I don't know about the engineering specifics, but honestly, for what major you pick, it really depends on what you want to do with your life. If you are looking to work after you graduate, pick a major that will help you find a job. If you are looking to go to grad school afterwards, pick a major that the type of grad school youre going into likes (ie. something biology for med school). If you want to travel and not really settle down until you're older, then pick a major that you just want to do for fun. At 17/18 years old, you probably won't really know what you want to do afterwards until you have a little more experience in life and learn what its like to have some independence from your parents. But keep these questions in mind as your going through your first/second year and always be receptive to advice.

ExaltedElegance

United States81 Posts

January 10 2009 15:44 GMT

#25

I actually started in Biomedical Engineering, but transferred into Computer Engineering after a semester after I realized how much I hate physiology.

fight_or_flight

United States3988 Posts

January 10 2009 15:55 GMT

#26

You'd be surprised how much BE, CS, and EE overlap. In fact, if you drew a Venn diagram of what topics those three covered, there would be a place where they all overlapped.

For example. Electrical engineering has a lot of system theory, statistics and signal processing in it. In fact, DSP (digital signal processing) is an area of EE that is basically all software. Anything dealing with the brain or nano-tech could fall under electrical engineering. And obviously there is a lot of software requirements when dealing with these topics as well.

jgad

Canada899 Posts

January 10 2009 16:17 GMT

#27

As a fellow engineer, let me give you a few tips :

1) Don't go into a field for money unless you want to be one of those thirtysomething guys who sits at his bedside with a pistol every night wondering what your life is worth.

2) Industrial Engineering is about to make a BIG comeback, especially in the western world. As soon as the current recession/depression passes, assuming that everything doesn't completely go wrong, manufacturing is going to make a big resurgence in North America and Europe. With Asia coming to the end of its industrial development cycle, and with Asia holding massive debts of Western countries, there will come a day when China, India, etc, no longer will ship cheap goods to the West in exchange for worthless paper money. New development in manufacturing, hard goods, commodities, etc, is going to have to pick up or else the West is going to drown in debt.

3) If you really live in Brunei, though, then you have a lot of opportunity in the electrical/computer engineering field. I would suggest a combination of materials/physics and electrical engineering because that's where the technology is going - you have to know solid state physics these days and you need to understand engineering materials if you want to be in development or fabrication. Especially for things like OLED, organic and polymer electronics, etc, it's really becoming a cross-discipline field, but also for semiconductor chip development, etc.

4) As for which it's easy or hard to find a job in, it really depends where you live or where you want to live. If you want to move to Korea, then display and communications technology is where the bulk of the jobs are. If you move to northern Canada, you'll find that forestry and mining engineers are the only ones who get jobs. If you move to the Middle East you can do well in petrochemicals and derivative industries thereof. The list goes on - each country and each city has its own big industries and those will be the ones where you'll get the jobs. Either pick a place you want to live and then choose a discipline based on that, or choose a discipline and pick a place to move.

5) Start reading financial and economic news - this is the best tool to help you understand where markets are going, what is on the downside and what is moving up. Listening to your parents is often a bad idea - they're behind the times. Everyone who listened to their parents in the 60s and 70s ended up as car mechanics making crap money because in the 50s it was good work to be in the automotive industry. Everyone who saw computers coming got rich. Everyone who listened to their parents in the late 90s ended up being first and second level tech suppport and MSCEs making crap money because IT was hot item before. Now things change even faster. You have to look to the future, not at who is making money today. I've just seen students spend years getting a PhD in a quantitative discipline because they saw big money being made in financials and fund management, only now to find that the entire industry has collapsed. Pay attention to the world around you and you will be in a good position.

clazziquai

6685 Posts

January 10 2009 16:52 GMT

#28

jgad: I'm currently living in the USA (NJ to be exact). Haha, I picked a random country for fun.
Thanks A LOT (like a huge ton) for all that information, though.

The two places i want to live/work is either in the USA or back in Korea.

clazziquai

6685 Posts

January 10 2009 16:52 GMT

#29

And who keeps rating my blog a fucking 1/5.
STOP!!!!

Klockan3

Sweden2866 Posts

January 10 2009 17:34 GMT

#30

You could always start with bio and then switch if you really hate it. But tbh you do not know what you want before you have tried it.

Also there are a lot more chicks at biomed than at industrial/computer/electrical and that will make the studies more fun even if the subjects aren't super fun.

