FloydianOne

So right now im a CS major with 3 semesters under my belt, i have taken the entry level courses in scheme(similar to lisp), Java, and C... and a bit of assembly etc. This semester was quite challenging and I think I determined that I dont enjoy programming. I came to this conclusion when I found myself cheating on programming assignments and not really learning anything. I almost started just not caring about class.

Anyways, ive decided that I want to change majors to Computer Engineering. I havent done this yet, but spring semester I think im going to take some of the Intro computer engineering courses.

My question is, what kind of jobs do those who have computer engineering majors have out there? I dont think that I want to become some chip designer or anything like that... what other jobs are there out there?

Thanks for any help...

goddfather40

If you don't like programming then you shouldn't become a computer engineer. A lot of the jobs are straight firmware jobs where you basically just write code for embedded systems. I'm an Electrical Engineer and about 60% of my design time is programming firmware for embedded designs. A Computer Engineer would take on much more complex firmware and more programming.

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FloydianOne

What major would you suggest if these are some things im looking to do:

Software testing (this doenst require programming skill correct?)
Building computers( possibly for other companies, or individuals)
Networking ( hooking up companies networks, perhaps being a tech for an ISP)

littlebighead

I'd say that most computer engineering jobs involve at least some bit of programming. All of my hardware engineering friends do a fair bit of programming, even if it's for microcontrollers.

It sounds like you like computers and technology, but you've been turned off to programming. Is it possible that it's just the environment in your school that has turned you off to programming? I know when I went to school to get my EE+CS degree, it was very competitive. All of my classes were "weeder" classes until I hit upper-division. Unfortunately, school work is not like real life. In real life, we work together, share code, and solve real world problems in the most cost-effective manner. I'd suggest that you reconsider what it is that you don't like about programming. Do you dislike the concept of writing programs to solve problems? Or do you just hate highly stressful, competitve environments where you have to program under pressure?

But if you really, really hate programming but you still love computers, maybe a job in the IT world would be more suitable. Something like an MIS degree. I'm not sure what it's called, but something that, say, would involve getting MCSE-certified. Maybe you should find out what your dream job would be (network administrator, computer technician, etc.) and find out what qualifications you need. You might not need a computer-related degree at all!

If you find that you really just hate computers entirely, then I suggest you get a degree in something you're really interested in. No sense in working in a field you hate for the rest of your life. If you have a real passion for art history or folk dance or ancient Greek literature, maybe you should consider those instead. Even if they don't lead to lucrative jobs, at least your job will be rewarding.

FloydianOne

Thanks man your post really helped...

I think im gonna at least try computer engineering for awhile just to see if I enjoy it more than CS, but I agree with you that it is probably just the environment that Im in... the last course was definatley what turned me off to programming and it is definatley a weeding out course... considered one of the hardest classes one can take at my school, it was in introduction to C and computer architecture.

However what really made me think about changing majors is that the next course I take in my curriculum is a "projects" course... it is pretty much a java based group project course, where there are about 4 huge projects that you must get done with your group. I kinda felt like I just didnt know how to program quite as well as my peers and that when I take this course I will be the anchor that everyone in my group hates..... All cs majors at my school hate this class, I guess I just want to make sure that I really want to be a cs major before I sign up for this class.

I think my dream job would be in the internet industry doing networking type stuff, possibly working for a large company like cisco etc. etc, or even like a large ISP like comcast working in the technology development type field.

Thanks for everyone's help.... I guess im just trying to find myself

goddfather40

That is great advice from littlebighead.

Personally, I just marginally liked programming when I going through some of the basic courses. Then, I took a couple of microcontroller courses and really got interested. Writing code for a micro and then implementing it into a hardware system really is cool to me, as opposed to just writing software apps or something.

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noodles

i'm a senior in computer engineering and interning with the DoD.

going into compE, you're going to be doing things you didn't in CS. you're going to be taking a lot of electricity and electronics classes which might not be your cup of tea. eventually you're going to become very familiar with c and verilog/vhdl.

the jobs you're going to be looking at are, as already mentioned, firmware coding and chip design. some companies, though, expect compEs to be the same as CS. in my internship, i spent the last summer coding java servlets. what you're going to end up doing depends entirely on the people who hire you.

