Should I change majors to electrical engineering, go to grad school for it, or none of the above?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

Hello world,

I know this is a long post so for a tl;dr without the life story skip to the asterisks at the end.

I am currently a junior in college, but just in my first year as a computer science major. Initially when I went to college I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I hated school and I thought everything was boring. I was undecided for a while then switched to a nursing major. I hated nursing so I didn’t really try too hard in the classes and got burnt out from school and additionally I had a lot of personal things going on and ended up failing a couple classes. My GPA after my freshman year was a 2.55 with failing those two classes. After that I cleaned up my act and I have made the deans list every semester since my sophomore year. However, I still only have a 3.0 due to those two 0’s on my transcript (I think my GPA would go up to around 3.5-3.6 if I re-took those classes now). I ended up doing business for two semesters where I had to take a management of information systems computer class which I loved, and that’s what made me switch to computer science starting my junior year. My first semester I got an A in my intro to programming class and I’m excited about next semester which starts in a couple days because I am taking all classes that I’m really interested in. It’s cool because I have never been excited for school like I am now. I’m taking programming 2, intro to web development, an electronics lab course and calculus 2. So what’s the problem you ask?

Well now I really want to double major in electrical engineering and computer science. However, I am a junior and if I switched now I would end up having to go to undergrad for 7 years. Also, my school does not offer electrical engineering so I would have to transfer (which would really be no problem if I actually decide to do it). I already have to go for 5 years just to do computer science since I switched so late, but my dream is working at a space technology company like NASA or SpaceX, and doing either some kind of software or hardware development for them which I think dual majoring in computer science and electrical engineering would help me out a lot with. But you see my problem. If I went to undergrad for 7 years I would be in around 80000$ worth of debt, and I am really anxious that I am wasting time. sometimes I think wow, some kids are like 15 years old and make full applications that are better than anything I have made, how can I possibly compete? Maybe it would be better just to do computer science. But then again, I want to do this so bad it keeps me up some nights, and it consumes my thoughts a lot of time during the day. I think it’s so interesting, and I want to get into the space industry so bad it hurts. I’m very conflicted as you can tell.

Alternatively I have been looking into masters programs for non-engineering undergrads and it looks like you have to take one to two years of pre-requisite courses then you are in the full masters program. So If i’m guessing conservatively here and say two years of pre-requisites and three years of a master program that puts me at 10 years of school. 5 in undergrad and 5 in grad school. (maybe 9 years if I start taking some of those pre-requisites while I’m in undergrad). With that I would get a masters in electrical engineering and an undergrad in computer science. This is compared to 7 years of school with undergrad degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. I’m not sure which one seems better.

If I didn’t decide to go through with it, I probably wouldn’t try to pursue the career I want because it is really intimidating and I would be scared I do not have enough technical knowledge to do it. My dad owns a technology business in the Midwest which he has expressed interest in me working at after I graduate, so if I just do computer science and don’t go to grad school or double major I will probably end up just working there. Don’t get me wrong it would be OK, its still a tech job, I would get to do some programming, but it’s just not what I dream of.

I guess what I’m asking here is would it be worth it? One of my main questions is how hard is it to get a graduate degree in engineering if you did undergrad in a non-engineering field? Would I be better off dual majoring or going to grad school? Would I be better off just majoring in computer science and going to work? I would have a guaranteed job. And finally would the job I want really be as glamorous as I make it out to be in my head? Does anyone have experience in a similar situation. I just feel like I’ve wasted so much time in college and it drives me nuts that I now know what I really want to do but there are things holding me back (my own insecurities, the massive amount of debt, etc…) any advice would really be appreciated guys.

tl;dr **

  1. I’m a junior in my first year as a computer science major
  2. I now decided I want to either double major in computer science and electrical engineering, or go to grad school for electrical engineering
  3. How hard would it be to get a grad degree in engineering without having an undergrad degree in engineering?
  4. Would that be better than double majoring and taking 7 years to finish undergrad?
  5. Would I be better off just sticking to computer science? Thanks.
2

This electrical engineering thing seems totally random.

3

why’s that? it’s very related to computer science.

4

Does your current school offer software engineering as a major? That might be a better choice for the direction you’re hoping to take.

5

Hey ingo thanks for the reply,

My current major is actually called computer science/software engineering and it is very software engineering focused. What I really want I guess is a more intimate knowledge of the underlying hardware which is hard in my current situation since the school I attend doesn’t have an engineering branch.

6

I have undergrad and grad degrees in software-only CS and tried for an MSEE. Went halfway thru with a respectable GPA then some of the nasty EE classes reared their ugly heads. They’re not necessarily too difficult if you have a BSEE etc but if you can’t tell an oscilloscope from a microwave oven… There’s lots of prerequisites involved.

7

Thanks Turbo that’s the kind of information I’m looking for I guess, did you take any pre-requsite undergrad courses in EE before attempting the masters or did you just dive in?

8

I had undergrad core engineering classes (1st degree in Civil Engineering) but that was a decade earlier and my math, such as it was, was rusty. I did OK in the non-killer classes like circuit theory, even held my own in a digital design class (designed and built a printer interface board, never again :slight_smile: ), aced microprocessor applications and similar non theory classes, but after 6 such classes I had to start taking the core EE classes (signals and systems, for example) and those are basically impossible to pass without the undergrad equivalent. For me at least.

But, fear not. I work in an embedded environment, designing UI’s and writing software for same for complex cellphone-level multimedia devices. Yea, 10-15 years ago our devices ran home made OS’s and required sacrifices of small farm animals to boot properly, but these days our products run industry standard OS’s like Linux and tried and true hardware (ARM’s and x86’s) and you gotta be VERY unlucky to have hardware issues.

I would say if you’re keen in coding semi-embedded stuff like mobile apps for phones and the like, even hard real time stuff like medical electronics, a CS degree with a solid understanding of computer architectures, networking, and such would be just as useful. Granted, our EE’s do a lot more than coding, and there’s stuff at the bowels of the beast that I only heard about - bootloaders, for example - but who wants to spend a lifetime coding bootloaders? well, my officemate, but he’s a cool dude.