Luddite

United States2315 Posts

January 10 2009 19:06 GMT

#31

I'm sure you'd have no trouble finding a nice job with any of those concentrations.

Cadical

United States469 Posts

January 10 2009 19:09 GMT

#32

Why don't you check out Bureau of Labor Statistics if you want to see some mean salary.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#b17-0000

clazziquai

6685 Posts

January 10 2009 19:39 GMT

#33

On January 11 2009 04:09 Cadical wrote:
Why don't you check out Bureau of Labor Statistics if you want to see some mean salary.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#b17-0000

THANKS SO MUCH Cadical!
Haha this could be useful. <3333

koreakool

United States334 Posts

January 10 2009 20:51 GMT

#34

Thanks Cadical those statistics are really helpful!

Raithed

China7078 Posts

January 10 2009 21:32 GMT

#35

On January 11 2009 04:09 Cadical wrote:
Why don't you check out Bureau of Labor Statistics if you want to see some mean salary.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#b17-0000

oh wow, thats really helpful. holy fuck @ architecture LOL.
lmao @ aerospace engineer = so little money.

thedeadhaji

39489 Posts

January 10 2009 23:31 GMT

#36

BE I would imagine is similar to ChemE, so about 70K from a reputable institution.

On January 11 2009 00:55 fight_or_flight wrote:
You'd be surprised how much BE, CS, and EE overlap. In fact, if you drew a Venn diagram of what topics those three covered, there would be a place where they all overlapped.

For example. Electrical engineering has a lot of system theory, statistics and signal processing in it. In fact, DSP (digital signal processing) is an area of EE that is basically all software. Anything dealing with the brain or nano-tech could fall under electrical engineering. And obviously there is a lot of software requirements when dealing with these topics as well.

I just menionted this thread to my brother who did a Computer Engineering degree at one of the best Bio instutitions in the world, and his opinion was

"Why doesn't he just do all three, there's tons of overlap and CE / EE are useful even if you do BE anyways"

ExaltedElegance

United States81 Posts

January 11 2009 00:50 GMT

#37

On January 11 2009 01:52 clazziquai wrote:
jgad: I'm currently living in the USA (NJ to be exact). Haha, I picked a random country for fun.
Thanks A LOT (like a huge ton) for all that information, though.

The two places i want to live/work is either in the USA or back in Korea.

Curious. Where are you going to school?

clazziquai

6685 Posts

January 12 2009 05:02 GMT

#38

Rutgers!

Hypnosis

United States2061 Posts

January 12 2009 05:15 GMT

#39

Im doing mechanical engineering with a focus in biomedical which seems the most promising and interesting.. So far its all math and physics. If you do do mechanical (or any engineering really) you are going to be taking all of calculs up to calc III and also linear algebra. You will do a fast paced chemistry class and 2 semesters in physics then go into a purely engineering course schedule which will be your entire career from there on ( in school)/

Ender

United States294 Posts

January 12 2009 18:38 GMT

#40

@ Clazziquai:

I'm graduating this semester in EE and a lot of people I know are doing BME. I can say the following things with confidence:

1.) Most students that do BME in my school simply use the degree to go on to either med school, dental school, etc. This is because getting the BME undergrad is a safer bet in case you don't get into med school/dental school/etc. than getting a degree in biology because you can't do shit with just a bachelors in biology whereas the BME degree is more useful by itself.

2.) I don't know where the above posters are getting their information from when they say that BME is a hot field. Perhaps the field itself is hot, but the degree is not. If you choose a BME major you have to select a concentration within BME such as biomaterials, electronics, mechanical, etc. But if you were the employer, and needed some guy to do the electronics aspect of your biomedical engineering project, would you hire a BME major or an EE major? That's the problem is a lot of the BME undergrads; they're getting beat out by people who actually concentrated on one thing, rather than have a decent knowledge of everything. There are companies who hire BME majors, but from what I've heard there's a lot of competition for these jobs and usually a master's degree is required. However, take my advice with a grain of salt because I live in Connecticut and a lot of the BME jobs are elsewhere.

3.) I think the statistics that Cadical linked are really misleading. Just know that upon graduating with a BSE in EE/CE/CSE/ME will get you about +/- 60k starting salary. 70k starting salary is really pushing it....only one person I know made this amount right after graduation--but he was working for a hedge fund doing quant analysis even though he did EE. Especially in today's market I seriously doubt anybody's going to be making 70k right out of college.

you can pm me if you have any questions.