On Wednesday afternoon, the University’s Society of Automotive Engineers Aero Design Team presented its final projects, but the members are not majoring in aerospace engineering. The University does not offer it as a bachelor’s degree program.
“We’re the flagship college in the state, and I think we should offer the most technical courses possible,” said mechanical engineering senior Aaron McCloud.
In fact, no universities in Louisiana offer an aerospace engineering degree program.
“We are the first to offer an aerospace minor,” said Keith Gonthier, associate professor of mechanical engineering. “Short of getting a degree, this is a really good option.”
Gontheir said the minor, created in 2010, consists of 19 credit hours, including 4000-level courses like aerodynamics, vibrations, jet and rocket propulsion, aircraft design and spacecraft design.
“It is designed for mechanical engineering majors,” Gonthier said. “Aerospace engineering is basically mechanical.”
Some students, however, disagree with this idea.
Joseph Bosley, an aerospace engineering freshman at the University of Alabama, is from the Baton Rouge area. He said he elected not to attend college closer to his home because there is no established aerospace engineering department.
Bosley said when applying to colleges, he quickly learned about Louisiana’s lack of options for his interest in aerospace engineering.
“It really did surprise me because there is a NASA center in New Orleans,” Bosley said. “Once I heard that [the major was not offered], I pretty much started looking out of state.”
Bosley said the program a student attends has a high potential to affect a future career path.
“Companies tend to pay a lot of attention to what program you go to,” Bosley said. “I don’t know how much someone would benefit from minoring in aerospace engineering.”
LSU mechanical engineering senior Anthony Thompson told The Daily Reveille in January he found networking difficult, and major corporations in the aerospace field do not usually visit LSU’s career fairs.
While the University’s minor requires 19 hours of course, Bosley said he estimates taking at least 12 hours each semester of strictly aerospace-related courses.
“It’s important for me to be somewhere that’s on the edge of technology right now,” Bosley said.
Although students like Bosley may be lured out of Louisiana because of the lack of a desirable degree program, Gonthier said the college is not necessarily attempting to compete with programs like those at the University of Alabama.
“We are trying to give our students a good, solid mechanical engineering degree with specialized work in aerospace sciences,” Gonthier said.
Some University students think LSU tries to suit local needs.
“I guess LSU is tailored to more local matters,” said civil engineering senior Vu Le. “LSU does have a petroleum engineering department, and there are a lot of oil refineries on the Gulf Coast.”
Gonthier said many of the college’s students will find work in the oil and gas industry.
“[An aerospace engineering bachelors program] would require additional resources that we just don’t have at the time,” said Gonthier.
McCloud and Gonthier said the college would like to offer core courses, like calculus and physics, with a specific focus in engineering but cannot because of faculty being stretched thin.
“My advisor told me it hasn’t happened because no one’s been able to spend time doing it,” McCloud said.
Although the College of Engineering recently received new funding, including $105 million for a renovation of Patrick F. Taylor Hall approved by the LSU Board of Supervisors in late March, there are no plans to allocate funding toward an upgraded aerospace program.
“If resources continue to come in, one could entertain the notion of a bachelor’s program,” Gonthier said.
“Companies tend to pay a lot of attention to what program you go to. I don’t know how much someone would benefit from minoring in aerospace engineering.”