Is Computer Engineer hard?

Answer 1

I don't know about all Computer Engineers, but....

About Computer Engineering (by my husband): yes, probably very.

When I went through an accredited Computer Engineering program (1990-1994), we had courses in four major topics.

1. Advanced Calculus: Calc 1 & 2, Linear Algebra (matrices), Vector Calc (integrals in three dimensions), Differential Equations (beautiful math: e^(i*pi)+1=0), and Statistics (from coin flips to Markov chains, requires unintuitive thinking). I liked DiffEq a lot, since its results were simple and elegant.

2. Electrical Engineering: from sets of mathematical equations that represent the effects of resistors and capacitors, to equations that represent the actual rise and fall of current flow when a bit in memory flips on and off. EE was hard for me, since it was all about non-linearity, and I care more about what you're using the gates for (see Computer Engineering).

3. Computer Science: binary arithmetic (base-2 math: 10+11=101) and boolean algebra (11 AND 101 = 1), at the beginning of almost every course; a lot on real programming in a lot of different languages with data structures and algorithms for complex problems (HTML is NOT programming); the internals of operating systems, representing files, memory, and user commands (NOT how to use Excel); Artificial Intelligence-clever ways to represent and make decisions about the real world, including games. Computer Science wasn't really my thing either, because I don't care if a way of doing something is an eensy-bit faster in cases with billions of things to handle, if it's really hard to write and maintain. Which left me with

4. Computer Engineering. A week into my sophomore year, when we first learned of AND and OR operations on binary numbers, I realized that this really fit me, and I switched my major from Computer Science. Here's where we talked about designing practical computer systems, in theory and in practice, which actually accomplished something. One of my favorite classes took a small processor from the metal inside a chip to the entire design of a simple microprocessor, with control logic, memory, registers, etc. In another course we wrapped wires around the pins of dozens of little chips, to make an actual small computer from chips and wire, and programmed it in assembly language.

So, I'd recommend it if you don't mind, or even enjoy, math; especially if you write real programs in a programming language (anything from BASIC to LOGO to C/C++/Java, even the scripting languages like Ruby or Python).

I wouldn't recommend it if you absolutely hate math, if you dislike programming, or if you don't care about what's going on inside a computer or behind the windows of an operating system.

To do well in any kind of engineering, you really should have some kind of natural interest or skill in the kind of problems that that engineering solves, and especially the methods used to get to those solutions, because you'll do a lot of them. It can be hard to know whether you do, before you get into the classes. I knew that I'd be interested in Computer Science because I'd been programming from 4th grade, but if you haven't had a similar experience don't necessarily let that scare you away.

Answer 2

If your good in math and physics it should be fine, if you struggle in these subjects it will be very hard. All they can really test you on in most of these course is the math behind the theory, so a strong math background will definately help.

In any engineering you will actually solve problems using differential equations.

Answer 3

All you need is a logical mind to survive and grow as a computer engineer. Whats most important is logic. Loll !

Answer 4

NO! It depends on you....