Future Job

[Pcmatic184]

Fellow people. i am a high school student struggling to pick a future job. i do enjoy building computers and want to learn how to start coding and programming. i though of becoming a computer engineer or a computer scientist. i have no idea of which i should pursue in. i dont want to be miserable through college or the rest of my life knowing i learn all this material for nothing. i am also taking a progamming class this upcoming year. please some one help

 

[teh_chem]

Are you good at/do you enjoy math?

 

[FrEaKy]

If you get into Web Dev Programming, learn HTML, PERL, Javascript and PHP

If you want to get into development, well, I cant help you there.

 

[PTNL]

i dont want to be miserable through college or the rest of my life knowing i learn all this material for nothing.

After a couple intro classes and doing your own research, I think you would have a good idea if this is something you want to commit to. And that's not to say that you couldn't revisit this idea later in your life. Key piece is to focus on the programming concepts and breaking down workflows into manageable parts -- not the language.

If you haven't read this sticky and the links therein, then do so.

 

[aL Mac]

Computer Engineer here.

I was the same as you in high school (28 years old now). I wanted to know about programming so always thought I'd major in Computer Science, but then I realized I wanted to know about electronics too, so I majored in Computer Engineering.

Computer Engineering was more of a niche than EE or CS. I was lucky when I graduated to find a job that involves both hardware and software. I write software for embedded electronics. I do not typically design any electronics / boards, but knowledge of hardware is very important and I use spectrum analyzers and signal generators etc. all the time. I have laid out and designed at least one board on my own. You could end up on either side of the coin depending on your preferences.There are tons of jobs for web development all over the place, while my kinda job is harder to find but still a profitable and desirable sector. But, there is no reason I couldn't have taken a regular software job at an insurance company or something. Also, I do not see any reason a Computer Engineer couldn't do web development, but at that point you might want to ask yourself if CS wouldn't have just been better?

Computer Engineering is a mixture of the digital electronics side of EE and Computer Science. There were quite a few in college that decided that one or the other was not for them, and switched majors. That does give you some opportunity though, if you major in CompE to do so and decide later if you would like to switch. Research your school, because CompE is different depending on your school. I had to take a lot of circuits and electronics classes, but talking to students at a different university they only had to take a few basic electrical engineering classes. I ended up taking a good portion and mixture of both and I'm about to graduate with my master's degree in Computer Science (I got my bachelor's 6 years ago)

Either of these majors though you will have to take quite a bit of math. You'll also have to consider if writing code all day is something you can enjoy or not. I had a CmpE friend who decided to go EE because he didn't like software development. Here's another story... I had some roommates once that worked as interns for the same company I worked for in college. They worked in finance / accounting. They once walked into my office and asked "man.. how can you look at that code all day, it looks awful". I laughed, because when I walked into their office I saw them sorting through stacks and stacks of receipts -- That looked awful to me. I got to write code to solve problems or develop mock-ups for interfaces on military jets.

Anyway, either major is a good major. Hopefully, you can tour some schools you plan on attending and review each program. Find out what classes are required in both majors. Even computer science programs can vary a lot. My wife writes software too and her program was quite a bit different than our CS program. What country and area are you from? It would be a coincidence if you were in my back yard.

 

[Bigbacon]

if you suck at math...you won't get through computer science or engineering. Some schools have some sort of an in between programming degree for us non mathematicians. School I went to had this, which is what I got and it has served me well so far in the programming world.

PTNL hits on exactly what programming is all about. too many get stuck on the "Language" and not the concepts part.

the thing with programming in general is if you like it, least for me, it is semi hard to get burned out because there is always something new to learn and keep up with. If you just stagnate and never learn new stuff, you'll get lost sooner or later. Programmng jobs are also all over the place on that as well. I've done government work and it sucked because it was so old and backwards.

 

[aL Mac]

Typically engineering (which a lot of schools include computer science in engineering) have as much or more math required than computer science. I would say at my university computer engineering had few more math classes, and the electrical engineering classes I had to take had quite a bit more math than the computer science courses.

In case people question this or are wondering. I asked my co-worker (CS).. he had to take through Calculus II but he chose to take Differential equations as an elective too. While I took Calc I, Calc II, Calc III, Differential Equations and my elective was Complex Variables. I took another math class which gave me a math minor (sorta redundant for an engineer). The EE classes included circuit analysis which involves a lot of math, such as solving systems of linear equations, differential equations, or just intense algebra that was sometimes pages long. Signals and systems involved transfer functions, many integrals, Fourier transforms, Laplace transforms etc. My co-worker and I both took two semesters of physics. I had at least one class on statics and dynamics in mechanical engineering, though. My wife's CS program only required Calculus I and no physics.

