Computer Science vs EE vs Computer Engineering

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hi Everyone,</p>

<p>I'm not sure if this has been addressed before but I wanted to know the basic differences between these three majors. I'm trying to choose between them and was hoping you guys could expand a little bit on the career opportunities, difference in course material, difficulty of the subjects and so on. </p>

<p>Right now, I'm leaning towards CS or possibly Computer engineering but my dad seems to think that EE teaches a broader range of topics and is more useful in the long term. He seems to think that CS knowledge can be gained easily while EE courses have to be taught in a classroom setting to be fully understood.</p>

<p>Also are the job markets for these two majors comparable?</p>

<p>Thanks for your help in clarifying all this.
:)</p>

2

<p>EE is probably the most difficult (at least at my school), and is the most broad. I agree with your dad, that an EE degree is the most useful.</p>

<p>However, it depends what you want to do. Do you want to write code, or do you want to be an engineer?</p>

<p>You could easily get a job as a computer engineer with a degree in EE, especially if you choose your electives correctly.</p>

3

<p>Computer science is the study of computer software such as networking, software engineering, A.I., database, programming, computer security, graphics etc. Anyhow, it mainly focus on software. </p>

<p>This explains it more in detail: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_science&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Computer engineering is a mixture of computer science and electrical engineering. You will learn software development, operation systems in this field, but not as much software tasks as a computer science major. Moreover, you will be exposed to more hardware and electrical engineering courses than a CS major. </p>

<p>Info: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_engineering%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_engineering&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Electrical engineering main focus on electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. In other words, you will be studying hardware a lot more and little or not computer software. </p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Because your are double majoring, I recommend in CS and EE because this will not only broaden your career opportunities, but also expose you to more hardware and software applications. Thus, if you know EE, you shouldn't have a problem understanding computer hardware and you shouldn't have a problem either understanding the software if you took CS.</p>

<p>Some people also are confused about what electronics engineering is and how it differs from electrical engineering. </p>

<p>This explains it thoroughly what EE, CE and electronics engineering is in depth: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_engineering%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_engineering&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>To get even more info, this question has been posted numerous times. Thus, I recommend you use the search tools to find more answers and opinions. Good luck.</p>

4

<p>gosh I wish I had this thread back in the days when I chose majors. I had the same question too. But now I know. I chose EE for undergrad and CE for grad.</p>

<p>These 3 (CS, EE, CE) all deals with computers one way or another. So if you want to study something related to computer. Different schools has different "concentrations" for their programs.</p>

<p>For CS, it is highly concentrated on software aspects and other areas like AI, programming, some school as multi media / graphics under CS, database... </p>

<p>EE & CE are very much related. EE focus more on hardware, semiconductors, microelectronics, VLSI, controls, automations, electrophysics, signals & systems, power ... where as CE focus more on hardware of only computers (again this could vary schools by schools). Many people thought electrical engineers fix / deal with electricity / power only. That is stupid! there are branches in EE that you can go into.</p>

<p>For undergrad, I think EE is better than CE because you learn more general areas, and there are more jobs for EE than CE (anyone from EE can find a computer related job, even software, easily but not all CE can find jobs in other EE areas like electrophysics, multimedia signal & systems ...) So in general, if you're an EE, you can get hired to do CE stuff too. The starting salary for 2005 are pretty much the same for CE and CS (EE averages like $2000 higher).</p>

<p>For the courses required, EE requires the most number of courses out of all majors in most highly ranked school. Then CE, then CS. You can double major in CS & math and still have about the same credits as an EE.</p>

<p>If ur into software, go for CS because it teaches you more. If ur undecided, go for EE because there are so many different concentrations under it. Once ur an EE you can always go for CE. At my school 75% of the courses of EE and CE are the same.</p>

5

<p>For undergrad, I switched from CS to CE to EE. In my opinion, one of the biggest differences in course material is the amount of physics you need to study. For CS and CE, it's pretty much just the first year physics classes. For EE, you have to take E&M and other classes depending on specialization (solid state physics, E&M waves, etc.). Most CS, CE, and even EE students I know don't like physics. So you might want to look into how much is required for each degree at your school.</p>

6

<p>Physics is terrible for EE's, at my school in addition to four quarters of Classical Physics we have to take 2 quarters of Modern Physics, which not even the Chem E's have to take. However we only take one quarter of chem (and computer engineers take zero).</p>

7

<p>We have to take E&M for our CS.
As for choices, I would suggest maybe scheduling a programming course to see if you like it. One of my friends was in the same class as me and know has figured out that he actually does not want to major in CS, so hes switching to some other type of engineering.
You also shouldnt decide on it by which is the most broad since youll be better and make more money at what you like (considering that all three majors have great job prospects.)</p>