Best study strategy: E.Eng (light current) and CS

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Dolce&Banana

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I want to study Electronic Engineering (at UP/UCT) and learn how to write programmes.

1. Should I do Computer Science as a second course, after getting my first degree, or as a first?
(e.g. does the one field have a greater demand than the other?)

2. Should I take something else instead of Computer Science?

3. What are the best universities/institution for CS/other course?


Thank you in advance!
 
EE&CS at UCT = Computer Engineering at UP. Either way, take it, by the end of it, you'll know how to program, trust me.
 
UnUnOctium said:
EE&CS at UCT = Computer Engineering at UP
Click to expand...

More like EE and some CS. I was there too. You guys do about 1/4 of the modules we completed and none past 2nd year level.
What I would rather say is that after doing CE you are an EE with software engineering skills, rather than EE with Computer Science.

I have to explain that statement tho, Computer Science isn't about programming. Programming however is covered well enough in CE that you could go into 90% of the IT jobs in SA.

So to the OP my advice is, which do you like more, electronics (EE/CE) or mathematics and theory related to computers (CS)?

You will definitely do programming in CS, probably a bit more than CE, but you will also cover a much wider range of CS topics with plenty of theory. Included in that are mathematics, some covered in CE but many aren't (numerical analysis, discrete structures, etc), mathematical statistics (the same done by actuarial/financial mathematics students) and also some physics (the same modules done by BSc(Phys) students). That is first year. Then comes second, which is more focused on CS but once again, mathematics (not covered by CE), CS (mostly covered by CE) and some basic "engineering" modules (covered in detail by CE and then some). 3rd year is only CS, none covered by CE.

Also as you go further, at least at UP, CS becomes completely theoretical. I spent about 3% of my time in Honours on programming, the rest was doing research and writing research reports (Articles). "Practicals" or projects in honours will be handing in of a research report (around 10-20 pages and should be in the form of an article). As an example, if you do Artificial Intelligence in Honours (there are 3 modules related to AI), then you will get 0 marks for programming (yes absolutely 0), the only thing that is ever marked is your reports (3 during the semester and your final exam which is take home). Your year project is also a research project.

That is CS in a nutshell. If however you like the practical side of things more I suggest CE/EE because most of those I talked to that continued their work there said the experience was entirely different.
 
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CS sounds kind of boring. I like writing and maths, but i get the feeling that it is more focussed on network aspects, (stuff I don't really care about, although I know it's important economically).

I think I'll do CE, since I have more interest in hardware and programming versus networks.

The theory vs. practical thing isn't an issue for me since I'm good at both.
 
Dolce&Banana said:
network aspects
Click to expand...
Network aspects? If you mean computer networks, then no. Hardly, there is only 1 pre-grad networks and 1 post-grad networks module. If you mean networking as in people then, not really either.
 
Ok, before you get the wrong idea, the kind of hardware covered in Computer Engineering is not "ooh, how to design and build a motherboard". From reading this thread, that's the impression I get that non-engineers seem to have.

The kind of hardware covered by computer engineers is mostly ad-hoc. There are one or two times in the degree (before final year project) where you will get a chance to design and build something for a purpose other than "to learn" or "for simulation". By this, I mean a "product". For the rest, you will build simple circuits to illustrate a point, learn about signal processing by designing and implementing filters, maybe play around with digital logic, maybe play with some microprocessors, etc.

The programming covered in computer engineering is much the same, with much of it being ad-hoc. Most of it (aside from, perhaps, final year project) will be along the lines of "implement this encryption algorithm", etc.

I'd say only go for computer engineering if you have a broad range of interests. The degree gives you a solid foundation, leaving you to learn the in-depth details on your own, while with electronic engineering, you're forced into learning more advanced electronics topics and in CS, you are forced into learning more advanced computer science topics.
 
Spot on.

Just to add to that, in SA CE is more than enough. ~95% of the time you will not make use of what you learned completely in CS/EE IMHO.
 
Okay thanks for the link. There are A LOT of options there. What would be the best option for someone who wants to be able create complex software* (maybe working at a company) and who wants to have a lot knowledge of technological hardware and how it works. Would it be better to then have two degrees (in advanced hardware and software knowledge)? Or is there a course that has both fields of knowledge (equally taught) and you can learn more as you advance in the course (e.g. Masters, Phd)?

I read that South Africa doesn't have a proper software engineering course*.
 
UCT has EE&CE asweoo as Computer Engineering alone. the difference is, in EE&CE you are doing 2 majors (effectively EE and CS, but you dont do all the CS modules) with Computer Engineering you do a CS major and 3 years of EE instead of 4, you also do not do control engineering which is a big part of engineering.

its more complicated than that but thats the best way i know how to explain it.

you do SE in your CS course as a module, and you cover some other design principles in the EE side aswell (which you can use in SE too)

These days in UCT they do not do Assembler anymore in EE, they use C now, far easier, not that asm is hard
 
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