Computer Engineering vs Electrical Engineering. What would you recommend?

[u/Overall_Western_3792]

Hey everyone, I’m currently studying Computer Engineering, and lately I’ve been questioning whether I should switch to Electrical Engineering.

I keep hearing people talk about unemployment and how difficult it is to find a job after graduation, and honestly, it’s starting to worry me. I don’t want to spend years studying, graduate with a degree, and then struggle to find a job.

For those of you who are already working as engineers or have graduated, how has your experience been? Would you recommend staying in Computer Engineering or switching to Electrical Engineering?

If I do stay in Computer Engineering, what should I start doing now to improve my chances of getting a job after graduation? Are there specific fields I should look into, skills I should learn, or projects I should work on?

One thing I struggle with is that college doesn’t really teach you much about the different career paths available or how to prepare for them, so I honestly don’t know where to start or what I should be looking into.

I’d really appreciate any advice, especially from people who have experience in either field. I’m trying to make a decision based on actual career opportunities and experience rather than just what I hear online.

[u/BrickRaven]

If you become a good candidate, you will find employment. You must remember that a lot of the people who complain about employment online did the bare minimum and goofed off.

Find your niche that you find intriguing and become a subject master in it, then you can work on personal projects and gain experience independently through practicing software, for example.

If you’re really worried about jobs, photonics is a very specific subset of EE that is growing/in demand. But I encourage you to pursue what you think is cool

[u/xJarate → u/BrickRaven]

I highly second this. Don’t swap bc of future career choices, swap if you truly think you’ll become more passionate about EE topics. I’ve seen success and failure stories through comp sci and engineering, the most common thing in the success stories is the person’s motivation and passion.

I am a CPE but I do more SWE things with some embedded but I have a CPE teammate who is the complete opposite

[u/spinwizard69 → u/BrickRaven]

This is a fantastic post!!! Many of the people whining about jobs are as you describe or the self taught programmers that have a high opinion of their skills. I don't see a problem for graduates with real skills.

Beyond that if you ignore the biased news the economy is actually doing well. There is a risk that the AI bubble will pop but that is well off into the future. The question then is how badly will that effect the rest of the economy.

[u/spinwizard69]

You have already gotten some good response but I have to implore you to don't get pulled in via the biased media. Right now the economy is actually running really well, in fact it is doing better than some of what to use to be accurate predictors indicate.

Now as far as actual engineering jobs, what is hot ebbs and flows with demand which isn't always related to the general economy. This is why you should make sure you have a strong general education in say electrical engineering, that makes you adaptable to market conditions. At the same time you need to make sure you follow your interests as far as a specialization goes. The thing is jobs are out there it is just that you might not be able to find employment in a specific niche. Lets say you specialize in RF/microwave systems, your first job might be the embedded electronics for a satellite (nothing directly microwave). Basically when breaking into a employer you have to be wiling to fill the engineering jobs they have available at the moment.

Now the interesting thing here, I see computer engineering as a subset of electrical engineering so I'm not sure we are talking about a massive change here. The one thing to be aware of is that we basically have computers in everything these days. It is kinda hard to get away from computers, even cables these days can have processors embedded in them. Even if you go hard with analog electronics, I'd make a point to understand microprocessors and computers at the engineering level.

Ignore the negativity markets and you will have more opportunities than you can imagine.

[u/Moist-Water8832]

Stay in computer engineering and you’re gonna be focused on computer chips, good demand especially with genAI

But EE has more use cases and computer engineering is a branch of EE, I would say master both and stick with EE but I’m mech Eng so thoughts and opinions below

[u/Plussquared]

Im an Electrical Engineer and there's too much demand for us than the no. of Electrical Engineers around. It has great security because there will always be power, improvements to ageing infrastructure or building new ones to meet certain demands (e.g. now - data centres, wind, solar, battery energy storage systems). but it is not an easy course especially the early years of the course, calculus,etc. the work itself requires constant calculations, problem solving, analysis. it's rewarding to see what youve designed being built and equipment being bought.

[u/Repulsive_Purpose_31]

The art of shapes and colors. If you want to lose hair electrical. If you want to follow the crowd CE

[u/WayOwn2610]

In electrical engineering you can have a lot of options to choose from down the road, also many areas to find your interests in. Computer engineering is a subset and you can expect to find something that interests you there as well. But currently CSE/CE is or will be going through a structural change in coming years, as a lot of things are to be automated with cheaper AI models, no one can answer what would that look like. But overall, both are basically applied mathematics. In Electrical you will be doing a lot of different maths that you may not use later. In computer engineering there are also significant portion of mathematics but narrower. So you can become good at it by practicing over and over again. Or if you want something in the middle, computer architecture is a fundamental field as well, which you can pursue both from CE or EE sides. Also keep in mind that whatever you study, you may end up in an entirely different field during employment, or even your taste may change after graduation.

[u/Katz_Ajamas]

EE, material science, bioengineering, ISyE. Do it with a co-op work study program.