<p>I'm a junior in high school right now and I'm trying to figure out which engineering field I want to study in college. The main ones I'm interested in are Aerospace Engineering/Computer Engineering/Mechanical Engineering/Software Engineering. I'm really into computers and I believe that I want to work with one primarily, so that pretty much knocks Mechanical Engineering out (at least I think, do mechanical engineers do a lot of computer work?) Out of those, Software Engineering is estimated to have the greatest growth percentage by 2016, but I'm just not sure if I can deal with all completely virtual objects or if I need to absolutely work on something physical. Are there any engineers here that have had a similar predicament before? Any input would be important in determining which path I want to take.</p>
<p>I’m in CS (which is pretty similar to most SE programs out there) and I chose it because I enjoyed working with virtual things and ideas.</p>
<p>I guess it’s pretty cool to make physical things. The tradeoff is that it’s a lot less hassle to make software than hardware.</p>
<p>Myself, I was deciding between ME and CS before college. However, I ended up choosing CS. My school’s CS program places a lot of emphasis on software engineering. I guess it was just a matter of personal preference, I like working with virtual things.</p>
<p>I think both degrees are equally valuable, and with things like robotics becoming more and more advanced there will be a lot of interaction between the fields. My belief is that because of that, you can always do something like BS CS or ME->graduate school in robotics.</p>
<p>If you want a good mix of both I’d suggest CompE.</p>
<p>I’m studying ME, and there is a lot of computing involved. My school made us take two classes that used MATLAB (you can think of MATLAB as very “basic” programming). As an mechanical engineer, you will use the computer a lot to solve systems of equations, to optimize etc. A very important tool to ME is the finite element method (google it). So basically you get the opportunity to write algorthims and functions, and not very many large indepth programs. Also, as an ME you can use the computer as much as you like to do perfom engineering analysis with various parameters, solve differential equations, etc.</p>
<p>Have you thought of Industrial engineering? It basically uses math and other numerical methods to optimize production, etc in places like factories. Then you can work with both the “real” and “virtual.” Also, I think Industrial Engineering probably does more indepth programming than ME.</p>
<p>My advice is to take a few CS classes when you get to college. You will realize quickly if you don’t like it.</p>