Electrical Engineering (EE), more like. VLSI, etching stuff, basic circuits even, are not part of CS--at least, anymore?
The closest one could get to the machine is assembly or a course on operating systems (OS), and even then we don't own the hardware; maybe just simulated in software.
Interesting - perhaps because I see so many EEs in software or consulting I don't think as much about hardware. I can see how the field can get specialized very quickly, and the first post-college job is critical.
There are a decent chunk of EEs/CpEs doing work that bridges hardware and software. For example, they might be writing VHDL or Verilog for an FPGA and also writing C/C++ for the microcontroller that interfaces with it.
Also, there are lots of professional software developers who studied Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering in college. Many schools historically had all their CS classes and faculty within their EE department.
> there's a lot more standardization in the components I string together
Embedded Systems is just one discipline in EE. How many people design something like an lm317 deployed on embedded devices? EE tries to teach that, too, until it's all to complex not to specialize on one branch. Another discipline I was offered to specialize in was Motor Appliances and Power Amplifiers. Those don't have much to do with CS, except maybe for digital control circuits.
EE is very rewarding. I think it is only second to physics and nuclear eng in terms of how deep they go into physics.
You also cover a wide array of topics, from hardware and how it works to a lot of systems programming (e.g: real-time operating systems, kernels, device drivers) some computer science theory (mainly automata theory and concurrency like petri nets) to signal processing which includes audio to heavy yet extremely beautiful math topics such as control theory.
As someone who survied a BSEE, the range is too huge. I work with digital design as my day job, I only intuitively use EE101, digital logic and computer architecture and occasionally analog when dealing with post silicon issues.
The OP wants to study EE because he has a specific goal. My suggestion was that instead of trying to study everything EE focus only on those subjects that are relevant.
For example: If I was interested in robotics , I would not bother with digital,RF or Analog or eveen communication systems. I woud primarily focus on Control Systems and Embedded Systems.
We didn't even cover PCB design in my EE years, the course load was pretty much evenly split between circuit theory, VLSI (processor) design, power distribution systems, and embedded systems programming. Plus the necessary theoretical background in physics, mathematics, control theory, and management.
In my mind, Electrical Engineering is closer to hardware engineering. I went through Comp Eng, and did many a hardware design internship, but I am quite a low-level fellow. Many of my colleagues were EE, not CE.
Seems like this is similar to the universities which require computer science majors to take some electrical engineering classes. Sure it can be nice to know where the hardware came from, but wouldn't it be more useful to focus on what you can do with it?
Personally I think something like Electrical Engineering is more valuable. At my company EE folks are often competent in both hardware and software, but the CS folks are completely incompetent at hardware and don't even understand basic GPIO usage.
We also had a computer engineering dept which mostly consisted of sticking 7400 series TTL chips in breadboards, later VHDL/Verilog. Basically the EE curriculum with more computer topic classes and less analog/RF classes.
And like the rest of the engineering dept there was "real" (aka theoretical) and "technology" (applied) degrees. One of my degrees is a AS in EE-T although I went right into computers for the BSCS (with the idea of getting into embedded using the AS-EET as leverage, which I have never managed to do, LOL)
> My degree wasn't in EE, but I can't imagine neither of those are useful for an Electrical Engineer.
My degree was EE, and I can say they're definitely useful for a lot of EE concepts.
It's similar to computer science: It's possible to jump into the industry and write CRUD apps and connect APIs together without ever studying algorithms or how CPUs work. However, if you go deeper or have to do the more complex work, you really need to understand the underlying concepts.
Or physics. I find it's quite often the knowledge of the underlying principles that spurs my problems solving and creativity when working with electronics, rather than the (rightly) engineered outlook you get coming out of EE.
I've seen some physicists put together mind blowing electrical systems.
I mean when I went to university we absolutely went over the electronics side of things. Certainly not to the same depth as an electrical engineer would have, but it was covered.
I'm an EE and can confirm this. An EE who does something other than microelectronics can generally understand how those circuits work, but is generally unable to design a non-trivial one.
EEs also study computer architecture and OS internals in detail, depending on one's emphasis.
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