- Mar 26, 2011
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the only thing compUsa experience is going to be good for is working retail the rest of your life.
studying computer science... you should be picturing yourself creating the products the college dropouts are selling at compusa.
college can be some of the most productive time of your life. do research, start a pet project. you have more free time now than you will once you are working 9-5.
if you see getting an education as wasting your time, you probably dont belong in school in the first place.
based on your interests, sounds like you should be doing EE or some type of computer engineering discipline instead of CS.
I've seen most people say this, and it makes sense the more I look into it. Working retail is probably only good for the money. There's not really opportunity to raise as far as positions go (what I'll be working at is a temporary Oct-Jan job), and in the end even if I did get a higher position I wouldn't be doing what I like the most, and it wouldn't have to do a whole lot with what I'm currently studying. I'll just do it for the money, and because I've never worked for a corporation before (only other people I know personally).
Like I said before, I like coding as a hobby, but not as a 40-52 hours a week job. I definitely need to be productive now because what I do now is pretty much the base for what my future will be. That's also why I'm deciding to change university and my major. There I'll get to learn something I'll like more and have more opportunity for a good job when I finish my major because they have internships. The university I'm currently at is much better in other areas; the one I'm looking at is better for CS, EE, and CE.
This is good advice. For example if you are interested in VLSI you can work as an AE for Synopsys or Cadence and your job will be working with various companies and engineers are their problems with your tools. You travel and work with a variety of people.
I like this idea. I like to interact with people, but at the same time it doesn't need to be all the time. As long as I'm not stuck eight to twelve hours a day in a cubicle I'm fine. It can be a combination of both.
EEs need to know calculus. To do the hardware stuff that pays a lot, you need to know Fourier and how to solve 2nd order questions. If you think they pay you the big bucks to just layout a PCB, you are wrong.
That said, even hardware people have to code. EEs are now being pushed to DSP and micro controller stuff. That is mostly coding now. There is really a small market for just hardware and they want you know the the software as well. Trust me on this. I am an EE and I had your attitude when I graduated. I am jobless now because I went into controls in the process industry and hated it. To get a strictly hardware job, you need be at the top of your class or from a masters from MIT.
If you love interacting with people, you should think about going into consulting. It's the business side of engineering, but you have to deal with a lot of BS as well.
Pretty much everyone I've asked has said you definitely need to understand and have good mathematical reasoning, especially with Calculus. I liked Pre-calculus, so we'll see.
As far as coding I'm open to it. Like I've said, though, it can't be something I'm doing in a cube all day. If it's a combination of both hardware and software and I at least get to interact with people sometimes I'll be fine. I don't love or need to be constantly interacting with people, but I think it's still necessary to do sometimes so you don't get too stressed and your social skills don't go to hell. All I'd hate is to be stuck, like I said in the OP, working full shifts in a cubicle coding away while talking to almost no one. I like hardware more, so it still has to be an important part.