Heres the deal:

Im going to school for my Associates in I.T.

Unfortunately, all that school has taught me is that I dont want to be in I.T. and Id like to be involved in the development of "the new hotness" when it comes to processors and chips inside the machine. The bigger better faster.

Im going to finish out and get my degree in Network administration (I only have 8 months left) Although Im tempted to transfer now, my last "quarter" is a placed internship. So I actually only have like 5 months of class time left.

Ive found a Computer Engineering program at Pitt and I have a few questions..

Is Computer Engineering exactly what I want to be in? (I dont want to make another $50k mistake).

Ive looked at a couple HW assignments on Pitts website and it seems to be 110% Math. I hate math alot. But I know in my everyday job I doubt Ill be calculating that much.

Is there anyone here that does this for a living??? How do you like it???

Anybody have any different thoughts on what I should do?? Sound like Comp eng is where I should be???

Is this a generally good paying field to get into??

thanks!!!
-Dustin

 

sounds like software engineering is what you want.
find a college that gives you the degree w/o alot of physics, circuit analysis, statistics and transmission line theory. i think you will still have to take the calc.

each school structures their degree as they see fit and they want to give you a "well rounded education" because they dont have a strong computer science departemnt. fine the school that matches your needs: you dont want the math and dont need it since you will be doing things like database design, unix windows design, network protocolls. you dont want to do firmware (hardware and software) and for sure no hardware.

 

if you hate math, stay away from any engineering field. It isn't an issue of how much math you'll do day-to-day in a job, it is that math is a huge part of engineering, period, and not being able to deal with math means you won't be able to deal with the required classes to get any engineering degree. Sounds like you want to be in marketing or management, not an engineer.

 

Good luck if you go through with it, all the math required drove me away fast. And this is coming from a guy who lives in front of his computer screen.

 

I mostly agree with what's already been posted.

I work in a platform software (FW/Environmentals/Netbooting/Layer1) group and while most of the day-to-day work is straightforward programming ( C ), we also design and check OEM designs on board fabs, requiring good solid engineering smarts.

In terms of my acutal job; it's great. I will say though, that the quality of one's job in the computer industry varies wildly. I'm happy as a lark, but my friends at Google are even happier. My friends at smaller companies are either really happy or hating life.

Check out the attitude and culture of the company BEFORE (if you can) you sign on the dotted line.

 

Oh yeah, and try to get into CMU vs. Pitt if you can (and can afford it).

 

Jah, did you not read??

I want to be involved in the progression of better chips inside the machines. I hate programming. I dont really want anything to do with programming. I dont want to install networks all day either.

Like I said,

I want to be involved in the progression of chips.. Whether its graphics or faster processors.. Thats what I want to do.

Is that Computer Engineering??

H22a - What do you do for a living now that your in front of the screen all day? Was it just the math that you didnt like about the engineering field??

Any other thoughts?

thanks,
Dustin

 

yeah a major part of engineering is the math...some 90 percent of the classes are math intesive i would say...atleast until you get to senior level courses...once you have survived the basics of engineering you will get into classes that you are more interested in...plus a lot of computer engineering jobs involve math in some way...

 

I would LOVE to get into CMU, moneys not a problem, but I dont think I have the SAT scores to back it up. (1100).. I was a B/C student through highschool too.

Ive heard they dont look at "Average" students at all...

-Dustin

 

if you are talking about carnegie mellon good luck with that...i highly doubt 1100 will get you in...unless you did really well in you associates degree...i would say you would need no lower than a 3.5 with some extensive projects or other related experience...also i believe they look at your extra ciricular activities as well...so maybe if you are involved in some IT clubs or engineering clubs that could help!