To Be Or Not To Be A CET? 86
maxdamage asks: "After reading an earlier Ask Slashdot article and the responses, I am very worried about my future career plans. This fall I am going into CET, which is essentially a cross between a CS and an Electrical Engineering degree. According to these responses, CS majors are doomed to spend their lives waiting tables. Does a computer related engineering degree give hope or should I change to a more general engineering program, before its too late?"
The "T" stands for technology (Score:4, Informative)
I have no degree at all (Score:5, Informative)
If there is one thing you absolutely need to learn early in life is how to learn, how to find the information you need, how to comprehend and apply that information and how to express to others, in a language and terminology that they appreciate, the total of your learning and knowledge.
GO learn how to do these things and get a degree, any degree, if you want to be able to prove that you are capable of them without having to demonstrate them. Then go and apply for jobs you think are interesting or lucrative. If you apply for enough jobs of this sort you will find one that appeals to you. Do you really care if it uses all the skills you learned in college? Most of those skills will be nearly obsolete in 5 years. The skills that won't be obsolete are the ones concerning how to learn. You can always teach yourself how to do any job. Just remember that it will take you a year or two of study to really understand that new job well enough to earn money at it. Plan ahead.
Personally I think people should change jobs significantly every 5 or 6 years. Start in CS, move to Marketing, switch to engineering and manufacturing, run your own business for a while, teach at a community college, buy a farm, fly a corporate jet, become a paralegal... why not. None of them are really that difficult but they do take some specialized knowledge to do them well, probably about 2 years of serious study will teach you what you need to know for any of them.
Re:More food for thought (Score:4, Informative)
Many colleges and universities offer (or even require) internships as part of their engineering degree programs. Even if your school doesn't have an official internship programs, it is in your best interest to find a company to intern for during the summer or even part-time during the school year.
When you talk to potential internship employers, make sure that you find out how they handle their internship programs. You probably don't want an internship where all you do is clerical and go-for work, especially if you're beyond your first or second year. Instead, find an employer who gives their interns actual projects/responsibilities as part of their experiance. "Implemented an automated end-of-line test system for [insert widget here]" looks much better on your resume then "Reorganized storage rooms". While a certain amount of clerical/go-for work is part of almost any internship, it should not be the only thing you do.
Re:Do what you really want to do (Score:3, Informative)
These fields compensate handsomely for smart technical people. I speak this from experience as somebody with math/engineering background (B.S. / M.S.) and switched into quantitative finance. It turns out that quantitative finance is much more interesting than engineering ever was. It uses much more applied mathematics than engineering ever did (I was an engineer for a year), and finally, my salary is double what my engineering salary was (after 2 years experience in finance).
My bro-in-law has similar experience with math/C.S. and he switched to creating programs that generate legal documents. He didn't even have to go to law school.
CET? (Score:2, Informative)
Personally I have a dual major with CS and Electronic Art/Communication. Again, I would highly reccomend a dual major over a major that claims to combine two others. It will be more work but it will pay off in the long run.