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2banks1swap.avi posted:The point I was making is many engineering fields are projected to suck for growth and are right now lovely too. This is why everyone should learn some C if they can.
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Apr 24, 2011 16:20
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hobbesmaster posted:This is why everyone should learn some C if they can. Agreed. I am a mechanical engineer an C is really useful for both PLCs and Microcontroller based stuff, both things you're likely to run into in manufacturing.
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Apr 24, 2011 17:41
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2banks1swap.avi posted:The point I was making is many engineering fields are projected to suck for growth and are right now lovely too. Huh? Many fields are projected to experience at least 10% growth over the next 7 years, with biomedical, environmental, and civil engineering leading the pack with 72, 31, and 24 per cent projected growth, respectively. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#projections_data psydude fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Apr 24, 2011 |
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Apr 24, 2011 18:05
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Anyone heard of renewable energy engineering? My school is new but growing quickly and offers bio, civil, and environmental to distinguish itself from the more established universities in the state against which it wouldn't really able to compete in say, electrical or mechanical engineering, and also to take advantage of the fact that these fields have the largest projected growths. This makes sense, but now they plan to add "renewable energy engineering", which I've never heard. Thoughts?
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Apr 24, 2011 21:22
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2011 21:44
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They haven't posted it yet. Would it be wrong to assume by your question that this sounds weird to you?
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Apr 24, 2011 22:10
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Safe and Secure! posted:They haven't posted it yet. Would it be wrong to assume by your question that this sounds weird to you? One big question: Does ABET/EAC accredit it?
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Apr 24, 2011 22:46
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psydude posted:Huh? Many fields are projected to experience at least 10% growth over the next 7 years, with biomedical, environmental, and civil engineering leading the pack with 72, 31, and 24 per cent projected growth, respectively. Civil engineering is beholden to the business cycle, specifically construction. No thanks. IIRC Bioengineering requires you to get a med degree. If so, no thanks. I also don't see it offered anywhere near me. Environmental is probably a good bet granted the predictions hold true, but the fact that a lot of it is "impact statements+++" put me off. The only school near here that offers EnvE is selective - UF - and given my teenage years' GPA (2.0) I doubt I can do good enough now at 26 to make up for it. Right now my GPA is over 3.0 but I'm at a CC, and overall it's a B- average.  Computer Software Engineers have job prospects RIGHT NOW, in the recession, and have projected 32% growth, without the pile of chemistry EnvE entails. I've also never heard of anyone needing to give their GPA, or require an internship if they're not going to grad school. I can also start programming now, versus in a year IF I get an internship, or when I graduate in 3 years. They also have the highest expected starting salary except for Petro and ChemE's among fields with high expected growth  Yeah, I'm metagaming it to hell, but I'm poor and have no connections to rely on yet. I'd really, really, really like to go EE, but I'm not about to play chicken with statistics or the job market.
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Apr 24, 2011 23:43
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hobbesmaster posted:One big question: Does ABET/EAC accredit it? Oh, right. Yes, they will be seeking ABET accreditation after the first round of seniors graduate. They did the same and successfully gained ABET accreditation for their existing engineering programs.
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Apr 24, 2011 23:49
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Stuff about the employment e: The salary figures for software engineers or anyone in the computing business are generally misleading. Given that the bulk of these jobs exist in California, you have to take into consideration that the cost of living is astronomically higher than any other part of the country and, as a result, software companies have to pay all of their employees more in order to compensate for this. psydude fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Apr 25, 2011 |
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Apr 25, 2011 00:22
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Many, not all. Bioengineering/Biomedical engineering doesn't rely on a medical degree at all. The degree itself is an undergraduate ABET-certified degree that pulls from just about all of the engineering disciplines. As for the field, a lot of it employs people with biomed degrees and just as many people with degrees from other backgrounds such as EE or Mech. A lot of the professors in my university's are people who have undergrad and master's in something like EE while doing a PhD in biomed. I think you're really looking too hard at the numbers. Do what you like the most and worry about a starting salary of 55k or 60k some other time. My girlfriend is on a co-op job write now that pays her to do master's research, and she loves what she does. She's always excited to go in for work. If you can do something like that for a career, then does it really matter if you start off with the top salary according to a website's chart?
