National Air and Space Museum in Washington

During a childhood visit to the National Air and Space

Museum in Washington, D.C., Margaret Anderson caught the spacetravel

bug. She knew then and there she wanted to work for NASA.

It wasn't just a passing fancy. Now 21, Anderson is a student at the

Rochester Institute of Technology, working simultaneously on her

master's and bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering. And

she's living her dream. Anderson is employed at the space agency

through a student co-op program and is working on hybrid

rockets—experimental power plants that combine solid and liquid

fuel technologies to find a cheaper, safer way into space.

If it sounds counterintuitive that a fledgling rocket scientist is

earning degrees in mechanical engineering, it seemed that way to

Anderson at first. She admits she was initially "disappointed" that

RIT has made aerospace engineering part of its mechanical

engineering program. Now, though, she's "really glad I decided to

do it." Mechanical engineering, she says, has given her a wider

understanding of engineering, and that has helped her grapple with

the myriad issues involved in rocket technology.

Rocket science. Mechanical engineering is all about designing,

building, and maintaining machines of all types and sizes. It's an

engineering classic, dating to the early days of the industrial

revolution, when engineering know-how was needed to harness the

potential of the steam engine. But despite its 19th-century

pedigree, M.E. is today at the heart of many cutting-edge

technologies.

That makes it a hot choice for students. It's by far the most popular

undergraduate degree in engineering; according to the American

Society for Engineering Education, 16,063 undergrad degrees were

awarded in 2006. At the graduate level, it's the third-most-popular

discipline among engineering master's and is back in first place

among doctorates.

Why the demand? M.E. students have to master key elements of

chemical, civil, and electrical engineering, as well as physics and

advanced mathematics, particularly calculus. "The breadth of

mechanical engineering is unique," explains Larry Silverberg, the

associate head of the mechanical and aerospace engineering

program at North Carolina State University. "And, no question,

that's a selling point."

That's particularly true for M.E. students who go to graduate school,

with its focus on a narrow area of study. The broadness of the

degree means they have a wide array of possibilities to choose

from. Traditionally, many mechanical engineers headed for

automotive and aerospace, but energy, robotics, and

bioengineering are growth areas, too, as is nanotechnology—which

is, after all, the manipulation of particles at the nano-level to build

microsize machines.

Silverberg singles out three sectors critical to America's future:

energy, security and defense, and healthcare. "Mechanical

engineering plays a big role in all three of those," he says.

Ewan Pritchard, who is completing his Ph.D. in mechanical

engineering at North