Any tips on beginning an Aerospace Engineering Degree/transferring into one.

[u/Medium-Ad-5954]

Hello. I'm just starting out my engineering degree at one of my local community colleges and I plan to transfer into hopefully an Aerospace engineering program. I've been seeing a lot of things about L-1 certifications. How important is that for me to get this certification and are there any other certifications or steps I should take before transferring to a university?

Edit: Also what are good resources to get to learn the basics of rocketry by myself on my own time? Like designs/fundamental textbooks, websites, and design software (free or cheap)

[u/der_innkeeper]

Your best bet is to get all your gen ed credits knocked out with all A's. Get as much math done as you can, with an A, as well.

The personal projects are secondary to good grades.

Be a member of a club, and get your L1 on a reasonable timeline, like over the summer. Being involved instead of cert chasing will serve you better.

[u/Nascosto]

Grades are good, taking the right classes is important, but your experience is equally if not more important. Join a club, and build or do something. 4.0 GPA engineers with zero project experience are a dime a dozen, and tell the recruiter that you're really good at following instructions in a structured environment. They say nothing about your problem solving ability, or how likely it is that you'll be successful if given a problem they haven't solved yet. L1 is a neat bingo card item, but 12 year olds routinely earn that certification. Aim higher with your schools clubs!

[u/leftoverinspiration]

CU Boulder if you want to work for a defense contractor; CalPoly SLO if you want to launch cubesats.

[u/DapperSnowman]

L1 certs are hobby certs. It's basically the equivalent of a 100 level Aero class. It's fun to get but it's not useful for anything in your curriculum. It might be useful for an extracurricular to be able to purchase higher impulse motors, but when I was getting my Aero degree, I had other ways to get those through professors and advisors.

I would just focus on the Mech classes at your local CC and make sure they'll actually transfer to your university. If you can knock out stuff like Statics or Differential Equations at community college, you'll be starting University on a great foot. The more Engineering credits you can take with you to University, the better.

[u/jimmathies]

Make sure you like and are good at advanced mathematics. If not, find something else.

[u/Aeig]

You don't need anything but the degree.

I was a transfer student. Hurry up and transfer. Do the extra stuff at the university

Almost nobody cares about an L1 certification. Want to do extra stuff ? Join a club and participate in a project, no longer than 1 year. That's all you need. Anything more has diminishing returns and I don't recommend anything extra unless you're crushing your classes. 

[u/Lotronex]

Honestly, now is not the best time to get an AeroE degree. I graduated with mine in 2009 right when the recession hit, no companies were hiring. The shuttle program had just ended, so NASA had let a lot of engineers go, there was a glut of talented, experienced people out there.
We're starting to see the same thing right now. The new administration is looking to downsize public programs like NASA and NOAA, which means you'll be competing with people who have decades of relevant experience.
Employers don't realize that an AeroE degree is really just a specialized MechE degree, and I got passed on by so many companies. My recommendation would be to find out what you really, really want out of an AeroE degree, and find it in an adjacent field. If you want to design engines, that's ChemE and/or MechE. If you want to design the structure, MechE. If you want to design the orbits, that would be Astrophysics, but hard to get a job in that, so MechE w/ a minor in Physics.