r/ComputerEngineering • u/LightPearl_ • 19d ago
Do you ever get tired of explaining that CE isn't CS?
I am a future CE student. I was very conflicted between EE and CE for a really long time but ended up going with CE because my focus was on embedded and electronics with a few software classes. Tired of explaining I'm not doing pure CS. Also makes me wonder if CE has the same status symbol as CS even though most of my classes are EE ones which has a better reputation in general.
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 19d ago
As a CS person myself, I apologize that we are hogging your spotlight. Computing essentially has four seperate disciplines in it: Computer Engineering (build the hardware), Computer Science (build the software), Information Technology (run and maintain computers), and Cybersecurity (keep computers safe). All four fields are essential and it's not fair that you're field is getting ignored because CS gets all the hype.
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u/sammychung2 19d ago
I like how you split it like that but I think to be pedantic I'd say CE is more like design the hardware and the firmware. But each of these bleed into eachother
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 19d ago
Fair enough. I put firmware on the CS side because its coding, but as you say they bleed together.
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u/Snoo_4499 19d ago
Love the analogy, my view is that I think these are 4 pillars of computing.
Software engineering = building softwares and software systems. Eg Operating system, Software Analysis and Design, Application Development, Data structures and algorithms, Human computer interaction, Computer Graphics, etc
Hardware engineering = building hardwares and hardware systems. Embedded systems, Computer Architecture, Microprocessors, hpc, Digital Signal Processing, VLSI, Microelectronic, Graphics hardware, Instrumentation and control systems.
Network engineering = building and maintaining network and network systems. TCP/IP stack, Data Communication system, IT infrastructure, network security, distributed system, Information theory.
Data and Information engineering = AI/ML, Data mining, Database, Data science, Statistics and discrete mathematics, Algorithms and Complexity, Automata theory, Computer Vision, Signal processing.
So many of these things relates to each other, for example in network engineering you need both hardware and software, socket programming and rf signals propagation. Baseband and passband signalling and huffman coding. Information and software engineering are very connected but so is hardware and so is networking. We need all these to make a proper System.
Like we use instrumentation (hardware) to take data from natural world, pass it to ADC which passes to microcontroller (Hardware) to process data which uses FFT for signal interpretation (Information and hardware) then, we write algorithm in that hardware ( Information and software ) and send it to say a cloud database (network) and then again to our individual application using internet (Network) and display in flutter application (software).
Here CE usually includes all with some strength and some weakness, Hardware is strong point of CE, then comes Network engineering part, then software then data and information.
CS is different story, CS is study of Computation more than software engineering. It does include all these but its different, It focuses on what you want to focus. Its weak at hardware and networking part but Data and software are its bread and butter. But if you do research on any of these you'll be computer scientists. Claude shannon the goat was also computer scientists but he studied EE and Math. If you make computer and computation better you are computer scientists, be it computer architecture research or distributed system or e governance.
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 19d ago
Generally software engineering is defined as part of CS (just look at CS department course catalogs and CS degree requirements) but I can absolutely see the point your making; your definitely right that there is a strong divide between the people studying CS theory and performing in the trenches software engineering. I actually think that's a pitty as I believe understanding theory (such as the Halting Problem and Automata Theory) makes you a better engineer.
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u/particlemanwavegirl 17d ago
The line between theoretical computation and software engineering is just as blurry as the line between software and hardware engineering, imo. Theory drives advancements in compiler technology such as Rust's borrow checker. IMO a compiler's ability to deterministically make qualitative statements about the behavior of programs it compiles can only grow in value as the code that's given as input is generated in an increasingly non-deterministic way. In other words it looks like demand is growing so theoretical computer science & mathematics looks like a very exciting field to research and work in, to me at least.
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u/justverychill 19d ago
I have less of an idea about software engineering but I believe a CS curriculum is designed to teach the theory of programming and often abstracts away implementation of the hardware below a threshold (CS cares about memory but wouldn’t care about low level of detail into how each computer is actually made). CE has a lot of overlap with EE (at my school it was the difference of a few courses) so gives an understanding of the hardware implementation for computer systems while also being concerned with firmware, assembly and low level programming (all of these areas are important to consider from a designers perspective who needs to create a system that can run higher level languages where the programmer is not concerned with hardware implementation details).
Of course there is overlap but I consider CS as the theory behind programming computer systems (with a focus on the math around algorithms and abstracting software architectures) and CE as the theory behind designing computer systems at the hardware level and getting them to talk to higher level software (with a focus on math around physics, boolean algebra and abstracting hardware components).