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Apr 25, 2011 00:39
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I care far more about stability than income per se. High starting incomes are just a factor of demand for the labor, as is good growth, the ratio of jobs demanded to students supplied. I have no connections, so I can't really use nepotism, though I still have time to network with professors and job fairs. My problem is my GPA won't be competitive overall, period, though I still have a shot at a good MAJOR GPA, and that I'm going to UNF, which is hardly a big league school. Engineering seems to hinge on having an excellent GPA and/or a good internship. CSE/programming/Whatever HR calls the programmers who get good pay seems to be a lot more demanded. I'm not going to bet my life against the market. I've already paid a heavy toll on my 20's as a result of not doing my homework and hedging my bets. UNF doesn't offer Enviro and UF isn't as likely of an acceptance as UNF is. I've realized that I like pretty much any kind of problem solving, and how it's manifested is irrelevant. I also care more about stable 9-5 and 40h weeks with time for hobbies, and the stability, affluence and income to support them, than chasing a particular thing to do for 8 hours a day. See where I'm coming from? When tons of engineers have to program as a fall back, and the engineering majors which do some programming often do it anyway for a career, why not orient myself for the likeliest outcome? I'm first and foremost someone who has to make a living. I'll go program for an engineering company if I really, really want to do something in a particular field, but I want to maximize my chances at stability above all else. Nothing would make me happier than not having to worry.
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Apr 25, 2011 02:40
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Apr 25, 2011 03:04
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Thoguh posted:Every kind of engineering is beholden to business cycles. Intensity differs. Everyone isn't equally screwed if rich people make everyone else eat poo poo so they can keep making money when the economy hits turbulence. I'd be foolish to not factor that.
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Apr 25, 2011 03:10
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I really don't know any engineers outside of EE who program for a living. That being said, CS is a great field and there's nothing wrong with it. If you don't like programming, though, you'll be bad at it and probably not be all that successful, so why not do something you actually enjoy?
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Apr 25, 2011 03:16
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T.H.E. Rock posted:I really don't know any engineers outside of EE who program for a living. That being said, CS is a great field and there's nothing wrong with it. If you don't like programming, though, you'll be bad at it and probably not be all that successful, so why not do something you actually enjoy? My point is that if you're going to program anyway, and the job prospects in programing are better than engineering, why not be a software engineer?
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Apr 25, 2011 03:21
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2banks I'm confused about what you're currently doing right now. If I'm reading things correctly you're 26. You previously tried community college as a teenager and had around a 2.0 GPA, and now you're going back to school again after a break? And you're doing EnviroE or Civil E?
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Apr 25, 2011 03:29
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SneakySnake posted:2banks I'm confused about what you're currently doing right now. If I'm reading things correctly you're 26. You previously tried community college as a teenager and had around a 2.0 GPA, and now you're going back to school again after a break? And you're doing EnviroE or Civil E? I'm had a 2.0 GPA in my teens - 12 credit hours. Right now I average out to a B-, or a B in my CC right now, and I'm basically doing "piles of pre reqs for your AA" to transfer to a University. I work most nights throwing newspapers with my family and during the day get paid to, and volunteer to, tutor algebra. I've always wanted to be an engineer of 'physical' things like widgets, space ships or bridges. However, after some job market research and finding out programing is fun too, I'm SERIOUSLY considering CSE instead of "physical stuff"-engineering. I'm posting right now mostly about the fact that since so many people are going to code anyway, CSE/CS/word.salad(computer stuff) is probably a very safe, stable option for many. I'd be lying if I wasn't scared out of my mind, because I am, and I'm by no means willing to accept any unnecessary risk. I've been piss poor long enough. I have no connections, so I have to take the safe path. If I knew people, sure, I'd go chase what they could help with. However, I don't, so I have to play the same game people without connections play, which is basically finding the best market I can that I want to do enough to do good at it, and diving in.
