<p>Hi, I'm a CS major right now. I really love the subject, and computers fascinate me. However, I hate the idea of spending my entire life in a cubicle, day in and day out. Does anyone have experiences of working with a CS degree but they are not limited to working behind a desk? I know civil, chemical, and aeronautics engineering can be very hands-on, but I am more concerned with CS and EE lines. Sorry, I know this is very broad; I'm just looking for experiences/accounts of people outside of the normal 9-5 coding job..</p>
<p>Most CS and EE majors will end up in an office or cubicle. I have no idea why people make that such a big problem. We can’t all swim with the dolphins while we work.</p>
<p>Many of the IT developers at my company work from home.</p>
<p>A friend is paying a bunch of money to a CS to get custom apps and in-house training for her medical software. There are some opportunities for more social CSs, but most spend their time staring at a computer screen. The only majors that I know that tend to avoid that are CivE, E-Pow, and Industrial Eng.</p>
<p>As others have noted, most engineers spend the majority of their times at a desk staring at a computer screen. With software engineers, change “most” to “all” - the only real variation is the location of the screen, as some will work in an office, some will work from home, etc.</p>
<p>All other disciplines have some significant portion of their engineers who spend a significant amount of time in the lab or in the field, including EE (my field). I know EE’s who spend the majority of their time in labs, I know one who is a flight engineer and spends a lot of time in the sky, as well as a few field engineers who travel the world serving as a technical extension of the company - analyzing problems on sight, providing training, etc.</p>
<p>There’s also investment banking/trading/consulting/some more I can’t think of</p>
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I don’t think people are saying it’s a major problem, but rather it’s not preferable for them. They’re just trying to see if they can get the best of both worlds; they want a job in a field they like, but also an environment that they like. For some, the environment is more important than the field.</p>
<p>I am An EE, and i spend about 30-40% of my time in the field. Hope that helps.</p>
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<p>I just don’t understand why sitting down and working is not-preferable. When I hear a statement like that, I am 99% sure that person is not intelligent because their values are totally warped.</p>
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That doesn’t make any sense.</p>
<p>People have opinions and preferences. Some people like to be active. What about that says “warped values” to you? That’s absurd.</p>
<p>Why do you have to sit down to work if you prefer doing it another way (and there’s a job that allows for it)?</p>
<p>I had the opportunity to do get a job that was mostly in the office for an engineering firm, and passed it up to work in construction management. Now I’m in the field, out on construction sites most of the day and I love it. I love being where the action is, managing the work in front of me, seeing these massive structures come together. </p>
<p>I’m not asking that you have the same opinions, but just to understand that different people like different things.</p>
<p>Well, that is true. “Different people like different things”.</p>
<p>I guess from my personal perspective, the work environment is irrelevant. Sometimes its hard to understand why there is such a stigma about working in an office or on a computer.</p>