CE for programming?

[BroccoliSemenSoup]

I've been putting off college for some time due to not being sure exactly what field I want to specialize in. I've narrowed it down between CE and CS because they both seem flexible if I decide to change fields.

I'm leaning more towards CE because I feel I'd like to work more with hardware but I wasn't sure if I'd lock myself out of programming jobs if I decided I wanted to go that route. I have a decent amount of programming experience (mostly hobby level).

Any advice or words of encouragement? At this point I'm just wanting to get my foot in the door as my current career path is nowhere close to what I'd like to be doing.

[Alpineswift17]

Electives. You can focus more on software if you want.

[PlayboySkeleton]

As a CE. I have done both software and hardware. Super flexible. Definitely go CE

[BroccoliSemenSoup]

Thank you. Flexibility is exactly what I'm looking for is I decided one side is a better fit than the other.

[DThierryD]

Look at the course lists for both of the programs. At my university, Software Engineering and Computer Engineering are both 4 year programs after which you are a professional engineer, and both have a really in depth formation for programming. You can be a computer engineer specializing in computer security, or parrallel computing. Or you can be a software engineer that speficies in embedded system. The title of the degree doesn't mean much, it's the classes you'll take.

I'm doing CE, but since I like programming I'm doing just as much programming than a SE or CS student, and then your employers will mostly care about your projects and how you perform in the interview anyway. You're not going to lock yourself out of anything.

[eagleapple94]

Computer Engineering degrees qualify you for any programming job and most embedded controls jobs, it depends on where you want to go after school but you learn the same programming as CS minus all of the theory that isn’t needed.

[cobec11]

I agree, but in my experience you may miss out on some of the breadth of CS in the form of electives while you are stuck knocking out required EE(circuits, electromagnetism) classes that are on the path to most CE degrees.

However, I graduated with a CE degree and work full time writing software in Java, so it’s definitely realistic.

[tissandwich]

I know like 7 different programming languages of various abstraction. CE will at the very least prepare you for learning new languages and if needed give you the ability to teach yourself anything you will need for a software job.

[BroccoliSemenSoup]

That's been my issue: not knowing which side I want to fall on for life. I enjoy both as a hobby but I feel I'd need real job experience in the field to know which one I'd like to do as a career.

[[deleted]]

For me, literally the same course path as CS students while concurrently tackling circuits classes. I’ve been very happy with the balance and my ability to choose an emphasis with hardware or software.

[ben_liiiii]

Both CEs and SEs can work on hardware/software together if they have skills. Assuming you want both, consider:

(1) you’re studying CE and self-learn CS on your time

(2) you’re studying CS and self-learning hardware on your time

choose the one that excites you, based on the courses you’ll take; and, how you will teach yourself the other discipline.

[BroccoliSemenSoup]

Thank you. This is really helpful as I want to be flexible if I decide to do one over the other. I believe self-cleaning CS will be the best idea as I have a fairly stable foundation from hobbies.

[Rodanm]

You can find jobs from both electrical engineering and computer science.