<p>Hi everybody,
I am going to a college(university) next year. However, I am a little confused. I am not sure which path is the best for me. So, I am trying to figure out which degree is better in terms of:
1) Future perspective: which companies are more - hardware or software design? Which specialists are employers seeking more - EEs or CS' ? Overall, which profession has better future perspectives?
2) Salaries.
3) I am interested in networking(mainly data and computer networks, the Internet) and low-level programming for routers, switches and so on. Which path is it better to take(EE or CS)?
4) Which program is more popular nowadays in terms of number of students(CS or EE)? Where "genius' " uslually go, in other words, where are the "best quality" studens? </p>
<p>I am talking about perspectives in USA and Europe in general. I know the questions are difficult to answer, so general impressions are welcome! :) Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>3)If your interested in Networking sounds like "Computer Engineering" may be the best? CS is more software oriented which doesnt look like what your lookin for....It also matter which school you goto. Different schools deal with different majors in a different way :)</p>
<p>4) Youll find genuis in either....Id say the better major would depend on which school you go to also.</p>
<p>I can also only answer #3 and #4... most networking courses are offered under the CS department rather than under the EE department, at least at the UC schools. At UCLA, for example, CS/CE majors have to take CS 118: Fundamentals of Networking, which covers the material you described, but straight EE majors don't have to... As for popularity, CS and EE are equally sought after right now, and the "best quality" students are equally distributed between the two, especially since there's so many interdisciplinary majors at the top engineering schools (MIT EECS, UCB EECS, and so on).</p>
<p>If I was you, I'd try to find a school that has Electrical and Computer Engineering as one major. That way you get the feel of each major. And like the people said before, it doesn't seem like you are interested in Computer Science, sounds more like Computer Engineering. So if I was you, that'd prob be the path I would go.</p>
<p>You should look for Computer Engineering programs. For those places without such a major, Computer Science would also be fine for what you want to do.</p>
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BTW, do NOT choose solely a computer science major, it's useless.
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<p>That's a pretty strong statement, don't you think? Why do you say it's useless?</p>
<p>Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has CS degrees (BS from Maryland, MS from Stanford), but no CE or EE degree. Vint Cerf has only CS and Math degrees (BS math Stanford, MS and PhD in CS from UCLA), but no CE or EE degrees. The OP said he was interested in networking - well, Vint Cerf invented TCP/IP and is therefore credited with being the father of the Internet. I'm sure that both Brin and Cerf would be interested to know that their CS degrees are useless.</p>
<p>Thanks for the opinions. Since I am not limited to US schools only, I am considering European ones too. Certain schools in the EU offer "Communications Engineering" programs. Do you have any idea whether these are suitable for me? The begin with EE basics and go on to more specific communications-related stuff such as data networking, mobile networks, protocols, networking software and so on. Are these programs considered EE, CE or CS?</p>
<p>If it were me, I'd e-mail a couple engineers at places like Juniper, Cisco, Foundry, etc.. and ask them what the "average" engineer majored in college</p>