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Apr 25, 2011 03:33
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2banks1swap.avi posted:I'm had a 2.0 GPA in my teens - 12 credit hours. Maybe I'm just talking out my rear end, but I always imagined that GPA was more important for 22 year old college graduates as opposed to older students. GPA and BS extracurriculars are going to be the main thing differentiating them from one another, while an older student will have more of a job history that they can be judged off of. It seems like you have or are close to a 3.0 GPA which is what I've always heard is the make or break line for employers. If you want to get to know people, wait until you transfer to your university and join one of the networking organizations there. They usually have bullshit career fairs and stuff but hey it's a start. Maybe kiss a professor's rear end or something and see if you can volunteer a couple hours to helping out with their research.
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Apr 25, 2011 03:42
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SneakySnake posted:Maybe I'm just talking out my rear end, but I always imagined that GPA was more important for 22 year old college graduates as opposed to older students. GPA and BS extracurriculars are going to be the main thing differentiating them from one another, while an older student will have more of a job history that they can be judged off of. It seems like you have or are close to a 3.0 GPA which is what I've always heard is the make or break line for employers. Blue collar work wouldn't do much if I'm breaking into Engineering, be it software, space ships, bridges, or lightbulbs. Neither retail nor skilled labor really matters, unless it's "Heh, I can work this guy hard." I am NOT going to get ridden like that ever again. When I get to a University I'll do exactly that, but right now at my CC the most I can do is volunteer teaching math to the people who came back and need help with remedial courses. I'm hoping tutoring algebra might help out, but I'm really hoping once I get to a University I'll rub the right elbows. I do fine with professors and that whole "type" - don't get me started about trying to fit in with shipyard workers - but the breadth and depth of my work experience is retail, delivery, and fixing ships.
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Apr 25, 2011 03:53
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2banks1swap.avi posted:I've always wanted to be an engineer of 'physical' things like widgets, space ships or bridges. However, after some job market research and finding out programing is fun too, I'm SERIOUSLY considering CSE instead of "physical stuff"-engineering. This is a bit EE biased. One thing that you will want to consider is that while you might enjoy programming a lot when you're writing software in an 'engineering' fashion you'll be writing the software so solve an engineering problem. As opposed to an IT/IST setting where I think of things like database, web design...etc. Examples of engineering systems being things like communication systems, control systems, RF/radar systems...etc. Having the education to understand the underlying system that you are programming for is incredibly important. Because you can know how to write code, but if you don't understand what you're writing code for (basically the hardware side of things) you can struggle quite a bit. Some examples from where I've worked so far: 1) Tractor/Farm Equipment Design: The entire control system of most combines/tractors/balers...etc is controlled from a real time embedded system. Writing the software for something like this is pretty trivial (if you've worked on something like Motorola or Atmels using C you know what I mean). The more complicated part was designing and understanding the interfaces outside of the 'box' that you're programming for. 2) Radar Systems: Programming for a Radar system is pretty complicated in it own way. You've got something like 10 CPUs all running at the same time, but once you get over that learning curve of how to program for the boxes you still won't get yourself anywhere if you don't know how RF works, the Radar Equations and what all of your hardware interfaces are. The Radar part of writing software for a Radar is again much more complicated than actually writing the code. I still don't completely understand how all of the parts of a radar system work together and never will, but because I have a EE another software/radar engineer can say to me "We need to tweak such and such parameter because our freqs are causing the transmitter duty cycle to be too high and causing faults." A comp sci grad will have a pretty big learning curve to learn all the RF and EE stuff that goes along with working on a radar system. Another good example is a ECU for a car. The code is probably really simple C or C++ but the complication is in the hardware interface and knowing how to actually control an engine. I hope that makes some kind of sense.
