What is more popular Electrical or Computer Engineering?

[pepsi_dude]

What is more popular Electrical or Computer Engineering?
Which is better from an employment perspective? What engineering grads get jobs relatively easier?

[BlueHurley]

electrical

[omchow]

electrical

+1

[Jon Lai]

Until you work up the ladder, for most junior jobs it doesn't matter which program you graduated from, employers will hire from both streams.

[night_sky]

And the reason why this is important is...? There are more artsies than engineers, so clearly arts is more popular; so why should anyone go into engineering? Pardon my tongue firmly planted in my cheeks.

Also, if you want post-secondary education just for the purposes of getting a job, university is the wrong place to go. Just from the employment perspective, the return on investment (monetary and temporal) is quite poor compared to community colleges. My point is, knowing what YOU want is the most important aspect of choosing what postsecondary education you will pursue.

[pitz]

The job prospects for CompE/EE/CS are quite poor right now, and have been since the dot-com bust. Salaries have not risen from 2000 levels. Most people working in the field are glad they even have a jobs at all, because cutbacks, hiring freezes, and outsourcing have taken a brutal toll.

However, the people who did traditional 'electrical' engineering, ie: power systems, motors, load flow and fault studies, etc., seem to have fared the best, even though their salaries, mostly, have not advanced since 2001-2002. Worst off seems to be the people who specialized in digital hardware, or in manufacturing. Specialized skills, or masters/Ph.D's mostly go uncompensated right now (ie: its not likely you will be offered a materially higher starting salary), unlike the case in the 80s/90s.

EE/CompE went from the highest paid type of engineering (in 2000), to the lowest paid type of engineering (in 2008). This sort of cyclicality was seen with Civil and Petroleum engineering in the 80s/90s, so its quite possible that EE/CompE salaries will start to rise as supply is severerly constrained.

[pepsi_dude]

so eletrical engineering will be better job perspective wise cuz its more general and traditional while computer engineering is kind of like specialized, Its kind of also like a branch/extension of electrical engineering.
Have i got the right idea?

Also in that case would nanotechnology be a good choice?

PS: I dont really know kind of engineering i want to do. So i am just asking people for opinion. i know many universities have general first year and sure i will have an year to decide once im in. But best to research anyways.

thanx

[coolspot]

Computer Engineering is a relatively new program... Electrical Engineering is more established and hence more popular.

[sexpuppet6000]

wasn't there a guy in where with a near perfect gpa masters in electrical engineering who couldn't find a job?

[nabil1122]

EE - also im biased.
even without perfect grades, its easy to get starter jobs. my internship is paying 45K.

+ engineering is one of the most versatile undergrads. you can persue anything after bachelors..med, law, business, research etc etc

[Phlegmbot]

wasn't there a guy in where with a near perfect gpa masters in electrical engineering who couldn't find a job?

There's more to life than grades.

[pitz]

so eletrical engineering will be better job perspective wise cuz its more general and traditional while computer engineering is kind of like specialized, Its kind of also like a branch/extension of electrical engineering.
Have i got the right idea?


Computer Engineering is Electrical Engineering, but all of the 3rd and 4th year courses devoted to electrical machines, and power systems (ie: 3phase circuits) traditionally found in a broad EE program are replaced with software and more detailled hardware and real time systems courses.

Further, for your final design project, there is a much higher expectation that you will do something that involves microprocessors and computers.



Also in that case would nanotechnology be a good choice?


"nanotechnology" really isn't something that people do in undergrad. Its more of a graduate level thing, and many EE (CompE) programs would give you a good background in materiel science, as would mechanical engineering, obviously.

Most undergrad programs really don't have the time to go heavily into the manufacturing aspects of nanotechnology, for instance, photolithography, e-beam and x-ray lithography, etc.


PS: I dont really know kind of engineering i want to do. So i am just asking people for opinion. i know many universities have general first year and sure i will have an year to decide once im in. But best to research anyways.


All universities in Canada have the general first year, and with few exceptions, you don't have to specialize until 2nd year.

[BlueHurley]

I wouldn't say all engineering programs have first year. Some don't.

[Jon Lai]

All universities in Canada have the general first year, and with few exceptions, you don't have to specialize until 2nd year.

Waterloo doesn't.

[mavericknm]

Waterloo doesn't.

Technicaly no. But if you're going to count 3 out of 12 courses which many of the other programs share than be my guest.

2nd year EE here. First year "special courses" were intro to programming and circuits. Both of which at least half the other programs had their own version of covering almost identical topics.

Anyway as for EE vs CE. As mentioned hardly any difference. What you should be afraid of is not getting sucked into software. Assuming you are interested in tradition EE and CE topics such as power, analog, digital ect... The problem is that at least half my class is stuck doing programming. That simply because there are endless programming opportunities compared to traditional EE and CE.

[skeletor]

Waterloo doesn't.

LOL it's the infamous Jon Lai.. dude, come back to the PC & Video game forum.. There's a lot of sony talk these days :)

[Jon Lai]

LOL it's the infamous Jon Lai.. dude, come back to the PC & Video game forum.. There's a lot of sony talk these days :)

I don't know how that comment has anything to do with Sony.

[coolspot]

Waterloo doesn't.

True, but 1st year engineering share a lot of common courses. So in a sense 1st year is quite general.