Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Business, majors? minors, colleges, careers?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I am a high school senior and I need some college + career advice/insight. I am very interested in robotics, artificial intelligence and with them -a practical business side. I want to know the perspective of any student or professional in related field about their careers. I want to know what majors and minors are good choices for such interests and any advice on how I should approach it. Also what are some great colleges and programs to study those areas. </p>

<p>Thank You</p>

<p>What I did, what I do: to show what are my interest/"experience" [ you can ignore it if you want ]</p>

<ul>
<li>I am a south Asian immigrant in USA</li>
<li>I have participated in a winning FRC team, contributed mostly on programming (both tele op and autonomous) and designing</li>
<li>From cousera I took intro classes on psycology and currently taking human computer interaction and machine learning </li>
<li>built a relatively smart website ground up with hundreds of article from contributor with focus on what changes creates best ad clicks. </li>
<li>I think of myself very open minded person who is good at coming up with multiple solution and ideas. I have a huge list of detailed "great" ideas related to AI, robotics and business</li>
<li>I have very basic knowledge of popular programming langues and design softwares such as autodesk inventor </li>
<li>Beside robotics competition I also play around with my breadboard and arduino to create something simple and interactive for fun</li>
</ul>

2

<p>I don’t know exactly what advice to give, but I can give you my experience.</p>

<p>I was a programmer for an FRC team in high school as well. That started me off as a hobbyist programmer, and I loved tinkering with computers. Coming out of high school I was really interested in math and science - I was considering physics, electrical engineering, and computer science for my college majors. I ended up going with electrical engineering and I don’t regret it at all. </p>

<p>In college I took a range of technical classes, from math electives to grad-level electromagnetics to CS. I ended up doing internships in software, which I got because of my extracurricular experience doing programming. I have a wide range of interests, and as I got close to graduation I considered “normal” engineering jobs, grad school in EE or CS, pursuing a track toward an MBA, or pursuing more of a quantitative finance career. As it turns out, I accepted a job offer with a research laboratory that is allowing me to go to graduate school in CS full-time to study artificial intelligence and machine-learning (which is where I am currently).</p>

<p>It sounds like you have a lot of different interests, like I did. Most of what you mentioned falls under majors in EE or CS (or Computer Engineering). I chose EE because it’s a great major and career by itself, but it is also a good launching pad into other fields. It is much easier for a EE or CompE major to go into a CS-related career than it is for a CS major to go into a traditional EE career. EE is central to robotics, and would be a great start for a career in that field as well. If you do know you want to focus more on the CS and software side of things, though, a CS major is still a wonderful choice.</p>

<p>Don’t be afraid to pursue all of your interests. There is a lot of overlap between fields, and you will gain huge benefits from being passionate about multiple areas. Even if you end up majoring in one particular area, don’t limit yourself to studying only that one field. The real world requires a vast and diverse skillset. Plus, there’s so many neat things to learn about the world - don’t restrict yourself.</p>

<p>EDIT: Regarding specific schools. That’s really tough to say without knowing more about your situation. In general, people here and in the real world put too much emphasis on reputation. Look at a lot of different colleges and go where you feel most at home, and where you fit in. Doing well at your local public university will set you up far better in a career than trying to muscle your way through a college that doesn’t suit you well, but you chose because it has a better “reputation”. Engineering, in general, has the wonderful quality that your work can be readily judged on its merit. If you design good software, robots, websites, whatever - people won’t care as much about the name of where you went to school.</p>