Undergraduate Program
Take flight with a minor in aerospace engineering, and position yourself to soar into careers in this fast-growing field.
Our aerospace engineering minor brings you up to speed on some of the unique aspects of the field and complements our majors such as mechanical engineering and optics that give you the deep technical expertise that the aerospace industry needs.
Explore the Field of Aerospace Engineering
Studying aerospace engineering prepares you to design, build, analyze, and work with technology related to air and space travel, and related systems. Aerospace engineers design and improve airplanes, helicopters, rockets, air taxis, satellites, and other technology.
Aerospace is an industry of growth. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that employment of aerospace engineers will grow 6 percent from 2023 to 2033, faster than the average for all occupations. The aerospace industry has emerged as the top destination for our recent alumni from mechanical engineering and other programs, with significant numbers of recent graduates heading for jobs at companies including L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, and Collins Aerospace.
Our faculty have deep expertise in key areas of aerospace engineering including fluid dynamics, optics, structural mechanics, and data science. Receiving hands-on experience in these fields teaches students how machines fly, sensors work, and how to put these together to create innovative aerospace technologies.
Rochester’s aerospace engineering minor is designed to be compatible with many different majors. Here are some of the majors that pair well with a minor:
Develop new materials that can withstand the extreme conditions experienced in space
Develop software, data processing, simulations, and navigation systems to aid flight
Leverage machine learning to aid with controls for aircraft and spacecraft
Create robotics, communications systems, flight controls, and other crucial systems for flight
Design aircraft and spacecraft that can successfully operate under demanding circumstances
Develop sensors, lenses, and navigation components that are crucial for satellites, aircraft, and spacecraft
Predict and explain the fundamental forces of flight and how aircraft and spacecraft will operate
Leading the Way in Aerospace
Dozens of Rochester faculty and alumni contributed to the development of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the largest and most advanced telescope in space. The JWST was designed as a successor to the 30-year-old Hubble Space Telescope and can capture data from as far back in time as 13.5 billion years ago, when galaxies and stars were first forming.
More about Our Work on JWST
The mechanical engineering department at University of Rochester prepared me for a career in aerospace by providing endless hands-on opportunities, professors that pushed me to understand problems deeper, and career help to prepare for interviews. Classes like Fluids Lab, practical projects during Senior Design and the research opportunities prepared me for the fast-paced troubleshooting that I do every day at SpaceX. Finally, at Rochester, I learned how to collaborate with so many people which has been critical in helping me navigate a stressful professional environment.
The mechanical engineering department at Rochester encouraged building a deep theoretical understanding of mechanical systems, which is crucial when tackling engineering research problems from a first-principles perspective. While there, I was able to actively participate in computational fluid dynamics research with Professor Doug Kelley and develop skills which are directly transferable to my current work in computational plasma physics. I was given the freedom to explore relevant research questions the way I saw fit and the opportunities to present my work at conferences and publish in academic journals. Lastly, with the mentorship of Professor Chris Muir, my participation in the Baja SAE club taught me to how to apply my theoretical knowledge in practice, manage complicated projects, and work effectively as part of a larger team. The combination of excellent faculty, coursework, research opportunities, and extra-curricular activities has been immensely valuable to my development as an engineer and scientist and put me in an excellent position to start my PhD.
Given the vastness of the field, in my view a well-lived and well-rounded career in aerospace requires competencies that go well beyond the physics of flight or strength of materials, since product strategy, marketing, supply chains, and geopolitics strongly influence the success of our products. From my Rochester experience, I highlight a couple of key elements in preparing me for my career: 1) a well-rounded summer field school in Ghana that showed that engineering marvels are never detached from history and geopolitics; 2) the responsibility of co-building the Baja car model for the simulation of vehicle dynamics concretized for me the engineering considerations of testing vs modeling; 3) the chance to be a teaching assistant, research assistant, and office assistant was pivotal in preparing me for careers in industry and academia; and 4) classes that united the theoretical and the practical, with the most notable example of Prof. Muir's Senior Design challenge of designing and building a bridge of sticks that would carry the weight of our bodies. It proved the point that models do not capture real world manufacturing and therefore factors of safety are imperative in engineering.
Learn about required and optional courses, how the minor could fit into your course schedule, and how to declare a minor.