<p>Where are the engineering hotspots?</p>
<p>I was speaking to a graduate student and he said the hotbed for electrical engineering firms is in Texas, California, and Oregon? .. was really surprised by the last one.</p>
<p>Silicon Forest around Portland is decent for EE's, chiefly because Intel is constantly expanding its fab operations there.</p>
<p>But basically, the big hot spots for EECS are: Silicon Valley, Boston, San Diego, Dallas, Seattle (especially for CS), RTP in North Carolina, and Phoenix.</p>
<p>you forgot Washington D.C/Northern VA</p>
<p>Yes of course. The area around DC, including N Virginia and Maryland, is very strong for EE's.</p>
<p>y do u guys always say EECS??? i'm in EE and i absolutely hate learning anything to do with how computers work</p>
<p>We say EECS because a lot of schools (not all of them, but a lot) say EECS, and the reason they do that is they have merged the EE and the CS departments together.</p>
<p>For example, at MIT, there is no EE department. There is no CS department. There is only one unified EECS department. Same thing is true at Berkeley. Also Michigan, and many others. Other schools won't call it EECS, but will still merger EE and CS together. For example, at CMU and Illinois, it's known as ECE (electrical and computer engineering). </p>
<p>The point is, like it or not, EE and CS are intimately linked disciplines.</p>
<p>It's like Civil and Environmental Engineering being linked together. Think about it. On the one hand, you've got the dude with the bulldozer, crying, "BUILD! BUILD! BUILD!!" and on the other hand, you've got the tree-hugging hippie who wants to save the indigenous terns and purify the lakes and protect the wildlife. Some departments are just traditionally stuck together, if there are common courses involved. Suck it up! ;)</p>
<p>Here at RPI, it's the ECSE dept, Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering. you can either do, EE, comp sys engineering, or electric power. I'm about to do EE, and my worst class freshman year was Computer Science I (my only B, and yet it was everybody else's easy A). Am I about to make the dumbest decision in my life?</p>
<p>Nah. I never listen to what other people consider "an easy A", especially if I know that I'm weaker than other people in that area. If you like EE, continue in it, by all means.</p>
<p>But see, freshman year, all engineers take the same general stuff. Comp Sci I was my worst class and I am just terrible at that stuff. Would EE be a bad choice cuz of that?</p>
<p>Before deciding on anything, take the intro to EE course. I was halfway through the engineering mechanics course at Rice during second semester of my freshman year and nearly had a nervous breakdown in my advisor's office because I was doing TERRIBLY in the class and thought that I would never, ever, ever be a good mechanical or civil engineer. My advisor talked me down from the tree, assured me that this sort of thing happens to a lot of people, and just to drop the class and take it again the next semester with a different instructor.</p>
<p>As it turns out, the material <em>was</em> tough for me, but after I dropped the class and took it with a different prof, it was at least more comprehensible. Things turned out just fine, and I got my degree.</p>
<p>Wait it out a little bit, because EE is quite different from comp sci, but just for your own peace of mind, see what else is out there and what other options you've got in case you decide you need to bail.</p>
<p>well it's not really bailing-i spent my first year as "undeclared engineering" so i am still deciding</p>
<p>there really wasn't any real intro EE course, just something about how to assemble a circuit but that was only 1 credit and didnt involve any homework or exams</p>