<p>Heya, this is a longish post, but it's an easy read. My objectives are to work on bridging the gap between machines and humans, and secondary to that is being able to work in environments more interesting than a cubicle. As such, I looked up some general info on a bunch of majors pertaining to my interests as well as course descriptions and free lecture videos (27 one hour videos in total (vlc 2x speed ftw)) -- I found them all interesting. Here's the majors and their pros/cons (let me know if I missed any potential majors):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>EE/CompE: contains a very fundamental understanding of computing and is hands on in that it deals with circuitry (I've soldered before, and like the idea of robotics). Downside is lots of studying and cubicle jobs.</p></li>
<li><p>BiomE: deals directly with what I want to do. Downside is lack of jobs, and sounds like it could be saved for graduate school.</p></li>
<li><p>CompSci: easier than engineering, deals with AI, and potential for nonconventional or even exotic work environments (if the videos I found are to be believed). Downside is not as hands on/fundamental as EE/CompE, and could end up in a cubicle anyways.</p></li>
<li><p>Neuroscience: easier than everything above, and deals directly with the brain. Downside is lack of jobs, and sounds like it could be saved for graduate school.</p></li>
<li><p>Biology: easier than everything above, and potential for nonconventional or even exotic work environments. Downside is its very broad compared to everything above, and lack of jobs.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I know no one here can pick for me, but I'd just like you guys to fill in the gaps and provide some second opinions on paths that might exist which I'm not aware of. I won't get everything perfect (woohoo for first world problems), but like everyone else, I want to get as many things right as I possibly can.</p>
<p>P.S I do have a lot of other questions pertaining to college and otherwise that a google search or phone conversation with an advisor wouldn't answer I guess I'm asking for a bit of mentoring here. If anyone would be willing to carry on a conversation via pm, email, or otherwise, I'd be more grateful than you could possibly know. Thanks!</p>
<p>All I know is you definitely want to have a marketable skill. I wouldn’t necessarily consider Biology or Neuroscience marketable unless you’re a Pre-Med student or something? But that’s out of my ballpark. </p>
<p>I prefer CompSci, but since you seem to be a hands on, build it kind of guy, I would recommend taking general engineering courses your first year and getting the basics out of the way while getting more in depth with all of them. Try your hand at them all and see where you end up!</p>
<p>I don’t know where people get CS is easier than engineering. CS is only easy on a bad program, I am doing CS and can tell you that it takes 90% of my time and it is not easy. The physics and calculus classes are nothing compared to upper level CS classes. </p>
<p>If your school computer engineering program is a combination of EE and CS. I recommend starting with it because if you find out you dont like CS you can do EE easily and the other way around but if you start are EE or CS, switching to the other is going to be a lot tougher. I recommend EE, CS or CompE over the other two</p>
<p>
Well, I’m currently biased towards EE over everything else, but I was just wondering if someone could provide some alternate majors or an unconventional path for pursuing my goals. </p>
<p>
I might be hopelessly naive, but I’m banking on my merits for making myself marketable regardless of the major I choose. The important thing is my objectives, not the name of my major or following a safe route.</p>
<p>Narrowing my query down a little further, what else is out there? I’ll consider the merits of anything whether it be an unmarketable major or even skipping college altogether in favor of self-study – don’t crucify me just yet, I still think that college offers many resources I wouldn’t otherwise have access to. I’m just trying to get a better feel for the landscape that I’m on.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li>Human Factors Engineering. A third each Comp Sci, Cognitive Science, and Industrial Engineering. Very entertaining, and sure, you aren’t saving lives but you get to work on really cool stuff… You can probably do an undergrad CS and specialize in grad school… I work in a cubicle some time, in my lab, in customer demos, clinics, and all kinds of places.</li>
</ol>
<p>Engineering? You can always do engineering in grad school. Computer science is good but a CS-only major is dull. Let me suggest a major…</p>
<p>Computational Mathematics or the dual (not double) hybrid Applied Math/Computer Science major…THE BEST undergraduate major out there. It include such upper-level Math/CS hybrid courses as numerical analysis, numerical linear algebra, optimization, cryptology and parallel computing.</p>
<p>You can go the mathematician route and have software engineering in your back pocket as a Plan-B. You can also do systems engineering. Both systems and software engineering has always been mentioned for it’s salary-to-stress ratio.</p>
<p>You can always get one of them M.S./M.Eng degrees in Engineering later on for grins and giggles.</p>
<p>:-)</p>
<p>Perhaps you might be interested in Bioinformatics (which typically requires at least an MS degree). There’s a lot of cool work in the field, both research and clinical.</p>
<p>“CompSci: easier than engineering” - Hmm… they are both HARD majors. </p>
<p>Your interest seem a good fit for Franklin Olin College of Engineering. If you have high stats and would not mind a tiny, engineering-only school… check into Olin. <a href=“http://www.olin.edu/[/url]”>http://www.olin.edu/</a></p>
<p>No interest in an EE/CS degree as mentioned above?</p>
<p>@BCEagle91
Thanks for the suggestion, but I’ve settled into the idea of CompE/EE now. I realize that where I work is largely dependent on the effort I put into finding an interesting workplace doing interesting research. I’ll probably second guess myself, but don’t we all?</p>
<p>I have everything I need now regarding major, so I’m going to move on to make another thread for my “mentor” questions. I’m really grateful for the input!</p>
<p>As far as I know, Comp Eng is essentially Computer Science with some more hardware focus. You still do TONS of computer science-y things… hence why I plan to do Computer Eng.</p>