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Apr 25, 2011 04:03
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Who said programming isn't fun? There's a very broad spectrum of software development, from web dev to embedded systems. Standard software engineering curriculums these days often don't include a lot of knowledge that's crucial for low level programming.
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Apr 25, 2011 04:10
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Plinkey posted:This is a bit EE biased. It does! I've long wanted to make a megasquirt setup for a project car, but lacked the money. The thing is, though, that there are far more general software jobs than there are jobs involved with embedded stuff close to the metal. I WANT to work close to the metal. I don't want to skimp on the higher level stuff that is plentiful, though. BeefofAges posted:There's a very broad spectrum of software development, from web dev to embedded systems. Standard software engineering curriculums these days often don't include a lot of knowledge that's crucial for low level programming. So EE and pick careful electives? Or CS and pick careful electives?
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Apr 25, 2011 04:12
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Blue collar work wouldn't do much if I'm breaking into Engineering, be it software, space ships, bridges, or lightbulbs. Neither retail nor skilled labor really matters, unless it's "Heh, I can work this guy hard." I am NOT going to get ridden like that ever again. If it is in your discipline and intended industry, e.g. a manufacturing or mechanical engineer who has worked as a machinist, this is not at all true. Many blue collar jobs are done to make what an engineer designs. A certified airplane mechanic will make a better EE or ME working in the aerospace industry. Someone who has actually wired up an ECU, as many auto mechanics who like racing will have at some point, will make you a much better automotive engineer designing the same. Don't discount "blue collar" jobs when they service your intended industry.
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Apr 25, 2011 04:17
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2banks1swap.avi posted:So EE and pick careful electives? Or CS and pick careful electives? Depends. If you want to know the low level and how the hardware software interface works go EE. You'll cover most of that in your core courses. You probably won't write any huge OO programs after your intro programming classes and you'll probably do little to no algorithms beyond the Data Structures class. If you want to go farther with that you'll need to pick it up on your own or take some CE classes if your university allows. You will also pick up a bunch of other useful things like intro to signal processes, control systems, and comm systems (which relates to signal processing). If you want to learn more about good software design and software engineering go CE/CS. You'll get a lot more exposure to algorithms development techniques, maybe a bit of stuff that pertains to agile and other development methods...etc. It really depends what you want to do. I got a BS EE and I'm finishing up my Masters in Comp Sci in a year. So I'm a bit more biased towards the EE side for undergrad even though I write software and haven't designed a circuit in years. Plinkey fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Apr 25, 2011 |
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Apr 25, 2011 04:20
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2banks1swap.avi posted:The thing is, though, that there are far more general software jobs than there are jobs involved with embedded stuff close to the metal. I WANT to work close to the metal. I don't want to skimp on the higher level stuff that is plentiful, though. Embedded systems is actually an enormous field, and it's growing fast. You should not have a problem finding a job writing software that's "close to the metal". As for EE or CS, it really depends on the school you go to and the programs they offer. Either way, make sure you take classes that are important for what you want to do - learn how to program microcontrollers, learn to understand circuits to some degree, learn some computer science fundamentals, and learn software engineering principles.
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Apr 25, 2011 04:26
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Programmers are to computer science what construction workers are to civil engineers. CS is all about design and implementation, whereas programming is all about actual construction of the final product. CS also uses loltastic amounts of discrete math and logic.
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Apr 25, 2011 04:26
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Plinkey posted:Depends. If you want to know the low level and how the hardware software interface works go EE. You'll cover most of that in your core courses. You probably won't write any huge OO programs after your intro programming classes and you'll probably do little to no algorithms beyond the Data Structures class. If you want to go farther with that you'll need to pick it up on your own or take some CE classes if your university allows. You will also pick up a bunch of other useful things like intro to signal processes, control systems, and comm systems (which relates to signal processing). Right now I'm slated to be an EE and declared as such. I guess it can't hurt to stick it out and keep an eye on the job market, especially given that I've heard of many EEs being programmers right now. CE isn't offered where I'll most likely end up, though a CS minor is a definite possibility, much as an EE minor is too. I'll have to go sit down and start planning with their advisers. More than anything I want to be sure I won't end up screwed after spending a lot of time and effort on something, which I have had happen before. Are EE's really not bad as far as getting hired in CSE jobs?
