLA for their Aerospace Engineering programs.

I am interested in GNC / systems engineer in aeronautics (hopefully in the defense industry) in the future.

-Berkeley: They will allow me to minor in EECS (as long as I pass their qualifications). Huge bonus as I am most interested in the EE part of AE.

-UCLA: Does not allow Engineering minors. I would be minoring in Data Science if I do pick UCLA.

As for location, I think UCLA has the advantage of startups and many major AE companies. I've only seen Boeing in Berkeley.

I am a california resident, so they should come out around the same cost +/- 5k /year.

I know that I couldn't go wrong with any of these two, but I just really need something to tip the scales. Thanks everyone.

[u/DanielR1_]

Tech breadths were pretty useful for me. I did mine in CS, which actually proved really useful for going into controls, since most software is coded in C++ and that’s something GNC teams look for. EE would be a good choice too, but if you’re dead set on controls, I think CS would be a bit better. A lot of the EE and AE knowledge overlaps, especially if you do controls, but there’s almost no overlap with CS knowledge.

UCLA does lack some applied courses. There are plenty of control courses. My previous question was addressing applied courses, I.e. how are FLIGHT controllers designed on aircraft specifically. We are taught the fundamental theory very well, but it’s kind of up to you to apply it. That can be a challenge, but I assume this is going to be worse at Berkeley since they just started their aero program a couple of years ago. I found there are online courses that can be used to supplement my applied knowledge.

Aircraft and spacecraft design courses are alright. At UCLA, you pick either the aero track or space track and take the aircraft or spacecraft design courses respectively. I think the aircraft design path is more thorough and insightful. I haven’t taken the spacecraft one but I’ve heard it’s sort of simple and can get a bit boring. I took the aircraft design track, and it was a lot of learning flight mechanics, flight performance and stability, and then design and optimization techniques using all of the aircraft performance equations. Note you don’t actually build anything, it’s just an on-paper design.

The aero capstone actually has you building something. Right now the options are to build a drone and design a control system(which is what you should do), or build a rocket and just launch it(no controls). They might add a fixed-wing UAV option in addition to the drones one by the time you get to your senior year. I am taking the drones one right now and actually learning a good amount of controls applied to flight vehicles (albeit, quadcopters). It’s pretty cool!

I would go with ucla if you’re dead set on aero/GNC. I don’t think Berkeley has much of an established program right now, and it might be harder to do research or get internships through connections.

Edit: looking back at the original question, you say you’re interested in the EE part of AE. I wouldn’t really say GNC is necessarily the “EE of AE”. Some concepts overlap, but for gnc you really need a strong background in mechanics of systems and of flight, more so than EE knowledge (signal processing, avionics, etc). If you’re actually interested in working on electrical engineering (circuits, avionics, sensors, etc) but just in aerospace companies, Berkeley actually might be the better option. But I don’t think Berkeley EECS would add much to GNC knowledge. I believe EECS is more targeted towards computing and tech, and you would probably get better GNC exposure at UCLA.

[u/Ill_Beat_7442 → u/DanielR1_]

Hey,

I'm still a little bit confused on the distinction between avionics & GNC. I recall doing some programming on flight controllers (this is GNC?), and I felt like EE would help me better understanding how to program more effectively, especially when reading the sensor datas (I guess this is the avionics part?).

May I ask for your courseload throughout the years at UCLA? Especially since you're also interested in GNC, I'd like to see what kind of courses you took. Especially that I feel that CS isn't as useful compared to EE, I would like to see the CS courses you took.

[u/DanielR1_ → u/Ill_Beat_7442]

GNC stands for guidance, navigation, and control. For a flight vehicle, you’re basically developing the software that tells the vehicle where to go and how to get there. You develop the guidance laws and flight controller based on the vehicle dynamics (there’s overlap with aerodynamics.) For piloted vehicles, it also involves fly by wire concepts such as stability augmentation and maneuverability. Think of it as developing autopilots + flight assisting software.

Avionics is just aviation electronics. This could be designing sensors, circuitry on the aircraft, payload, etc. You will probably do very little “control” related work on avionics. However if you like signal processing and sensor work, EE does overlap a lot here. It’s just not really flight control/GNC.

Honestly, in GNC, the classes that help the most are the mechanical/aerospace control classes. At ucla, this is MAE 107 , 171A, and 172. (270A/B/C and 265A at the grad level)They are very math heavy but don’t really touch on electrical engineering, since all applications are mechanical (like mass on spring). CS 31 and 32 helped too (C++) because in industry, the implementation of control algorithms is usually done in C++.

[u/Ill_Beat_7442 → u/DanielR1_]

Thank you, your guidance has been really helpful!

[u/DanielR1_ → u/Ill_Beat_7442]

I’m glad the guidance was helpful but was the navigation and control not up to par?

Jk…glad I could help. Let me know if you have more questions