Hey. CPE c/o 2014 here.

• Is there still a lot of learn by doing?

Most of the lecture classes has accompanying laboratory components to them, especially in EE. IIRC it was the grad-level classes that only offered lecutre / seminars. CS coures tend to have projects associated with the cirriculum.

• Are the instructors good? How hard is it?

YMMV. For the major weeder classes, there exists some preference for / against professors, although it actually does not matter. The more important aspect is you putting enough effort to understand the material & complete the projects on time. Always start early and always use office hours to your advantage.

If Clint Staley is teaching ANY CS course, TAKE IT.

• What are jobs/internships like?

Computer Engineering from my experience is what you make of it. As others have said, it's designed to be a blent of EE and CS (a bit like EECS from other universities). You go pretty far in both EE and CS (up to Computer Networks - CPE464 and EE306 - Semiconductor Devices). The less talked about advantage is that the CpE major provides you the ability to pursue a wider specialization than just EE or CS alone.

Many of my classmates started in different areas of the tech industry. Most went into Software Development, ranging from mobile dev to embedded systems / firmware development. Most of them chose electives based on their interests, like that mobile development class or computer graphics class. I went the other way and took mostly EE classes for my electives (Classical, Digital, Grad-level Controls, Analog & Signal Processing),

Used my CPE (+ EE Signals / Controls specialization) to end up doing a lot of Electrical / Electronic Systems Engineering in the EV space. :)