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Apr 25, 2011 04:27
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BeefofAges posted:Embedded systems is actually an enormous field, and it's growing fast. You should not have a problem finding a job writing software that's "close to the metal". http://www.unf.edu/ccec/engineering/academics/Electrical_Engineering_Program_of_Study.pdf https://www.unf.edu/cat/2010-2011/programse4f16bb9fd88c90c99e633722724775c.html?id=15032407467 Sorry for one being a PDF. Which would be better for what I want to do?
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Apr 25, 2011 04:29
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Safe and Secure! posted:Anyone heard of renewable energy engineering? My school is new but growing quickly and offers bio, civil, and environmental to distinguish itself from the more established universities in the state against which it wouldn't really able to compete in say, electrical or mechanical engineering, and also to take advantage of the fact that these fields have the largest projected growths. Personally, I would avoid this type of degree and major in one of the solid, established engineering fields and then get into renewable energy once you graduate.
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Apr 25, 2011 04:48
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Plinkey posted:Depends. If you want to know the low level and how the hardware software interface works go EE. You'll cover most of that in your core courses. You probably won't write any huge OO programs after your intro programming classes and you'll probably do little to no algorithms beyond the Data Structures class. If you want to go farther with that you'll need to pick it up on your own or take some CE classes if your university allows. You will also pick up a bunch of other useful things like intro to signal processes, control systems, and comm systems (which relates to signal processing). This is what I have been looking to read. I want to get involved with programming, but I wasn't sure if I should go with EE or Cpt S. It sounds like as long as you pick the right courses either can land you a job doing intensive programming?
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Apr 25, 2011 05:04
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Particularly withSafe and Secure! posted:Oh, right. Yes, they will be seeking ABET accreditation after the first round of seniors graduate. They did the same and successfully gained ABET accreditation for their existing engineering programs. When will the first round of seniors graduate, and will it still be too late to change majors to another engineering field if they don't get accreditation? It'd be pretty horrible to have spent four years/tens of thousands of dollars on a degree that doesn't end up being worth anything.
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Apr 25, 2011 05:08
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Ingenium posted:This is what I have been looking to read. I want to get involved with programming, but I wasn't sure if I should go with EE or Cpt S. It sounds like as long as you pick the right courses either can land you a job doing intensive programming? Yeah, pretty much. I was allowed to take some of my electives from the CpE program. So I ended up taking whatever is after data structures, Computer Vision, and some other embedded course maybe...it's all a bit of a blur. Then I decided control systems was the way to go for some reason. e: It also depends what the company does that you end up applying to. We make Radar where I work and hire 90% EE even if it's a software job (see big post above). I'd say that the courses don't mater as much as internships. I manged to get my job because of internships and in spite of my GPA (2.79). I also managed to work on software because I had previous experience at the internships. In all honesty I tried to get into the CpE program but it had a limited amount of slots and it's based on your GPA when you declare. I didn't make the cut and EE didn't have a certain number of slots or GPA requirements. I didn't get hired into my company to write software but when they needed someone to write an Air Data Computer simulator I basically lied and said I could handle it all fine. It turned out pretty good because it was mostly porting an old simulator to a new PC/windows because of DMS issues for the interface boards. So I had a self-learning crash course in windows programming. After that I started writing some data reduction/analysis tools and now I've basically been adopted by the software group but I still technically work in the Integration and Test/Field Engineering Group. Which puts me in a pretty good position because I'll be doing field support on a system that I wrote a good amount of the software for (it usually doesn't work this way). I've also done some web development/DBs in addition to the Radar software at work. Right now I'm learning OpenGL and CUDA to work on some display and image processing specific things. So you can really end up writing software with a EE degree. Plinkey fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Apr 25, 2011 |
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Apr 25, 2011 05:15
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Just looked over some courses offered at my school's CSE department."UNF posted:CDA 4102 (w/CDA 4102L) - Introduction to Computer Architecture (3 credit hours) "UNF posted:CDA 4102L - Intro to Computer Architecture Laboratory (1 credit hour) Is this going to be sufficient for someone who wants to hit the low level stuff?