PTNL is right about concepts over languages. I would at the very least try to make sure you take a class in both a managed language like Java/C# and unmanged language like C/C++, so you can see two sides of things which demonstrate different concepts. My wife's program didn't require C/C++ and I think that's sorta a shame.. but I suppose if all you want to do is web development you don't need it necessarily, but I think you would be a better programmer by understanding the concepts involved in a lower level language.

 

[Dogs]

You're too young to be making up your mind. It's good that you've decided you would like to do something with computers, and I think that's about as far as you need to think about this. Go to school, take some classes, figure out what you like and dislike. People who haven't been exposed to the industry don't realize how broad it is and aren't aware of all the choices that are available to them.

Maybe you won't end up like software development, but finishing your computer science degree is still a good idea. I have plenty of co-worker's whose job titles are 'Software Engineer', but they spend all day working with databases and developing reporting to keep track of 'the numbers'. I know people with computer science degrees who are 'Program Managers' and are responsible for making sure the product meets the needs it was designed to fill...these people work closely with software, but generally don't write code. Maybe you'll decide you really like the hardware facet and become a VHDL programmer. Maybe you'll become a VLSI engineer and develop integrated circuits. These fields all fall under computer science and computer engineering, but they're vastly different. Chances are you'll find some area of expertise which you like more than the others, and that will be where you end up.

It's pretty difficult to make a computer science or computer engineering degree be a 'waste of time'.

You'll also have to consider if writing code all day is something you can enjoy or not.

If writing code all day is something you would enjoy, definitely do not become a software engineer because that's the last thing you'll ever do. I can't remember the last time I got to sit down and write code all day. There's always meetings, production issues, and business overhead (like dealing with the inagility of the useless system administrators, doing project management work, billing time towards tasks, writing change requests, dealing with stakeholders who simply cannot for the life of them make up their minds about something, etc.) that gets in the way of writing code.

 

[hofan41]

If writing code all day is something you would enjoy, definitely do not become a software engineer because that's the last thing you'll ever do.

That's a broad generalization that I don't think is accurate. It depends on your employer.

That being said, I would like to say that it is difficult to find a perfect opportunity which meets the three crucial requirements:

1. Something you are passionate about.
2. Pays you well
3. Something you are good at.

For many working professionals, they never find the perfect job, and its okay, because they choose to focus on other things outside of their careers that give them life satisfaction. I would not fret over not knowing what you want to do with the rest of your life, because honestly most people out there also don't know.

It is good you are thinking about these things right now, you have a head start. My advice is just try expanding your exposure to various fields.

If you end up enjoying your programming class, then you'll have answered your own question. If not, then take other classes over the summer at a community college and get a feel for what other subjects are like.

You may find that you enjoy one more than another, or you may find that you enjoy none of them. Out of the three criteria maybe you can only pick two, and that is okay as long as it pays well

 

[Bigbacon]

dealing with stakeholders who simply cannot for the life of them make up their minds about something, etc.) that gets in the way of writing code.

lol, this.....and stakeholders who don't even know what it is they do or want but they need something.

 

[Justintoxicated]

I did computer science. I learned a ton of math and was pretty damn good at it too about 2/3 of the kids that started in CS changed their major before graduating. I have forgotten most of the math now since I never use it for developing Enterprise applications over the last 10 years. I'm always trying to stay on top of the latest frameworks and their integration together. Enterprise development gets quite complicated.

That degree will come in handy over and over again and get you in the door, but realize that no matter which field you take in college you may not use a lot of what you learned.

My biggest mistake in college was staying with the same girl the whole time only to have her dump me for my best friend a week after I graduated. Don't do that or you will be miserable and it won't be because of your major! Probably the biggest lesson I learned from college though. Everything else just looks good on paper, but it sure as shit has never gotten me a job beyond the first one.

Cliffs:
Try to take some classes that you simply enjoy as well (not too many, but at least some). Maybe ones that have some cute girls in them (non match / CS). My Honors classes always had a great girl to guy ratio.

 

[aL Mac]

My biggest mistake in college was staying with the same girl the whole time only to have her dump me for my best friend a week after I graduated.

Good advice. Go meet people not only girls but friends. I'd say work hard, play hard. You don't want to go to college and only party, but you also don't want to burn yourself out. If you do nothing but school work you may eventually start to care less. Life is better with some balance.