Computer Engineers questions

[RainColt]

I'm looking to apply for university and am interested in computer engineering. I am looking at government funding to help pay for my tuition and partial living expenses and the application form for this looks for an action plan for what I am going to do with this education. I am looking for someone who may be in a feild relating to computer engineering to help me better understand just what it is I am committing to. As of right now I've chosen computer engineering as the course I want to take simply because the synopsis provided seemed like exactly what I would love to do, but that is all I know about it. 

I need to know what kind of job opportunity this education opens up and where to look for these jobs.

What opportunities for advancements exist in these carreers.

The kind of work environment I can expect, and what type of hours to be ready to work.

Can I do some at home training by myself and if so how?

What kind of equipment will I have to familiarize myself with?

These types of questions so that I can be confident that this is actually what I want to do and am not just going to drop it realizing it's not what I wanted.

[Art Vandelay]

I am in a computer engineering program. 

 

You need to know programming, circuits and advanced math for university. You probably only need programming for actual work.

 

If you want to learn the kind of programming you'll need for computer engineering, buy an arduino and program it to do something. Everything else is just math.

 

You're going to have to be able to deal with like 50-60 hour work weeks in university, largely consisting of labs that are just pointless busy work.

[Bloodyvalley]

I am in a computer engineering program. 

 

You need to know programming, circuits and advanced math for university. You probably only need programming for actual work.

 

If you want to learn the kind of programming you'll need for computer engineering, buy an arduino and program it to do something. Everything else is just math.

 

You're going to have to be able to deal with like 50-60 hour work weeks in university, largely consisting of labs that are just pointless busy work.

Is that counting homework?

 

What is the math for, exactly?

[Art Vandelay]

Is that counting homework?

 

What is the math for, exactly?

Last term, my weeks averaged out to about 36 hours of class, if you showed up to all the classes and tutorials. There were 2 mandatory assignments per week which all took like 5 hours to complete, and some less frequent assignments that took more time. There were also some other mandatory assignments. I think I ended up doing about 10 hours of studying each week on top of everything.

 

The math I've done is:

series (taylor approximations, series convergence criteria, fixed point)

evaluating multi-dimensional differentials/integrals

solving differential and integral equations (only simple cases so far)

laplace transforms

fourier series

basic combinations and permutations

there was this one course with a lot of proofs, not really sure how to describe it

basic graph theory

basic linear algebra (matrices, fields, etc.)

 

Circuits so far has just been solving differential equations, solving systems and a lot of equations. 

 

You probably won't need any of this math to actually work in the field though. My dad worked in digital signal processing for a while and he said they never needed to use much of it.

[Bloodyvalley]

Last term, my weeks averaged out to about 36 hours of class, if you showed up to all the classes and tutorials. There were 2 mandatory assignments per week which all took like 5 hours to complete, and some less frequent assignments that took more time. There were also some other mandatory assignments. I think I ended up doing about 10 hours of studying each week on top of everything.

 

The math I've done is:

series (taylor approximations, series convergence criteria, fixed point)

evaluating multi-dimensional differentials/integrals

solving differential and integral equations (only simple cases so far)

laplace transforms

fourier series

basic combinations and permutations

there was this one course with a lot of proofs, not really sure how to describe it

basic graph theory

basic linear algebra (matrices, fields, etc.)

 

Circuits so far has just been solving differential equations, solving systems and a lot of equations. 

 

You probably won't need any of this math to actually work in the field though. My dad worked in digital signal processing for a while and he said they never needed to use much of it.

I think math is more for graphical effects (ie: tesselation, etc)

 

Do you still have time for gaming?

[Art Vandelay]

I think math is more for graphical effects (ie: tesselation, etc)

 

Do you still have time for gaming?

I'm not really sure where it's used. Most of the jobs that utilize advanced mathematical techniques seem to be very specialized anyway.

 

Yeah, sort of. I don't really go out with friends when I'm in school though. video games > friends

[Bloodyvalley]

I'm not really sure where it's used. Most of the jobs that utilize advanced mathematical techniques seem to be very specialized anyway.

 

Yeah, sort of. I don't really go out with friends when I'm in school though. video games > friends

How many hours have you played in the last 2 weeks?

 

 

Btw Computer Engineering is a Masters, right? So, 6 years in uni?

[RainColt]

I'm not really sure where it's used. Most of the jobs that utilize advanced mathematical techniques seem to be very specialized anyway.

 

Yeah, sort of. I don't really go out with friends when I'm in school though. video games > friends

I'm going to apologize in advance because just responding to this kind of opened you up to weird analytic career choice questions that you get at job interviews and social study classes, so I'm sorry if I end up being obnoxiously prying and weirdly specific about things that you may have yet to have to think about.

What kind of jobs would utilize advanced math and what are some more general jobs in this field and where would one go to look for these jobs..

[gauvinic]

I'm a Computer Engineering major in America, but I assume its similar to Canada's. I only say that because I'm aware that not all countries call the same field of study the exact same thing. 

 

I need to know what kind of job opportunity this education opens up and where to look for these jobs.

 

Honestly, it opens up a wide range of jobs. At least at my school, Computer Engineering is essentially a hybrid of Software Engineering and Electrical Engineering. You should technically have the skillset required to get a low level Electrical Engineer job, and if you take more CS courses as electives, you can do a broad range of programming jobs, including low level processor coding/ drivers, high level coding (user end applications/ data storage/ manipulation), and FPGA programming. You should also be able to design logic chips. 

 

 

 

What opportunities for advancements exist in these carreers.

 

As many as you're willing to commit to. At least for most. There's plenty of startups, and the mentality of startups has to be incentive based. Older companies can have more of a seniority based system, but from what I've seen, you'll be fine if you work hard at it.