FloydianOne

Do you think that I could get most computer science jobs with a computer engineering degree?

noodles

no, definitely not most. some.

CS tends to focus on higher level languages and commercial application development. while you can do that in some compE programs, thats not what most of your classes will teach you to do.

in CS, you're going to pick up skills on how to network stuff and develop commercial applications with high level programming languages.

in compE, you're going to learn exactly how networks work, down to the level of the logic gates in the chips involved, and how to use assembly and c to program chips, or verilog/vhdl to create chips.

its much easier for a compE to learn a high level language and develop apps than to have a CS learn electricity and electronics to develop stuff like that.

littlebighead

I'm glad to have helped. I can completely relate to your situation. When I was in college, these requirement classes were incredibly competitive. I pulled so many all-nighters. Professors were unsympathetic and quite proud of creating such hell. The department felt that these weeder classes were a good thing because only those that truly deserved to be CS majors could pass this "rite of passage." But I disagree -- I think it unnecessarily turned off a lot of people. I had one very close friend who was so distraught, he dropped out of school entirely. He later went back to school, but to another school that was not so stressful. He still got a software job in the end, and he's much happier. It might not be what I would suggest, but it worked for him.

Those project courses can be tough, but they can also be rewarding. I would suggest that you find good partners early, before even signing up for classes. You may be afraid of being a deadweight, but it doesn't sound like you are one. It sounds more like you lack some confidence. I've worked with deadweights before. They don't lack confidence, they're just lazy. The only deadweights I would have tolerated were pretty girls, but they don't go into CS.

The good thing about a projects class, though, is that it's a little more like real life in the sense that you work with people cooperatively. But it's still not like real life because, unless you work for an aggressive startup, real work isn't supposed to be that stressful. It's also a good way to practice communication skills, which you may not need, but I know a lot of CS majors who lacked very fundamental social skills.

But you really have to ask yourself -- do you like programming? Never mind the project deadlines and midterms. Do you enjoy thinking about problems and coming up with solutions that involve code? Do you, say, dream about prime number algorithms, or fantasize about coding for Martian rovers? Do you get a kick out of writing beautiful, elegant code that solves a very messy problem? The reason why I ask is because there's no real way around it -- if you don't like programming, CS isn't for you. I think you have to like it.

It's good that you're thinking about what a dream job would be like. What is it about networking that you like? Do you get a kick out of designing network topologies? Or manually coding a router table? Or devising strategies to thwart a DDoS attack?

The great thing about a CS degree is that it does open a lot of doors. It would certainly help you land a networking job, or a programming job. So it's good to know what kind of job you want before you think about staying with or abandoning CS.

Best of luck!

littlebighead

That's true -- a lot of the really cool, fun stuff you don't get to tinker with until much later. Personally, I really enjoyed computer graphics classes. I have a very visual mind, so I really liked playing with vectors and matrices, developing different shading algorithms, designing ray tracing programs, etc. But I didn't get there until Junior year, and even then, I had to fulfill the prereq of CS theory, which I didn't enjoy as much.

I also really enjoyed my digital design course, which involved lots of TTL logic. I don't know if they still offer courses that require soldering irons, but it was a blast for me, wiring chips and transistors. Our final project was to design a rudimentary 4-bit CPU, all out of TTL (transistor-transistor-logic) chips! It was a lot of fun.

FloydianOne

Sorry for not replying, I just moved with my family from Atlanta to Knoxville,TN area.

Thanks for all your advice, ive decided to take some computer engineering courses and try to make a decision by next summer.

hilbert25

So I took all of the interesting practical CS courses in college, then moved on to take Computer Engineering course. Computer Engineering is 10x as hard, but far more interesting. I have utmost respect for anyone that actually makes anything in silicon that works as the things people have to deal with nowadays just blow my mind.

