I’ve loved hands on stuff all my life, especially engineering. I love working with computers, electronics, devices, etc. I would like to major in Computer Engineering but want to make sure that is the best option. I took a class on offensive hacking at a college and it was pretty fun. I’m looking at other majors like applied technology or IT management or something. What other computer related jobs are available to me? Thanks
It depends on what you want to do really. Computer Engineering gives you enough EE knowledge to do a hardware engineering job and enough CS knowledge to do a firmware engineering or even software engineering job. I’m the exact same in that I enjoy the hands on part of computers and technology. I found my happy place in embedded systems which is hardware with some code to make the hardware do things.
I’ve never heard of an applied technology major, but IT could be a good fit. IT majors generally tend to go on towards system admin or IT department jobs while computer engineering majors tend towards engineering teams.
My advice, pick a company that you’d like to work for and browse their job postings to see what are the job requirements for positions that sound interesting to you. Or browse LinkedIn/Monster/Indeed to see what job positions pop up for “computer engineering” or “IT management” or whatever and what kinds of backgrounds they require of their applicants. Even for their senior level positions, read the job descriptions and their degree requirements.
@hisllama embedded systems sounds fun what’s that about? I’m looking at CE right now, and some sort of IT.
Embedded systems is basically a mix of EE and CS. So you get to learn about the hardware/physical computers, networking, and some software. http://www.colorado.edu/ecee/graduate-program/degrees/embedded-systems
It is a pretty niche thing since most EE majors don’t want to touch software and most CS majors don’t want to touch hardware. I think it would make you a good fit to be involved with the IoT and connected devices fields which are going to expand over the next few years.
I don’t think there are any embedded systems majors anywhere in the US but it is usually a specialization within an EE/CE major. I took an embedded systems class as an undergrad and specialized in digital systems for my EE/CE degree.
If that isn’t your cup of tea, IT is a very solid place to be as well since everyone is going to need an IT department no matter what technology comes out in the future. There will always have to be someone to manage it.
@hisllama true. I’m considering now either cyber security, IT, computer engineering. Theres only one college I’m looking at that offers the cyber security, the others I’m looking at just have computer science, engineering, and IT.
What does cyber security cover?