Ok, so here’s the thing:
When i started college, I was adamant on pursuing a bachelor’s in computer science and nothing else. I have been fascinated by computers ever since I was a child and absolutely loved every single one of my programming courses. And it was all sunshine and rainbows until last semester in college, where after I realized that by being a comp sci major, I am going to be focusing only on the software and theory part, I decided to take an EE course as a support so I can at least get a taste of what working with hardware feels like. And guess what, that course was an absolute joy, I had so much fun in that course and I aced it with ease. So I thought to myself, simply knowing how a computer functions at the high level is not what am really looking for, and that if i am to truly uncover the magic that’s happening inside this slap of plastic under my disc, i really need to dive more into the hardware and engineering part. So, after reviewing my academic plan and realizing that i can still make the switch and not lose much, I made the decision to jump to CE.
But now am starting to get second thoughts. Since i am planning on going to the work field after my bachelor’s, will I be able to find a job with a BS in CE?? or would i be stacking all those student loans just so I can go back to working minimum wage while going for a masters and accumulate even more debt? should I go back to CS and simply get a job after getting my BS and then pursue learning hardware on my own?
Would someone please tell me whether i’ve made the right decision or not, and whether am going to be able to find a job with computer engineering BS.
EDIT:
I have not yet committed to the switch as I simply went to the CE orientation instead of the CS today at Cal Poly
Do what you think is best for you. CE and CS should both provide good job opportunities, provided that you do well in your coursework. Many hiring for CS or EE jobs are willing to consider those with CE degrees. Sure, it seems like CS job opportunities are what is growing right now, but you should not base your decision solely on such numbers. Keep in mind that there are other factors that come into play as well, for example how the number of students graduating with such a degree is changing each year. You can consider talking to a CE advisor about what you think, and get their perspective on this.
I think CE is a really employable degree if you look in the right place. It makes you pretty uniquely qualified to do firmware engineer roles since they are basically really low level software that very few CS majors want to learn but is too much CS for most EE majors. Like @umcoe16 said, an employer isn’t going to differentiate much between a CS and a CE degree for a software engineer position as long as you can show you know what you’re talking about in an interview. It falls under the “or similar” when a job requires a bachelor’s in CS or similar. So the short answer is yes, you should be able to find a job with only a bachelor’s in CE.
I can’t tell you if you’ve made the right decision or not, I wouldn’t be on a college admissions forum if I could tell the future; but I can tell you that you aren’t alone. I actually started undergrad as an EE and hated CS with a passion. Took some CS as part of my EE requirements and warmed up to it, then took some of the hardcore EE classes and had an existential crisis over the amount of calculus involved with EE. Then, through some loopholes, careful planning, and luck, I ended up graduating with a double major in EE and CE.
I am currently employed by a large tech company as a hardware engineer. I love my job because I get to spend part of my day tinkering around in a hardware lab, part of my day writing/running scripts to test hardware, and part of my day in meetings to talk about what I did to the hardware. So I get to combine parts of EE, CE, and CS all in one job.