That being said, good luck with CE, but if you want to do anything else besides chip design, there's still tons of opportunities. Take the classes that you want, for they might have little to do with what you actually end up doing. I graduated with a CS degree, but I'm currently working as a Systems Engineer, meaning I do all sorts of crap involving everything but hardcore coding or chip design. A little network engineering, testing, integration, etc.

MageB420666

Knoxville area or Knoxville? If your in Knoxville and your family moved to get away from Atlanta traffic, sorry but it's not that much different here. If you do decide to change to compE, I would suggest checking out Tennessee Tech.

And good luck with whatever you decide to do.

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FloydianOne

they moved to Lenoir City... in Tellico Village. Nice house on the lake. Yeah the traffic is pretty bad, ive noticed that you guys have tons of 18 wheelers on 75 around here. Its not quite this bad down in Atlanta... with the trucks that is.

MageB420666

Just wait till you see some of the driving that goes on around here, traffic is at just that right density most of the time to convince people that they can drive like a maniac, when they really can't, you'll see some people doing some incredibly stupid shit.

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Rangsk

I go to UC San Diego, and they might do things differently here, but let me give you my perspective.

I am majoring in CS, going for a BS degree (they also offer a BA degree in CS, but I don't think many people do that), and am in the second quarter of my third year (3 quarters per year), so I've taken a LOT of courses for my major so far. I have a good friend who was a roommate of mine freshman year, and he is a CE major. We took the EXACT same lower division courses, and so far the vast majority of our upper division required courses have been the same. The only difference so far is that CS majors have a choice between a few lower division courses to take to fulfill a certain requirement, which includes a Physics course on relativity and quantum mechanics, while CE majors must take that course. I happened to choose to take that physics course, but I could have chosen to take a Bio or Chem course as well.

Note that I have, as a requirement, taken courses such as computer architecture, where we created a (simple, yet functional) CPU at pretty much the logic-gate level. It also includes a ton of programming courses, mostly C, C++, Java, and some Assembly. As electives I've taken courses on Databases (which included SQL and schema design), and am currently taking an elective in server-side web applications using JSP.

Looking at graduation requirments for CS and CE for my university (http://www.ucsd.edu/catalog/CSE.html), it appears that the only real difference is that CS has more required electives (you can choose what to take out of a huge number of courses), while CE specifies a requirement for specific ECE courses, such as linear systems, electrical circuits and systems, and a few others.

So, if you were going to my university , switching to CE really wouldn't help you, since you'd have to take the same courses as you would if you were a CS major. In fact, CS gives you more choice for what to take.

But, alas, every university is different, so I would look very closely at the graduation requirements of a major before you decide to switch to it.

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noodles

indeed. to put in perspective, as i haven't yet, CE is pretty much somewhere in between CS and EE. some schools focus more on one side or the other, but its usually pretty much in the middle.

rangsk says UC-SD's CE curriculum follows CS up the line until the top, before branching out to make itself unique. my school's follows EE up to the top before branching out. some schools may have a middle path. the point is, you'd have to find out what to expect, as the curriculum tends to vary.

Casdin

If you're lucky you can get a nice management-type job out of college like I did.

Computer Engineering Bachelor's of Engineering. I work for the government, and we oversee contractors in new technology development.

But if you're looking for a more 'get your hands dirty' type of job, I'm not sure. At my school, CompE's didn't get as advanced as CompSci or ElecEng unless they tried to. YMMV depending on the school you go to. But you don't want to shortchange yourself.

Networking/IT jobs rely more on certifications. A degree in either CS/EE/CompE would probably serve as well as any other.

Cisco cert isn't that hard. You could try studying up for that while you're still in school and see how that suits you.

FloydianOne

Where do you go to get certified in Cisco etc. etc.? Ive never really looked into these that much, but I have heard of them. What are the most respected certifications, im looking to get a Networking job or just being an IT guy for a large company someday.

hilbert25

For certs and stuff you can buy a book and some hw and teach youself, otherwise, you gotta pay a lot of $$$ and take a class. Sometimes community colleges or universities offer it for their "extension" classes. Otherwise, you gotta go to a corporate place like Learning Tree or MicroSkills.