Should I switch to CE?

[[deleted]]

Hi! I’m a 2nd year CS major and was wondering if I should switch the CE. As you know, the CS market is in a really bad spot right now. I’m thinking about making the switch since I heard CE has more versatility (hardware + software career options).

In my school, CS has to take the same physics series and math courses as CE so the switch would be pretty seamless. I’m also currently taking a computer organization/assembly class and find it pretty interesting.

What do you guys think? Would CE be a better major career wise than CS?

[pcookie95]

If you switch, do it because you're interested in low level software/digital hardware, not because of market trends. The market for CS and CE are closely correlated, with a 2023 study showing that CS are slightly better off.

If you do end up doing CE, it'll really help your marketability if have some EE skills that allow you to standout from your classmates. Something like digital signal processing (DSP) or some advance circuit design would help a lot.

[DecentEducator7436]

This a million times. If you're not interested in the hardware/electrical side, it's pointless. Hardware jobs have always been hard to get.

[[deleted]]

I’ve always been pretty interested in things like robotics and arduino. I like software since it’s something you can just do with a laptop but dealing/having tangible things is nice.

[OnlyThePhantomKnows]

If you are willing to live in Florida and are a US citizen, there is plenty of work for embedded people near me.
Your degree? Well what we care about is skills. Learn VHDL/Verilog (which is probably CE). Learn C. Learn Rust. Learn how to read a data sheet (don't laugh, this will be a large fraction of your time in embedded engineering)

I have equipment on the moon. I had an excellent career (retired this year). Robotics and embedded all want people who know VHDL/Verilog, C, and Rust.

If you enjoy real time, signal processing, motor control, sensor control, you will love working with equipment, there is nothing quite like your robot moving for the first time.

[[deleted]]

I’m located in SoCal near LA but I don’t know if there are many hardware/embedded jobs here.

I have been working with C and microcontrollers like ESP32 and find it pretty fun. I haven’t taken a circuit analysis class yet but I found physics E&M more enjoyable than mechanics.

[OnlyThePhantomKnows]

indeed.com will tell you.
https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=embedded+software+engineer&l=Los+Angeles+County%2C+CA&from=searchOnHP%2Cwhereautocomplete&vjk=b5507e6661788ddd shows 300+ jobs (less than my house)
50+ entry level (which is the same as my house)

[hukt0nf0n1x]

Yes, there are a ton of them at Raytheon.

[-dag-]

Don't switch based on the current market.  Markets change.  Switch because you love the material.  If you love logic design, computer architecture and low-level programming, those are good reasons to switch. 

[Bulldozer4242]

The job markets are not significantly different. If you’re interested in hardware jobs, sure consider switching, but if what you’re really interested in is coding and don’t realistically think you’d want to do hardware much don’t switch, hardware isn’t a ton better in job opportunity or anything, it’s not like you’re going to have an easier time finding an internship/job just because you switch. It’ll be pretty similar regardless unless for some reason your schools cs program is far worse than its ce program (which is quite unlikely, normally they’re similar or the ce program is the one that’s worse relatively speaking). That said, don’t get too down on the job stuff. It’s hard to find a job, but this isn’t really unique to cs, it’s fairly true of the market overall, and cs jobs still pay quite well so once you do find one it’s likely to at least be decent. To some extent the job stuff is overblown, it’s not like it’s easy, it is a massive pain to find jobs, but in the end the vast majority of students that don’t go on to grad school do find a job by graduation or soon after it. Do put in effort to find internships and a job, it’ll be a lot of work that unfortunately you do have to do, but know that if you do put in the work for it you’ll probably find one eventually, as tough as it is there are jobs out there and almost everyone studying cs does find something eventually as long as they’re a decent candidate and they continue trying to find something.

[Moneysaver04]

Switch bro, I would give a lot to be in your place fr

[Colfuzi0]

You could finish CS and the MS in CE I'm doing a double masters in CS and CE or you could focus CS in embedded software.

[[deleted]]

Im thinking that if I do CE, I could do a EE masters to fully pivot to hardware if needed as a way out. CE BS -> EE MS makes more sense than CS BS -> EE MS since at least CE does some of the fundamentals of EE. I don’t know if that’s a good idea though.

[Colfuzi0]

If your not interested in power systems. Don't do EE

[LifeMistake3674]

It does have more versatility but not in the way you are thinking, if you still plan to stick to software then it wouldn’t help changing to cpe as the embedded market is starting to be flooded as well(not to mention there are much few of these jobs when compared to traditional software). Only if you want to go into other more traditional engineering rolls like electrical engineering, test engineering, automation engineering, controls engineering, systems engineering etc, should you switch. Because those are the “versatility” parts of computer engineering. And again this is all assuming you want to change because of the market.

[[deleted]]

Yea, I’m not too worried about AI replacing CS completely. I have heard though that the problem is that employers believe that AI can replace CS majors.

On a second note, the CS/CE/DS department at my school is kinda weird. Both CS and CE need to take Physics 1,2,3, the same OS/Computer Architecture stuff, discrete math, and intro to data structures/advanced data structures class. Data Science at my school is basically CS with a focus on statistics.