<p>Computer Engineering and Computer Science?</p>
<p>Also what is the relative job outlook for both? (on the rise? salaries? etc.)</p>
<p>thanks :)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos267.htm</a></p>
<p>Both are great fields. If you major in CE, you can easily do CS work. I'm an EE and get calls for CS positions. If you're a CS major, it might be hard to jump into CE work (such as circuit design, digital systems design).</p>
<p>CE is more about computers, hardware, things you can hold in your hands. It also includes a good software component.</p>
<p>Computer science should have never been called computer science it should have been called computation science. It's about algorithms, data structures, computation theory, and other (nearly) mathematical topics.</p>
<p>People have given you good answers, but the line is fuzzy. I've seen software engineering, operating system engineering, AI, and machine vision all listed as both computer engineering and computer science. In my current department, CAD, VLSI design, and computer architecture are all considered to be computer science, where they would all be considered ECE at many other institutions. Some places, like my undergrad alma mater, just do a "computer science & engineering" major and don't bother to differentiate. I would look at the curricula of individual schools to see what they consider to be what.</p>
<p>"In my current department, CAD, VLSI design, and computer architecture are all considered to be computer science, where they would all be considered ECE at many other institutions."</p>
<p>Where do you go to school if it's not a huge secret?</p>
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Where do you go to school if it's not a huge secret?
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<p>Tufts. I suspect that some of all of these are part of the ECE department as well (I have not really checked), but they are definitely part of the CS department.</p>
<p>"If you major in CE, you can easily do CS work." This is a very misleading, ignorant, naive, and inaccurate statement. Might as well say, anyone untrained and smart can easily "do CS" ...which doesn't mean you could not "program" if that's all you think CS is (it isn't). "Getting calls" for something is not the same as actually doing it successfully either. I can get calls for "architectural drafting" just because someone sees "computer architecture" on my resume. Anyone can stupidly call you, but proving that you can actually do the job better than anyone else (who would have relevant experience and/or training) is entirely different.</p>
<p>I mean, easily as in it won't be hard for you to break into the field/program. Not "easily" in a sense where it is a piece of cake.</p>
<p>ok, with that definition, I wouldn't know how hard it would be to break into CE from CS. Of course, Electrical Engineers need to be licensed. I don't know about computer or integrated circuit designers.
What kills me is hearing about people who majored in one thing, then want to use their sideline talent as the basis for a career against all those who actually took the time to become real credentialed experts. The world has too many amateurs in CS already.</p>
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Of course, Electrical Engineers need to be licensed.
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<p>Uh, no they don't. I know numerous electrical engineering grads from top schools such as MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. who work for hardware companies like Intel, AMD, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Apple, Cisco, HP, etc. Not a single one of them is 'licensed'. </p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. You CAN get a license as an EE. It may have some resume-boosting value. If you want to do certified electrical engineering work for the state, then you may need a license. Nevertheless, the vast majority of EE's never become licensed, nor do they need to. </p>
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What kills me is hearing about people who majored in one thing, then want to use their sideline talent as the basis for a career against all those who actually took the time to become real credentialed experts. The world has too many amateurs in CS already.
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<p>Uh, exactly what's wrong with that? I don't blame those individuals at all. If anybody is to blame, it is the following 2 parties:</p>
<h1>1) The employers themselves. If employers choose to hire "uncredentialed' people for CS jobs over people who are actually 'credentialed', then why is that the fault of those uncredentialed people? If anybody is to blame, it's the employer itself for not managing their hiring process properly.</h1>
<h1>2) The credentialing process itself. The truth is, many credentialing processes are simply not necessary. Speaking specifically about CS, I know many people with CS degrees who believe that much (probably most) of what they learned for their degree, they didn't really need to know because they never use it. Hence, much of the credentialing process itself is an artificial barrier that employers don't value. Hence, I think blame should be assessed to the credentialing bodies (that is, the schools themselves) for forcing students to waste time learning things they don't really need to know, and hence incurring 'deadweight loss'.</h1>
<p>But in my opinion, I don't think any of these things are to blame, because there is no blame to assess. Let the free market sort itself out. If the credentialing process truly has value, then the market will convey that value through the price signal. </p>
<p>The truth of the matter is, many of the good software developers/engineers don't have degrees in CS. Heck, many of them don't have a bachelor's degree at all, and a few didn't even graduate from high school. They're living proof that you don't need a 'credential' to become an expert. For example, Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project and inventor of GPL, does not hold a CS degree (his degree is in physics). Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Janus Friis (cofounder of Skype), Wayne Rosing (former VP of Engineering at Google), Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web) - none of these guys have CS degrees. Heck, Friis didn't even graduate from high school. </p>
<p>The truth is, computer science/software as both an academic discipline and as an industry would be far poorer without the contributions of these 'uncredentialed' people. I can't imagine telling somebody like Richard Stallman that he shouldn't be developing more GNU software because he isn't "credentialed". I can't imagine telling Tim Berners-Lee that he can't launch the WWW because he isn't "credentialed". </p>
<p>Or consider what Paul Graham said regarding an "uncredentialed" Bill Gates:</p>
<p>*...I can't imagine telling Bill Gates at 19 that he should wait till he graduated to start a company. He'd have told me to get lost. And could I have honestly claimed that he was harming his future-- that he was learning less by working at ground zero of the microcomputer revolution than he would have if he'd been taking classes back at Harvard? No, probably not.</p>
<p>And yes, while it is probably true that you'll learn some valuable things by going to work for an existing company for a couple years before starting your own, you'd learn a thing or two running your own company during that time too.</p>
<p>The advice about going to work for someone else would get an even colder reception from the 19 year old Bill Gates. So I'm supposed to finish college, then go work for another company for two years, and then I can start my own? I have to wait till I'm 23? That's four years. That's more than twenty percent of my life so far. Plus in four years it will be way too late to make money writing a Basic interpreter for the Altair.</p>
<p>And he'd be right. The Apple II was launched just two years later. In fact, if Bill had finished college and gone to work for another company as we're suggesting, he might well have gone to work for Apple. And while that would probably have been better for all of us, it wouldn't have been better for him.*</p>
<p>Hiring</a> is Obsolete</p>
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<p>Sakky - Another point about this while we are on topic, the whole notion that a bachelor's degree somehow makes you an expert is completely flawed in itself. The hiring process is far too subjective for mrego's statement to hold any truth.</p>
<p>An employer hires the candidate who he feels is most likely to do his job, and do it well. A degree is just a piece of paper, why would a hiring manager hire someone with a CS degree over someone with a CE degree, if the CE candidate comes off as the most capable of doing the job. There is a whole lot more to landing a good position than a piece of paper from a university, there are other factors that hold far more weight, respectively.</p>
<p>do computer engineers have job security? will they able to depend on having a job throughout their career?</p>