 

 

 

The kind of work environment I can expect, and what type of hours to be ready to work.

 

 

Again, this is flexible based on the company, but software companies seem to be moving back to the mentality they had around the 70's/ 80's. You can expect to not work at a cubicle, but instead work in an open environment where you can freely go amongst team members, gather around to talk about plans, etc. In fact, that's how it is at my current internship. As for hours, it can be light one week, but be ready and able to work nights if necessary. Most (if not all) full time software engineering jobs are salaried. I cannot speak towards hardware engineering on this.

 

 

 

Can I do some at home training by myself and if so how?

 

 

You can learn to solder and build simple working circuits. There are plenty of videos online for this, but one channel I find useful for circuits/ hardware is: EEVBlog

You can also learn how to program microcontrollers like the arduino, but I'd stay away from Arduino's libraries. Companies are looking for people who can write their own code from scratch. Often times, its illegal to use these libraries in a product. While it is possible to get an arduino board and not use it's IDE/ libraries, you can also get something like the Freedom KL25Z, and use Keil/ CodeWarrior to program it. The board has an ARM Cortex M0+ on it, as well as an accelerometer, RGB LED (Common Anode), and a Touch sensor, and its only $13. You can even practice your soldering skills if you get headers to put on it.

 

 

What kind of equipment will I have to familiarize myself with?

 

 

 

ICs, breadboards, Microcontrollers in general, circuit components, oscilloscopes, multimeters, compilers, etc. 

 

It's good that you want to check out what you're getting into. I'm the only one from my initial college friend group still in Computer Engineering. Its not the easiest major, by any means. That being said, if you love computers in general, it is a worthwhile major in my opinion. Its really interesting/ fun learning about how things like screens, user input, various sensors work and being able to control them yourself. To me, the most painful part of Comp. Eng. is FPGA programming. I hate Verilog. The concept is easy enough, but Verilog requires that you create a circuit that is close enough to one of their predefined templates. Even if the circuit is physically possible on the chip, your code may not synthesize.

[Art Vandelay]

What kind of jobs would utilize advanced math and what are some more general jobs in this field and where would one go to look for these jobs..

Electrical engineering maybe? Any kind of analog systems job I'd assume would involve advanced math.

 

With digital systems jobs, generally you don't have to make many predictions, except for maybe some proofs, graph theory and combinatorics if you're inventing a new technique.

 

I don't really know how to look for jobs. Go call places and look on job boards?

 

Often times, its illegal to use these libraries in a product. 

What laws would that violate? I thought that kind of thing was just a civil issue, due to the licensing.

 

 

How many hours have you played in the last 2 weeks?

 

 

Btw Computer Engineering is a Masters, right? So, 6 years in uni?

I'm doing co-op this term, so probably 20 hours. I'm not all that into video games, these days.

 

It's just a bachelors for my university (they have a masters program for computer engineering though, but you can't take it if you were in CE in undergrad). I'm in co-op so it's 5 years though.

[Dw136]

Can I do some at home training by myself and if so how?

What kind of equipment will I have to familiarize myself with?

These types of questions so that I can be confident that this is actually what I want to do and am not just going to drop it realizing it's not what I wanted.

 

I study at the University of Alberta going into 3rd year Electrical Engineering (Similar so far to CE minus a few courses) 

 

Honestly the biggest hurdle in Uni I found was just getting through the stuff you don't really care about. If your university is like mine you'll have to take a general year to qualify for a second year placement. You may be a brilliant programmer and know your circuits but the first year stuff is so broad it kills. The chem/physics are manageable (Basically first semester is repeat of HS, second semester is repeat of IB or AP). But the thing that kills most EE/CE guys is Statics and Dynamics (Think applied physics). These two courses are the killers of potential EE/CE kids, it's stuff that 90% of EE/CE kids will never take again but it's arguably the most difficult. <- If you're going to study anything before uni, check if you have to do these and get a general overview of them beforehand. 

 

The biggest thing I can advise is to get a strong work ethic before you go to university. You have to develop a good ethic of going to class, keeping on top of your homework. If you're uni is like mine you'll have 5-6 classes a semester + 2-4 labs + lab reports + seminars + weekly homework (About 1 hour per subject if you're keeping up with material 3 hours per subject if you're behind) + bi-weekly assignments (about 5-8 hours to complete one). This is not to scare you but to let you understand that the easy days of HS are over, you have to work hard at this. Honestly, the equipment is secondary to anything else. Going in I didn't know how to program "Hello World" or solder a IC, but what I did have was a good work ethic and it served me better than any knowledge of a particular subject did. 

 

Oh and this may seem harsh but learn to accept bad grades. Remember you're going into a school where the lowest grade is sometimes the highest in HS, everyone will, at one point, get hammered by an exam. (Imagine going from a 90% HS mark to a 65-75% Uni mark) You just got to get back up and knuckle down for the final. 

[Dw136]

What kind of jobs would utilize advanced math and what are some more general jobs in this field and where would one go to look for these jobs..

Advance math underpins pretty much everything in computing. A very common example for math is the underpinning of Jpeg compression. 

 

The Jpeg compression uses the DCT(Discrete Cosine Transformation), in which a 8x8 grid of lets say "luminosity" is can be broken down into a summation of cosines (each with it's own co-efficient). Since humans can't really see high frequency changes the higher cosine frequencies are usually thrown away which reduced data and can then be compressed by Huffman compression another pretty amazing mathematical theory. 

 

Even things that seem that little math (like text translation) often use mathematics. I remember reading a google article showing how they improved text-to-text translation by changing text into vectors and then grouped them together in order to remap them into another vector space which then gets reconverted back to text. Amazing stuff way beyond my knowledge.