<p>I recently got into a 3/2 program with 3 years of physics (at a crappy state school) + 2 years of engineering (at University of Illinois), ending with a bachelors in physics and a bachelors in engineering.</p>
<p>The website has a list of engineering majors available at University of Illinois after my first 3 years at Illinois State, and these are the ones I think I'm interested in:</p>
<p>Computer Engineering
Computer Science
Electrical Engineering
Nuclear Engineering (not really sure what this is)</p>
<p>Could people who are majoring (or have already majored) in any of these fields give me some insight on what kind of things I'd do in my job if I majored in one of the above? What options would I have as far as future careers... and which fields would let me maintain a steady income 50 years from now in the long run? Which generally would lead to higher salaries, and in which ones would my physics degree help more?</p>
<p>Any insight, advice, or anything at all that has to do with physics or engineering would be very helpful. I really don't know much about the fields, and help would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>By the way, that link has all the other types of engineering majors offered too... so if you guys have any suggestions, I'm definitely open. I don't really know much about other fields, but from what I know, it seems like computer/electrical engineering is pretty cool...</p>
<p>Your physics degree would help the most with EE or NukeE, of those four options.</p>
<p>All of them have a pretty wide range of careers open to them - EEs, for example, can be professors (if they get the PhD), power engineers, communications engineers, robotics engineers, etc, and there are different levels for all of those. A CS major (assuming they work in the field) could end up as anything from a low-level codemonkey to a research scientist to the resident programmer in a company that isn't really a CS company to a sysadmin to a software engineer for video games, or they could combine CS with psych and go into usability/HCI.</p>
<p>Basically, there is no one path that people from these majors, even if they stay in the field, are going to take.</p>
<p>Nukes work on our aging nuclear fission reactors, design X-ray related equipment for the biomedical industry, and do gov't. work (i.e., ship-based reactors or weapons). If you're real awesome, you can help out on the ongoing fusion research.</p>
<p>I'm in my second year of the Computer Engineering program at an ABET accredited university. Computer Engineering at most schools is very similar to the Electrical Engineering program with an emphasis on computers. At my school, for instance, there are only about 3 or 4 classes that differ between the two programs; EEs choose electives towards some specialization, CprEs take computer-related courses for those.</p>
<p>CS departments at universities concern software fundamentals and theories, software engineering (although this is involved in the Computer Engineering field too), and software design and development. You'll be dealing with a good deal of coding, data structures and algorithms, and design flowcharts.</p>
<p>Personally, I'm a bit biased, but I find a lot of satisfaction in the EE/CprE department. The salaries are on average higher than those of Computer Science I believe (but not by a terrible amount), and the job flexibility is very good and not too stressful. It's a very demanding field as well with unemployement rates extremely low. You won't be without a job if you get a B.S. in this field. </p>
<p>However, EE/CprE programs generally involve a lot of math and physics compared to CS programs, and will test your knowledge and work ethic to their absolute extremes, so be prepared.</p>
<p>If I had a second choice, I would probably choose Mechanical Engineering, because it is also a demanding field (lots of math here too) with good job security.</p>
<p>"I'm in my second year of the Computer Engineering program at an ABET accredited university. Computer Engineering at most schools is very similar to the Electrical Engineering program with an emphasis on computers. At my school, for instance, there are only about 3 or 4 classes that differ between the two programs; EEs choose electives towards some specialization, CprEs take computer-related courses for those."</p>
<p>On this board there seems to be a misconception between what computer engineering and electrical engineering majors entail (or there are infact programs that promote this). My school was the same as yours, the majors were practically identical. To the point where they advised us not to get a double major because industry knows how similar they are.</p>
<p>As far as $$ goes you can't go wrong with any of the majors you are deciding. I knew coming out of school Cmpe would pay for the life style I like and would <em>last</em> me until I retire. I didn't realize that working for a defense contractor would only require me to work 40 hrs a wk. Not 50 not 60. So all my lawyer friends, who work 70 - 80 hrs a wk and make a significant amt more than me, actually make less per hr than I do. Not to mention I have more of a life :)</p>
<p>If you're interested in doing physics on an applied side you can look at doing Materials Engineering. When you get into solid-state devices (LEDs, photovoltaics, etc) there's a lot of quantum and electrical physics type phenomenon going on which make the work interesting.</p>