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I used to be a physics major. Math is lovely, and so are its applications (to an extent). However, I never really had any interest in the engineering applications of physics, none at all. In fact, I found them to be pretty terribly annoying.
Now fast forward to the present. I'm majoring in Comp Sci, and study the engineering(hardware) part of comps as well as the software. For some odd reason, comp engineering is actually really enjoyable and interesting, in contrast to the old types of engineering. Hell, I tried quite a few forms of engineering, including aero engineering, which I would think is close to comp engineering, but aero engineering and the rest... yea screw them.
I'm wondering if anyone else who feels this way can help elucidate what the difference is to you between comp engineering and traditional engineering. I know for me, the software half of comp sci is awesome because I am mostly unfettered by the laws of physics (though not quite the laws of mathematics), but I'm not quite so sure where the difference is on the hardware side.
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Not sure what you mean.
As I understand it, engineering in essence is about using processes and configuration management to delivery scientific princples for application. Of course, you learn the knowledge areas and subjects in question but a lot of what you do is using defined standards and processes to delive outcomes.
Science is about testing and discovering things and in computer science this means that you will discover new algorithm to make things better etc but you don't need to confer to standards as much.
For people with a science background, engineer would be annoying because for you discovery and proving/disproving theories is more interesting. Engineering practices while have good reason for their existence would often get in the way of things.
The above is also the reason for the seperation of software engineering and computer science (even though majority of knowledge areas overlap)
just my 2c
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United States1250 Posts
Computer engineering is a broad enough field to be difficult to generalize, but I'm not sure why you would have ever thought it was like aerospace or mechanical engineering. Computer engineering is the intersection of electrical engineering and computer science. Digital logic and related topics are paramount in CE of course, whereas EEs may not work on digital design at all in their careers. Most of the physics used in EE and CE is electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, rather than Newtonian mechanics, fluid dynamics, and whatever else mechanical/aerospace/structural/etc engineers use.
CEs can definitely have careers involving alot of software/programming type work, but it's not the same kind of programming that goes into making a video game or browser.
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Actually your answer was rather helpful despite my post being wandering and confusing lol.
Now that you mention it (referring to)
On November 04 2009 03:35 haduken wrote:
As I understand it, engineering in essence is about using processes and configuration management to delivery scientific princples for application. Of course, you learn the knowledge areas and subjects in question but a lot of what you do is using defined standards and processes to delive outcomes.
That seems like something which feels more true about non comp engineering than comp engineering (referring to the hardware part of comp engineering). I mean sure there are defined standards and processes, but there are also opportunities to create completely new things just being creating theoretical computers and then attempting to create them. For example, don't like silicon? Well, let's find out how to use nature to compute for us since somehow it calculates things that seem to be crazy exponentially difficult problems.
The questions also feel very different:
How do we make this structure support __ weight and withstand __ forces vs How do we make this slab of sand (xkcd ;x) calculate logically?
I can't really seem to express the difference clearly, but there is also another difference, for example, between creating a huge bridge that spans a large divide and having a robotic arm respond to a thought. Perhaps it is the fact that hardware in comp engineering type situations involves a very close interaction between hardware and software, which was not really true for previous engineering applications that I studied.
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On November 04 2009 03:46 inkblot wrote:
Computer engineering is a broad enough field to be difficult to generalize, but I'm not sure why you would have ever thought it was like aerospace or mechanical engineering. Computer engineering is the intersection of electrical engineering and computer science. Digital logic and related topics are paramount in CE of course, whereas EEs may not work on digital design at all in their careers. Most of the physics used in EE and CE is electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, rather than Newtonian mechanics, fluid dynamics, and whatever else mechanical/aerospace/structural/etc engineers use.
CEs can definitely have careers involving alot of software/programming type work, but it's not the same kind of programming that goes into making a video game or browser.
Yea, it now seems like a pretty bad comparison. It is probably the difference between Newtonian and electrical engineering that starts the divide. Curiously though, I'm not really interested in EE for the sake of EE, but maybe that is just the end result affecting my preferences.
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When I was about to graduate high school I thought- it's either physics or some kind of engineering. But with engineering you quite likely are stuck for years doing tedious and repetitive jobs, for example some civil engineers- building houses (and not the creative part architects do), bridges and roads seemed like a horrifying future career. So I stick with physics and will be doing masters in theoretical physics, it's great.
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Software engineering is super. There are no boundaries to what you can make, except for the limits of processor speed and available memory. The trouble starts when you have to make money on it as a profession.
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Computer engineering is pretty much a very large subset of electrical engineering to the point where it gets its own category. It's the part that generally deals more with digital logic, computer architecture, etc. that touches more of the computer science area of study. I wouldn't call it so much different than other engineerings, since the underlying problem-solving process is at the core the same.
The difference as has been said is that computer engineering is the least foundationally based on physics, as the engineering process is built off of abstract logical constructs rather than materials such as mass/springs/dampers or resistors/capacitors/inductors. There's generally no concern with space (i.e. x, y, z coordinates) in computer engineering, similarly to but to a greater extent than most branches of electrical engineering. Applications tightly coupled to electromagnetics are the only parts of electrical engineering that care about spatial coordinates, and those parts of EE don't fall under CE as well.
Also, computer engineering tends to use relatively few approximations in calculations. There's not so much of "you can neglect X term because of Y" because the behavior of systems computer engineers are engineering aren't so much influenced by real world disturbances and inaccuracies you can't be 100% sure of. +4.91 volts is the same as +5.14 volts, if they're both counted as logical "1".
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EPT
