Engineering Question

[kaankayis]

Hey, I am currently less than 16 years old and want to pursue a career in computer engineering. I have a firm grasp on math, ( trig.etc ) and I want just wondering about how I could learn more. I plan to get a masters in this subject anyway, but I kind of want to start early. Should I wait and learn some things in school, or try and gain a bit of knowledge prior? Does anyone have any tips/suggestions?

 

-(based on a post I saw earlier)

[Gegger]

read some books about it first

start slow

i'm legit reading "The Manga Guide to Microprocessors" right now, things like that, not textbooks are nice to start with

[kaankayis]

Thank you.

[trag1c]

I have a lot of experience with programming, electrical, robotics and game development. So my rant is this.

 

It might be slightly out of scope as it involves some electrical knowledge but Arduino's are a great resource for learning programming and embedded systems with very constrained system resources. It forces you to problem solve with creative and innovative solutions which is by far one of the most crucial skills you can learn for any career in any field. 

 

It separates who is okay at their job (or to put bluntly who is the f**king idiot who is incapable of critical thinking in the workplace) and those who can actually perform the task in front of them in an efficient manner while also being able to advance in their career. I honestly can't stress this enough.

 

I am currently doing my apprenticeship as an automotive service technician in Canada since I don't known what I want to do with my life yet. Nothing pisses me off more than guys throwing parts at a vehicle without actually diagnosing what the cause is. A day later they have the vehicle come back to the shop because they charged the customer an arm and a leg on parts and labor only for the issue to still be present.

 

You could be fantastic at writing clean code but if you have someone hold your hand the whole way through you won't get very far. You have to be able to take a step back think about what needs to be accomplished and the best way to navigate through it.

 

I also recommend getting your feet wet with a text book or two for any langauge. Doesn't matter which since they only major thing that changes between programming langauges is the syntax.Once you learn one langauge it's pretty easy to learn another and another one after that.

 

I personally jumped head first into C++ which can be a bit daunting as it's quite a bit lower level then just about any other language you would actually use. However it teaches you many concepts that are extremely useful. They allow you to navigate issues in higher level languages that may cause undesirable behavior that won't necessarily be evident as to why.

 

Anyways theres my rant.