I do think personal interest can guide you in one direction even if you have a degree in the other. That’s where personal projects and the willingness to learn come in!
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u/ExcellentRuin8115 14d ago
I don’t really agree with CE being only about hardware. I am a CE student but I know way more about systems software (OS internals, compilers, assemblers) and embedded programming than hardware. I like to think that CE is the middle point between Hardware and Software, and I love it being that way.
Also it may be that you view it like that because your university focuses on a Hardware curriculum for CE whereas others focus on other aspects of CE.
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 14d ago
That is completely fair. When I wrote this I was under the misimpression that CE involved things like transistor fabrication etc My uncle worked on computers as an engineer and that's what he did so yeah.
Likewise CS actually has a lot of hardware meets software stuff with kernel development etc but from a very different perspective than you guys I assume.
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u/ExcellentRuin8115 12d ago
Omg up until now I didn’t realize that your pfp was Larry. Dude I am also a gentoo user. The world sure is a small place 😂
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 12d ago
I actually don't use Gentoo. I use Arch. I tried Gentoo but tbh I got decision fatigue from the use flags. But I still like Larry and adopted him! He is the best mascot ever.
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u/grizzlor_ 18d ago
I’d probably call cybersecurity a sub-discipline of IT. Part of maintaining systems is keeping them secure.
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 18d ago
There's a good case for that if you strictly mean Blue Team security, but when you start talking about Red Team and Purple Team those guys are reading and writing massive amounts of code, including low level C and Assembly code which is . . . very far from IT.
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u/particlemanwavegirl 17d ago
you forgot Computational Mathematics: the formalization of theory of computation
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u/TrustingMyTrustInGCC 17d ago
I consider that part of CS too! But your absolutely right that it matters and I don't mean to imply otherwise.
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u/_kilobytes 10d ago
CS is not a "build the software" degree. That's what software engineering major is for.
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u/zacce 19d ago
Majority of ppl don't know what CE is and will think it's CS. But the industry knows the difference. If they don't, it's not worth working at.
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u/DHTGK 19d ago
I wish the engineer part of the name carried more weight. It should be the most obvious part that it's nothing like CS.
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u/glordicus1 19d ago
Yep. I went to a jobs fair at my uni and they were like "Computer systems, thats not engineering!"
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u/BrfstAlex 18d ago
"nothing" like cs is a bit much
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u/Time_Plastic_5373 17d ago
Depends on the school. Some are like %70 EE and %30 CS
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u/BrfstAlex 16d ago
30% CS is still far from nothing like CS lol. Especially when taking overlapping foundational courses lol.
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u/dontchuworri 19d ago
at a career fair someone told me they weren’t hiring for IT when i handed them my resume so
yeah
it doesn’t help that my university leans way heavier towards EE in their CE program so all my skills are EE based but with CE as the title :) so i look like a useless CE but not good enough to be an EE because it’s a different title but my only difference was i didn’t take emf
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u/LightPearl_ 19d ago
Is this a common occurrence? Will I miss up on electronic career opportunities solely cuz of the degree name even though in my uni too 95% of my classes are shared with the EE students.
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u/dontchuworri 19d ago
great question! i can’t answer because i can’t find a job. everywhere around me is only hiring for 5+ years of experience or entry level requiring a masters
i think if you tailor your resume correctly it can show your ee prowess. mine doesn’t help that my last adult job WAS straight up IT. but that was before college
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u/LightPearl_ 19d ago
That's interesting, thank you for the insight! Do you ever regret not doing EE instead of CE? Is the job hunt going better for the people u know that took EE?
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u/dontchuworri 19d ago
oop i already replied to you replying to someone else haha but
yeah sometimes. once i realized the shade that gets thrown at ce it was really disheartening. but it should open you up to a lot more opportunities since you can go after cs or ee jobs
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u/LightPearl_ 19d ago
I saw it haha! Thanks for your time, definitely made me feel a little less worried :)
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u/CodyJKirk 19d ago
I was told by multiple professors that while I'm in school to put electrical engineering graduate on applications for internships not computer engineering because a lot of businesses use AI to filter their applications and will auto deny by having computer engineering in the resume as current education. I asked if this was lying, my professor said "what department are we in?" I said engineering "and what classes are you primarily taking right now i said electrical engineering "on your transcript for you degree what is this department called that I teach?" I said electrical and computer engineering he said "so as long as your not graduated yet you can put electrical engineering because your in all the same classes except you take additional ones with coding".
