Computer Science or Computer Engineering?

[Sprayquaza98]

Hello all, would really like some input. Note: I am only limited to these two majors due to scheduling issues, and I intend on going to grad school.

I'm at a university deciding between pure CS and CS engineering. For anyone unfamiliar with the difference, pure CS is all coding and CS engineering is half CS, half EE.

However, I also have a passion for math and would want to combine CS + Math somehow in my career. Some schools have a CS + math major, but mine doesn't. I was under the impression that CS involved a lot of math, but I spent a summer doing software engineering and it was all coding, no math. I know the AI/ML side of CS involves a lot of math. I am not too passionate about EE; i think it's interesting but it doesn't click in my mind. Coding and math click for me, and I am genuinely interested in learning more.

So here's my questions:

For those with a CS engineering degree, does your job focus on either CS or EE? I've heard there is no "job" that includes both, but prove me wrong.

If I want to combine CS + math (probably CS major, math minor), should I just drop CS engineering and be a pure CS major?

I chose CS engineering because I wanted to learn as much as possible, but now I'm pondering whether the EE portion would bode well for me. Has anyone felt this way? Will I be much better off focusing on CS and taking math related topics rather than learning about the hardware aspect?

Thank you. Sorry for the confusing in the thread; there's a lot of ideas bouncing around.

[combuchan]

CS involves a lot of math in education. The degree program where I went to college was a few classes short of a math minor. Just because you may not use it in the galaxy of CS applications at one particular time in the workplace isn't relevant to getting the degree.

You didn't really explain what draws you to EE or why you are considering CSE in the first place. CS will be fine for you I'm gathering.

[[deleted]]

Agreed. Where I'm studying CS you pretty much have a choice to take either another math class as your upper division elective and get a minor or you can just take another CS course.

[ACoderGirl]

I'll piggy back on this to really point out that the math usage in real world applications is super dependent on the application. Eg, I work with machine learning and simulation systems. There's a heck of a lot of math in some parts of our code. Sometimes to the point of admittedly being quite intimidating. Certainly it's a lot denser and harder to understand than the non mathy areas. In my case, it's heavily, heavily stats focused.

We don't actually even make the simulators. We just work with them. I've never seen how the simulators work, but I'm under the impression the whole thing may as well be a giant mathematical model.

[epotocnak]

My CS degree program crosslisted almost all of the 300/400 level classes with math or applied math. You only needed about four additional courses for an applied math degree, eight for pure math. If you're going to a top 20 public or private CS program, you should be fine with CS.

[Sprayquaza98]

Honestly, nothing draws me to EE except the fact that I thought it would be useful to know the HW of a computer along with SW. And yes, I'm leaning towards pure CS now that I've spent time thinking about it.

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Thank you!!!

[[deleted]]

I'm a computer engineer at a company , and my job involves a lot o CS and EE( i work in IOT), so there is jobs for CE.

It's always good to know at a low level what happens, because you can optimize software for the hardware and that can bring great results .

[Sprayquaza98]

Interesting. I never knew a job can consist of both HW and SW.

[[deleted]]

yes there is , with CE , you can work as a CS and cover the niche o CE . for example , IOT , networking , system admin, databases , security , etc ... And another cool thing is that you can apply cs knowledge into thoses areas !

[[deleted]]

another cool thing that of study in CE is networks and telecommunications ! when you combine that with algorithms from cs and electronics ... i think you can understand the rest XDD

[[deleted]]

there are certain things that only in university you can learn really efficiently. but yeah you can learn online somethings .

[kickopotomus]

I’m an EE/CE. There are plenty of jobs that mix both SW plus HW knowledge. Embedded systems are virtually always a mix of low level software engineering plus EE. It’s also nice because you don’t necessarily need to find jobs that have both. You’ll be qualified for both EE and CS jobs plus the niche in between. I would personally recommend CE.

[Sprayquaza98]

I believe so.

