Originally posted by: TGCid
Im currently a sophmore E.E. major at ucsd. Soon I have to pick my what depth I am gonna focus in but I don't really know what. The job market looks pretty tough for E.E. ppl straight out of college right now. What do you experts think or know about which depth is good and has high demand or gonna be in the next 2-3 years?
I was also thinking of minoring in bio something, would this be useful when I start looking for job and internship? Thanks.
It depends. But you being in San Diego, I assume bio and wireless are good things to have. If you want a nice defence contractor job, do some wireless, GPS stuff. I recommend takign "career" courses. Like when you can get a job from just taking one course. Like learn Verilog, logic design, architecture. Or learn VLSI circuit design. Or take a GPS course. Nobody expects an undergrad to be highly specialized in anything. It happens, but you better cover more bases, I think. Do a lot of different things, that way you put a lot of stuff on your resume, and chances are higher it'll pop up in a search. Play the numbers.
As far as depth, pick something you like, but something that's sufficiently generic, but not too much. Things like "Logic Design" "Circuit Design" "Analog Design" "Wireless Design" are good.
If you like Calculus, do Analog and wireless. If you like discrete Math and back of the envelope arithmetic, pick Logic Design or Circuit design.
Don't pick things that you know you won't get hired for without a PhD, unless you intend to get one. That includes "Computer Architecture," cus your chances of getting hired as an architect without a PhD are slim. But you will need to know a good deal of architecture for logic design.
As far as getting a job, taking initiative helps. Don't expect to just kind of drift through whatever process your career office has. Go to career fairs, talk to people, take their cards, email them, call them, whatever it takes. Just call and say, "Hi, we talked during career fair last year or two years ago". Even if you just took the card and didn't talk to anyone, they probably don't remember anyways. That's how I got my summer internship. Called some VP whose card I had, told him he promised me to hook me up with an internship a year ago (not exactly what happened, but close enough), and he basically told one of the hiring managers to "seriously consider" my resume. You definitely want to do some internships. You basically get paid almost full wage for not even half the responsibility. And interns get all sorts of perks and freebies. And it looks good on your resume. Some people do coops, but I think it's too much hassle. If you can afford to take a semester off, just graduate a semester early, and go get a real job.