Computer Engineering vs. Electrical Engineering?
I’m trying to decide between these two programs (term starting next week!). My goal is to study robotics in graduate school but I want to get a basic grasp of all the fields that are integrated into robotics.Whichever one I choose, I’m going to take the Mechatronics option which combines mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering. hopefully I can get a minor in Computer Science to get some more programming expertise.
basically since the curriculum will be very similar for both, I’m wondering what the difference will be on paper. Is there a certain level of prestige associated with one or the other?
oh yeah I’m in Canada (UNB specifically) if that makes much of a difference.
Pulseman, I would suggest that if robotics is your game, you should take the electrical engineering path as opposed to the computing path. Most of my electrical engineering colleagues are excellent computer programmers but I do not know any computing graduates who have any electromechanical design skills. The essence of robotics is the “actuated” and the “actuating” components — the bits that move and the bits that move them — designing these two components is the job of the electromechanical engineer. The computer programmer merely writes the instructions that the electromechanical engineer tell him or her to write. My cousin did an electrical engineering degree and moved into designing and building robots to assist people with motor-neurone disease — he does his own programming. In any event, an electrical engineering degree is the most versatile of all engineering degrees.
