His original plan was to major in Aerospace Engineering but now he's considering a degree in mathematics. I think this whole time he was told he should be an engineer because he's a wiz at math and science. But he's starting to realize he loves math and from what we've researched a love of math doesn't necessarily equate to a love of engineering.
Ditto my DS, commissioned out of AROTC in 2015.
He was a math whiz who loved Chemistry, so Chem E was a natural major. He abandoned it for Chemistry midway through sophomore year for two reasons:
- He hated it. His strength was problem solving using math and logic. His weakness was problem solving based on rote leaning.
- Chem E and ROTC left no room for electives. In his case, he wanted classes in foreign language (Arabic) and computer science classes.
First, your major has little or nothing to do with what one does for a living in the military.
This was certainly the case with his running mate during his Project Go summer in Kiev. This kid, an AFROTC cadet, was a Russian Language major at Iowa State. He wanted to become and he became a USAF pilot.
My DS, like
@kinnem 's, is a communication's officer in the Army. His CS courses made the academic side of his training much easier than for those without the STEM degrees, but the branch does not require them.
I will tell you what I tell everyone who plots a course for longer than 18 months for their pre-college master of the universe, raised in comfortable circumstances--wishing someone had done the same for me. At 18, most of them know nothing about the world and not much more about themselves. This includes the Eagle Scouts and Varsity Team Captains. These upcoming years are exciting as they discover strengths, weaknesses and passions they never knew they had.
When my DS was the age of yours, I had him finishing up his advanced degree in Chem E, going off to 3M for several years before getting his Harvard MBA. I didn't even know about his ROTC scholarship until right before his HS graduation. Fast forward and he's setting up communications nodes in the middle of the desert and just finished airborne school.
BTW Congratulations on the scholarship and MIT. Those are huge! He has every reason to dream big and you have every reason to be very proud.