Before application season, I was split between Electrical Engineering and Computer Science or Mechanical Engineering. I ended up applying as a Mechanical Engineer. But now I’m considering switching to EECS because it seems like the job offers and internships are better (I will be attending Berkeley and it seems like all the internships would be for EECS majors near silicon valley). I mostly decided on Mechanical engineering because it’s the broadest engineering discipline, but then again because of that I’m confused as to what kind of internships would be available for me. What kind of stuff would I be working with in the real life world? Are the internships just as plentiful as EECS majors?
What do you mean by the seem “better”?
@boneh3ad coding seems to be all the craze these days. Everyone tells me that you can get a job instantly right after college with a computer science degree and also be making a $90k+ starting salary. So I assume the internships would be just as plentiful.
What do YOU want to do? Are you just in it for the money? Are you an agnostic as far as engineering disciplines go?
@NoVADad99 I’ve always been interested in electronics like phones, and building computers etc. I love watching those annual consumer electronics events like E3 which is why I was considering EECS. However, I feel like I would grow tired of coding all day and electrical engineering is very narrow compared to MechE so I was considering mechanical engineering as well. We do a lot of MechE related projects in physics class and I really enjoy that too and it’s also super broad which is why I ultimately chose MechE. As far as engineering disciplines go, these are really the only 2 I would consider. Now that I think about it, the opportunities and salary pay provided by EECS makes me feel like I shouldn’t have chosen MechE over EECS. But I don’t really know everything yet about the career prospects for both disciplines which is why I made this thread, I wanted to know if the opportunities for MechE would be as good or almost as good as EECS.
In short, I like MechE about the same as EECS so the career prospects may be the deciding factor.
You’ll have no shortage of work with either major Pick one you WANT to do. Your passion and interest matters more than anything else when it comes to job interview time. Working at a job you dislike is what you want to avoid.
@NoVADad99 I feel like I’d be happiest as a MechE. One thing I was considering was doing a MechE major and EECS or CS minor. Do minors make a big difference when looking for internships/jobs?
I don’t know. It can’t hurt it that’s what you want.
Yes, you can probably get a job right out of college coding for 90K. Now that job would be in Silicon Valley. You’d have a horrible commute and pay 3k a month for a studio apartment.
Be careful what you wish for!!!
Someone posted an interesting link the other day. The gist was the same as @HPuck35 is alluding to. Basically it said that a person making $76,000 in Santa Clara could live at the same standard of living in Indianapolis making $27,000 per year.
The companies that give the “coding” jobs to ECEs will in general give them to MEs too. You wont be shutting down that road if you went with ME. Coding is just logical thinking after you understand the programming language and what you are trying to achieve (crucial). Where actual CEs differ is that they can create the architecture of the system from scratch. Thats the part that you cant just waltz in and pick up as a logical thinking ECE or ME. But ya, once you have a system with the architecture and links already defined and just have to write/edit code, you should be able to definitely do that.
90k in Silicon Valley is realistic but like @HPuck35 said not that great accounting for cost of living.
I’m really contemplating switching now. Should I do MechE + CS Minor or EECS? I feel like I want to do MechE + CS minor but is that an odd combo? Do employers look for that?
Combining those majors is probably possible but think about what jobs you would be doing.
From my point of view the number of those jobs wouldn’t be too many. Just doing some ME jobs can require some coding. Not enough that it would be necessary to get a minor in it though.
While I personally wouldn’t do ME+CS minor because I don’t see much value (I would much rather recommend a minor in economics), only good things can happen if you do end up doing the CS minor.
It wont ever count against you, and you get to take classes in a different dept, different subject and different culture. May open up some areas in the mind that would have otherwise gone unexplored.
My son is currently a Freshman at Berkeley studying ME.
I recommended that he also does a CS or EECS minor.
However, after taking CS 61A, he loves CS so much that he is doing ME and EECS dual majors.
I’m about to graduate with my BSME. I had to take several programming classes throughout my curriculum and I also had a general interest in it. By general interest, I mean I screw around with an Arduino once in awhile, I’m no developer. That said, I landed a software controls job that touches multiple areas. We work with embedded controllers, so I have to have a basic circuit knowledge. The mechanical workings of what we control requires my ME knowledge, and all of our controls are done using C programming. My group has a mix of EEs, MEs, CEs, and a few Comp Sci majors. Get good grades in just about any discipline, learn and follow your passion, and you’ll probably land where you want.
@StevenToCollege I was thinking of doing the same too. I looked over ME + CS and it seems a bit complicated to do since CS is in the College of L&S. ME and EECS has many overlapping classes. Do you think the course load would be manageable for your son to double major in ME and EECS? Also, do you know the process to applying for a double major and the GPA requirement?
@Dino81 - Congrats on the job offer! Sounds like cool stuff.
@Dino81, love to hear stories like that, congrats!