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Apr 25, 2011 15:21
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Just looked over some courses offered at my school's CSE department. Yeah, that will basically hit on assembly programming, registers, the instruction pipeline, memory organization, number representation, caches, I/O techniques and maybe designing your own 'chips' (ALU, buffers, pipeline stages, control logic) using something like VHDL (I'm guessing that's what the lab is for). I liked that class, but it gets pretty drat complicated towards the end. It also really helped me better understand C/C++, pointers, memory utilization and function calls. Also just learning assembly gives you a better appreciation for what goes on 'behind the scenes'. For an example of EE vs CpE: The next class after that one for EE is probably and embedded class where you will focus more on designing circuits to interface with your micros and code. Writing things like stop watches, stepper motor controls, PWM motor control. Which can then be used to implement control systems using micro-controllers later. You'll probably use a different language for each class (most likely MIPS for that class) and something that lends itself better to micro-controllers later like Motorola. The next class for CpE would probably be VHDL design and eventually compiler design. (I never took these). Afterward I wouldn't be suppressed if a kernel design class was in the curriculum somewhere. So you can see where the two programs start to diverge. So it kinda differs by what you mean by 'low level'. Plinkey fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Apr 25, 2011 |
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Apr 25, 2011 15:42
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Plinkey posted:Yeah, that will basically hit on assembly programming, registers, the instruction pipeline, memory organization, number representation, caches, I/O techniques and maybe designing your own 'chips' (ALU, buffers, pipeline stages, control logic) using something like VHDL (I'm guessing that's what the lab is for). Well, those were from the computer science curriculum, so I would imagine the next step would be the "CpE" track. My wet/fever/pipe dream is doing chip design, so I guess VHDL would be better?
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Apr 25, 2011 15:54
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Well, those were from the computer science curriculum, so I would imagine the next step would be the "CpE" track. Yeah, I don't think that class was required for my EE undergrad, but it was one of the CE/Comp Sci electives we could take. From what I understand chip design at most places is now done on FPGAs so if you wanted to do that VHDL is the way to go. (I know zero VHDL so someone else can probably comment on that better than I can.)
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Apr 25, 2011 15:59
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Yeah VHDL like Plinkey said, also see what profs are doing semiconductor devices or optoelectronics or likely playing around with their own fabrication. You may be able to do some undergrad research for them and get exposure to device fab & design then niche down your interest from there.
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Apr 25, 2011 16:05
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I figured this would be the best place to post this, if not sorry. Long story short I am going back to university to get my EE this fall after 6 years off. Before I go, I would like some recommendations on some good books or websites on circuit theory, signals etc so I can brush up. I found http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/ good, but was wondering if there where any others. I have plenty of calculus and liner algebra books, so I'm not too worried about that, but the lack of any real circuit book has me concerned. Any good book/website recommendations?
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Apr 25, 2011 16:25
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How far did you get? Do you have the physics stuff (electrostatics, magnetism, electromagnetism, optics) out of the way? If you have that stuff down the first circuit theory class will be a breeze. Giancoli (vol. II) was pretty good for that. If you're feeling randy you can pick up their solutions manual and go to town on some of the problems; I think you would have a great head start in EM as well. For signals, Proakis' Digital Signal Processing is pretty standard and good. I'd probably hold off on electronic design until you see what your class is because by god you're taking a class to teach it to you and the books will be like $150.
Hed fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Apr 25, 2011 |
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Apr 25, 2011 16:29
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