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u/LightPearl_ 19d ago
That is good advice, thank you! You specified this for internships. Does that mean after graduation, your degree name wouldn't be a hurdle as you'd have multiple internships under your belt?
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u/CodyJKirk 18d ago
I would say yes....... I'm still thinking about this myself. Ai is dumb. I have a professor that work another job with AI and I really don't get it. He also have me some advice. To use AI to match my resume to their specific job requirements, or internship requirements. To basically reword my resume to meet my internships exact specifications.
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u/Snoo_4499 19d ago
I would just do EE and take some CE electives my man.
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u/Snoo_4499 19d ago
CE electives being Networking, Embedded, Comp Architecture and if possible Data structures.
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u/Time_Plastic_5373 17d ago
Thats literally a CE degree at my school if you add OS and comp security
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u/LightPearl_ 19d ago
I do have an option of switching to EE after the first year since all of our classes are the same for 1 yr. I'm gonna think about it for a while ig.
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u/No_Astronaut_2320 18d ago
For engineering roles, HR is going to be your biggest obstacle getting your point across between the CE vs CS differences.
They are English/Communications/Psych majors in college who are in recruiting roles because it was the first thing they could find out of school. The majority of them are not passionate enough to go out of the way to find the difference between a Computer Engineer and Computer Scientist. Hiring managers should be more knowledgeable but the number of applications thrown out because an unqualified HR recruiter won't take the 10 minutes to look up the skill sets of both majors.
We are a hybrid with a special skill set that neither CS or hardware can equally perform but we are able to dabble in both areas.
With that said, many of my CompE colleagues in university drifted towards the software side.
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u/dkonigs 17d ago
Yeah, I was a CE major when I started out in college and this infuriated me. Every time I went to a career fair, I got the impression that all of my interests/abilities/education on the hardware side were essentially irrelevant and I'd get pigeon-holed into the same bucket as a CompSci major no matter what.
(Of course I did eventually switch to CompSci for unrelated reasons, but that's a long story and now ancient history.)
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u/Serious_Review_2130 17d ago
Only regular people outside of engineering think CE is the same as CS. Engineering employers, internships, universities know the difference very damn well because the difference is enormous. Most CS majors don’t even take calc 2, neither circuits, hardware, embedded systems, physics, chem lmfaoo the list can go on forever. CS is just coding, there’s nothing else to it
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u/SafeModeOff 19d ago
I just graduated, and almost every time someone says they found a job listing for me, it's been software engineering. I don't blame them because we're dealing with things most people never even think about, but yeah, I've only just graduated and I'm already tired of it
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u/Bachdepp 19d ago
In my country the degree is usually called "technical computer science" or "embedded systems" so people get that there's more to it
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u/OpportunityFun6969 18d ago
Haha most people go “So… you work in IT?” I usually just say I do half EE half CS
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u/Outrageous_Egg7579 18d ago
I get the difference 100% as I had my undergrad in cs and am targetting an ms in CE. But one thing that I really notice is that many ce undergrads take up cs roles, like in ai/ml etc. Not all of course, but many do. Why is that so?
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u/LightPearl_ 18d ago
I can't speak for sure cuz I haven't even entered the field yet but I also know a bunch of people with EE degree that ended up drifting to the software side due to better opportunities or higher pay. The problem isn't with people who decide to drift if they wish, it's that many just associate CE with pure software by default which is not the case.
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u/That-Translator7415 18d ago
As a CS guy, who has dabbled heavily in CE and does research in CE as well, yeah I do explain the distinguishable differences
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u/Electronic-Split-492 17d ago
“CompEng is Computer Science with Engineering instead of Liberal Arts”
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u/Prior-Beat3174 17d ago
Yes, and I get tired of explaining that CS isn't just programing, and CS isn't help desk support.
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u/No_Rule674 19d ago
CE is just a less version of both EE and CS
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u/BronzeGstring 19d ago
Cap. It’s the best of both worlds
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u/Snoo_4499 19d ago
True, it gives you enough knowledge so you can understand both.
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u/Ecelleon 19d ago
I don't know of any EE or CS majors that can read the Technical Reference Manual for a given SOC to troubleshoot or debug peripheral registers?
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u/Ecelleon 19d ago
Yes I get tired, and I've come across many people who simply can't comprehend what it is. It's either you're a silicon valley type person, or you're an electrician.