<p>Hey, I stumbled across this pdf:
<a href="http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2012-survey/pdfs-one-pagers/2012%20ECE%20Post%20Grad%20Handout.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.cmu.edu/career/salaries-and-destinations/2012-survey/pdfs-one-pagers/2012%20ECE%20Post%20Grad%20Handout.pdf</a></p>
<p>I noticed that a large bulk of (self-reporting) ECE grads take jobs as software engineers and software developers.</p>
<p>I'm just a high school senior, so I don't understand what Electrical Engineers or Computer Engineers or Computer Science people do entirely. Please correct me if my understanding is totally wrong. But my impression is that Software Engineering and Software Developing are jobs geared towards a Computer Science degree. Is my assumption wrong? Because if a ECE major can get Software Engineering positions, doesn't that mean that ECE is much more valuable and flexible than a CS degree? What benefits does a CS degree have over an ECE degree if one wants to pursue a career in software development?</p>
<p>Also, a second question. I wanted to study computer science cause I think that CS sounds really cool and fun that I would want to do. However, if someone decides to do Electrical and Computer Engineering instead of CS, how difficult would it be for an ECE major to get a CS job after college? Is it very common for ECE majors to take CS positions? Would he be less desirable or less qualified than the CS major? Would he be paid less? What type of courses in college would a ECE major have take to be viable to get a software development position?</p>
<p>Thanks for any responses.</p>
<p>From what I have seen there are a lot of openings for embedded processor development.
That’s where some of the software jobs are probably at. </p>
<p>Depends on what kind of software you are talking about: low level (hardware dependent) or high level. You will most likely learn C and Assembly as an EE major. Once you learn one, the others are fairly easy. If you think you want to widen your skill set then take a class within the CE department- Object Oriented C++ and Data structures. I was thinking of applying to a a few software internships. I am an EE major but I like programming and was thinking of minoring in computer science. </p>
<p>It could be the school also. One major can have different tracks. An ECE department will have courses in EE and Computer Engineering and it is up to the student to fine tune their program which direction they want to go. </p>
<p>Hope I helped.</p>
<p>EE in the software industry is more popular than you would think. EEs are usually first priority for hiring when the softwares are dealing with SCADA or analysis software for energy and utility industry. I used to be a software engineer at a large O&G company with my EE and I have found many have EE degrees as well.</p>
<p>I’ve given my thoughts about this in a couple of recent posts.</p>
<p>See [url=<a href=“Computer science Minor. - Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums”>Computer science Minor. - Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums]this[/url</a>] and [url=<a href=“Computer science Minor. - Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums”>Computer science Minor. - Engineering Majors - College Confidential Forums]this[/url</a>].</p>
<p>In summary, there are many fields within CS that intersect substantially with ECE. Examples of fields that do: embedded systems, computer architecture, machine learning, and image processing. Web development is an example of a field that doesn’t intersect much. A background in ECE with a few CS electives is very good preparation for the fields that do intersect, and you will be competitive for software development jobs in those fields.</p>