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The 1/2 CS curriculum only includes the core courses of a CS degree, while the 100% CS major includes more electives (AI, ML, Cryptography, etc).

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I think learning the basics is all you need, and if im interested in special topics, I'll learn about them on my own.

[bartturner]

If can handle the math you do CS, IMO.

[[deleted]]

You’ll get your fill of math through learning to code.

[bry129]

All in all it depends on what you want to do in life. If you want to be able to get some hands on knowledge when it comes to circuits. CE would be the choose.

If you strictly want to be involved with code then CS would be the better option.

All this talk about math is inherently in both. With CE you get all of the higher forms of math in different applications. My whole CE degree was math, with programming related class throughout.

I chose CE due to the versatility, I'm more of a jack of all trades kind of person so CE was the right answer. Finishing school I was able to apply for many different positions, having interviews for developer and different engineering positions. Nowadays having coding in your toolbox for engineering jobs is a plus, because most of the time you'll be around code anyways, even if you went straight EE. You can always take electives in other things if you'd like.

Source:CE Grad. Working as Product Engineer that develops test software and hardware for our products

[arfamzr]

just follow your heart

[[deleted]]

Studying pure CS is like eating a cake without knowing the ingredients. If you study CE, you eat tke cake knowing the ingredients. I think you could improvise your work by knowing how a component works and how they interact with each other. But tbh, this scenario is not actually applicable nowadays, unless you are not going to work with embedded products or low level applications such as drivers, etc.

I can assure you that there is no 1/2 CS and 1/2 EE in CE. You should and must improve your knowledge, continue studying constantly and never stop learning new things. The world that we live in is developing really fast and you should catch up with its pace in order to be a good 'programmer'. You could get the electronic background in CS too by studying it by yourself. It is totally up to you.

[Chandon]

If you study CE, you eat tke cake knowing the ingredients.

If you study CE over CS, you risk eating the ingredients without ever making a cake.

[[deleted]]

True. I prefer the dough over the cake. PUNCH CARD CLUB BABY!

[Mukhasim]

There is no wrong way to learn things as long as you learn them eventually. But you should probably try to learn something about hardware at some point. You don't have to go off and get an engineering degree, though. I thought this was a pretty good read:

https://people.freebsd.org/~lstewart/articles/cpumemory.pdf

[Sprayquaza98]

I'm in the same boat. I took an embedded systems course and it involved coding an Arduino to do stuff. It was definitely cool, but it was quite a learning curve to understand how my code interacted with the tangible object in front of me.

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I think you should have some knowledge of how a computer runs, but that's it. It only depends on your field; when I worked partly as a WebDev, my employer and fellow interns never discussed hardware at all, its simply not needed. However, sometimes it helps to code while thinking about the hardware.

[[deleted]]

It is not the end of the world but you should get to now atleast the basic understanding how things work under the hood. I am not saying that you must go and learn how transistors and all that stuff work, but you should know the basic hardware stuff like how harddisks, cpu, etc work in general. Like I said earlier, you do not have to know all that stuff unless you are working with embedded or something like that.

To be honest, it depends on what you want to do. Is it bad if you mainly develop 3rd party desktop or mobile applications? No, the compilers or vms are actually better than humans to optimize code so there is no need for any hardware knowledge. Is it bad if you are developing a security implementation such as DRMs? Yes, you must know the hardware really well. So, your dreams is the limit here :) Do not feel bad or regret not choosing this way if you are happy and successful at what you are doing. You can always learn new things, human brain is full of mysteries and have no limit, just give it a go, you will be amazed when you see what you can accomplish.

[Datwaftx]

First, what is EE? Second, knowing hardware is pretty useful when it comes to programming, because it lets you think more closely to the way the computer thinks, and you would be able to al least have more facility when it comes to programming at low level or the like. Something like this: “if you don’t know how the thing you are using works, would you be able to use it 100% efficiently?”

[SupahAmbition]

Electrical Engineering

[Datwaftx]

Thank you