do all engineering majors have programming classes during their initial years

<p>if yes,do they include learning any of the programming languages?
if yes,which ones?
i don't want to waste time now that i will have some free time for about a month and a half.
i want to utilize it learning a programming language which I will have to anyways learn no matter which engineering major i choose.
thanks =)</p>

<p>Every school has their own favorite for teaching programming. Possibilities include matlab, mathematica, maple, java, c/c++, python, etc.</p>

<p>The basics of what you learn in any programming language will be useful in any other, though.</p>

<p>Depends on the engineering major & school. Best to contact specific programs and ask them individually… unless you want to hedge your bets and learn C, C++, Java, Matlab, Maple, Mathemtica, Fortran, Pascal, …</p>

<p>The key is learning the logical constructs that is in all languages. Things like:</p>

<ul>
<li>IF/THEN/ELSE</li>
<li>FOR loops</li>
<li>WHILE loops</li>
<li>Case statements</li>
<li>Arrays</li>
</ul>

<p>Which all relate to the “procedural” way of coding. At the same time, you can learn the concepts of object-oriented programming which will allow you to bounce from C++ to Java to Python to C#, etc.</p>

<p>^I agree.</p>

<p>Learn the concepts and then bouncing around form one syntax to another won’t be that bad.</p>

<p>I learned Java as a Sr. in HS, C++ and Matlab in my first semester (honors version of the intro to programming class every engineer takes) and Phrogram in another engineering class</p>

<p>All engineering majors should have some programming courses in their curriculum because once they start working, there’s a good chance that they’ll have to do some coding. At my school, all undergrad engineering majors had to take a basic C programming class, and I recall that MAE (mechanical and aerospace engineering) majors had to take an additional assembly programming course. I always thought it was sort of weird.</p>

<p>I think that learning Matlab and Python would be much more beneficial for engineers (not including software engineers, obviously) given the types of programming tasks that most non-software engineers have to perform. Leave the C/C++ to the software guys.</p>

<p>Yes, you’ll always take 1 to 3 courses in the CS department</p>

<p>All majors take at least one. Some majors like EE, CE, and of course CSE take more.</p>

<p>I think it is advisable to take a double major in computer science with your engineering major. That might help.</p>

<p>Double majoring in CS and engineering is probably a lot more work than it’s worth. Besides, most people who want to be traditional engineers don’t (or shouldn’t) have the time or desire to learn much more about CS than how to program… and double majoring would (or should) require significantly more.</p>

<p>but that’s what I plan to do. They both are very good to sacrifice much time on if the opportunity is granted.</p>

<p>smorenik,
btw which is the engineering field you’re planning to enter?</p>

<p>Some schools have an EECS major.</p>