I describe the engineering major, and you tell me what it is :)

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Hi all, I am from Europe, and I am not sure how would I translate the field that I am interested in.
I had my BS in electrical engineering, officially, but our EE department is divided between two sub departments. first is E1, which is oriented towards electronics, energy production and telecomunication, and other is E2 which is more computer oriented-computer engineering, processor projecting, and automation&control.</p>

<p>so I was in E2, and my concentration is the third one-automation and control. the thing is, that my concentration is in between traditional electrical engineering and the newer computer science.
the thing that we in automation and control of systems need to know is both basics of EE-energy transport&production, electronics, instrumentation, circuits and also the programming side(we did object oriented, web programming, advanced math, optimation, DSP).</p>

<p>in the end, in my final years, we started combining all that we learned and got to the point of all of it: PLC programming(from E2), PID regulation(from E1) SCADA systems(from E2) and sensors(from E1) and that is what I want to do in life. </p>

<p>and now, when I am looking at job projections in US, I am not sure what should I look at! :/
at bls.com there is Occupational Outlook Handbook but I am not sure if I should look at predictions for Electronics engineers and Electrical engineers (here, predictions are not so bright few percent increase, a few thousands new jobs) or Computer systems analysts where it is predicted that more then 100.000 new jobs will be created in the near future.</p>

<p>so, instrumentation, projecting of SCADA-s, programming of PLC-s and projecting and maintaining of control systems-is that EE or Computer systems analysts or something third???</p>

<p>thank you very much.</p>

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<p>Definitely EE- there are a lot of sub-specialties and concentrations within the EE umbrella. Mine were analog circuits and communication systems, although not working in either field. </p>

<p>Computer Sytems engineers, at least the ones I know, do exactly what it says - servers, processors, computer boards, etc.</p>

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<p>Thanks Magnetron.</p>

<p>so, was I right when said that future growth is not high for that concentration that I am interested in?
I have 2 months before my master program begins, and would like to get electives in subjects that will help me find a job, and from the data on bls.gov it seems that EE will have problems finding a job, while for computer engineering there will be abundance of new jobs.
in my opinion, it is quite easy to change orientation from my concentration towards computer engineering, but it takes time.</p>

<p>do you think that info from the bls.gov site is a bit misleading or it really is a huge difference in demand between EE and CE???</p>

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<p>The BLS is pretty outdated, really.</p>

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<p>The easiest thing to do with a projection is to take a straightedge, match it to the last 3 data points, and project that line out into space. As someone who has had to study algorithms I am sure you can see the problem with this method.</p>

<p>The recent rapid rise in Computer Systems engineering would be representative of large changes in the way businesses store and share data. Even small offices have been putting in servers and workstations. The flatness or downward trend of US production has a combination of causative factors. A whole bunch of small manufacturers closed when the revenue streams dried up during the recent banking meltdown. Each of the government projections would be an exaggeration of recent trends and not likely to be accurate.</p>

<p>My guess is that the CompSys/ CompSci projections are overly optimistic. EE/ME/ChemE are probably too pessimistic. My advice: play to your strengths, you can probably be employed at either, but true success depends on enjoyment and engagement. If you are good at SCADA there is a push to updating our power infrastructure that may keep a lot of people employed for a long time.</p>

<p>Of course, caveat emptor. Don’t come looking for in 2 years if you are an unemployed automation engineer.</p>