Hey i have been studying computer engineering for 3 years now with 2 years to go and it has been going well and i am mainly focused on the software part; Nodejs,react etc

I am having this urge to shift to the automotive embedded industry cuz ik the software market is so saturated plus i am into the automotive industry kinda

Is it worth it to do this shift and struggle alone with courses and self study?

And if so does anyone knows what should be my first steps

This is a list of Youtube channels I've found to be extremely informative for topics relating to Semiconductors, design, Electrical Engineering, Electronics, and Physics. This is not an all inclusive list, please feel free to link other channels below. This is not an ordered list but I somewhat listed the channels by which I found allowed me to best improve my understanding, time considering.

1. Asianometry: Semiconductors, design, industry history https://www.youtube.com/@Asianometry

2. The Engineering Mindset: Electrical Engineering, Electronics, Semiconductors, Logic https://www.youtube.com/@EngineeringMindset

3. Vertitasium: Physics, Theory, big picture explanations https://youtube.com/@veritasium

4. Branch Education: Electronics, Semiconductors, RF, Electrical Engineering. This channel produces amazing 3D scans of devices and their components for their educational content. https://www.youtube.com/@BranchEducation

5. 3blue1brown: Mathematics, Physics, Theory https://www.youtube.com/@3blue1brown

6. Styropyro: Electrical Engineering, Lasers, Experimentation, entertaining content https://www.youtube.com/@styropyro

7. CNBC: Semiconductor Industry documentaries and news https://www.youtube.com/@CNBC

8. ProjectsInFlight: Semiconductors, Experimentation, Chemistry https://www.youtube.com/@projectsinflight

9. The Organic Chemistry Tutor: Mathematics, Logic, Chemistry. This channel teaches almost every topic dealing with some type of mathematics or chemistry. Many students use his content for studying. https://www.youtube.com/@TheOrganicChemistryTutor

10. Spanning Tree: Logic, Mathematics. Not many videos but very high quality. https://www.youtube.com/@SpanningTree

11. Crash Course: many topics, brief synopsizes and lessons https://www.youtube.com/@crashcourse

12. Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( Various Channels ), Full Lectures, Computer Science and engineering, Mathematics

13. FreeCodeCamp: Full University Lectures, Computer Science, Mathematics https://www.youtube.com/@freecodecamp/

14. Harvard University: Full Lectures, Computer Science and Engineering, Mathematics https://www.youtube.com/@harvard

15. VHDLwhiz: Hardware Description Language, Logic, PLC https://www.youtube.com/@VHDLwhiz

I will stop here but there are dozens of channels with content relevant to Computer Engineering and Science. If you are new this these fields I recommend starting with shorter form less technical videos. To get a good understanding of what areas of this world exist. My advice is to find the area you like the most, which meshes with your personality. Whether it be the electrical side, logical/digital, physical, material, chemical, industrial, leadership. They all require lots of technical knowledge and understanding.

Note:

For those whom are completely new to engineering in general. Computer Engineering is a branch of Electrical Engineering dealing with the design, construction, and manufacturing of computers and their components. While this is an extremely broad characterization, essentially including every branch of engineering applied to devices that compute. Computer Engineering Students generally study electrical engineering, physics, mathematics, digital logic, computer science, material science, mechanical engineering, and chemistry. What they focus on in studies is generally the specialty they want to work in. Whether it be programming microprocessors, designing the hardware itself, designing the hardware and equipment used for manufacturing, designing the electronics inside computers, and many more. There are a wide variety of fields that work in the Computer and digital technology industry. If I was to name 4 of the biggest fields employed in this industry ( specifically semiconductors ) I would say, Electrical Engineers, Logic Designers (Computer Engineers), Material Scientists/Engineers, and last but certainly not least, Industrial Engineers. Whether you want to be an engineer or a technician, semiconductors, and advanced manufacturing in general is one of the best industries to work in.

The most important things I personally believe in for finding a good company are safety and culture. You want a company that goes beyond the rules and regulations because semiconductor manufacturing is extremely dangerous because of chemical, radiation, and high energy like lasers and electricity hazards. Recently Semiconductor Fabs have become nearly fully automated not just for efficiency but for safety. Look up EPA superfund sites in the silicon valley , that occurred back when chips used to be produced there and still are being cleaned up to this day. People wonder why the industry is building fabs in the desert, I feel like a big reason is environmental damage control. But I wouldn't let this discourage you because Intel, TSMC, AMD, and Samsung just to name a few. Have smartened up and employ a wide variety of engineers and scientists who jobs are centered around safety and protecting the environment.

Even if you work in an office and sit most of the day. You want a company that takes safety serious, for example buying proper high quality chairs with good ergonomics that do not cause musculoskeletal damage. Combined with a culture that promotes taking breaks to walk and get sunlight, drinking and eating. I'm sure these types of companies are uncommon but the company I work for has these ideals and it is a direct reason we are industry leaders. For those wondering I am a student of electrical and computer engineering and science and work for a company that designs and produces under sea electrical and optical products.

The last thing I'll say is, don't study to pass, study to understand and know. There are two kinds of engineering graduates, engineers, and those with engineering degrees. It is okay to fail and don't think for a minute a 4 year degree has to take 4 years. We study some of the most complicated stuff in this world and few people are capable of such. But also keep in mind you wont learn everything in school you'll learn a fraction of what is used in industry. That is why I made this list because I have learned just as much outside of school as I have, so far, in school. School teaches you to think and earning a degree certifies this. The internet transfers knowledge, just like a textbook or professor. School forces you to do the thing you don't like which make you a better smarter person. For me this stuff is a passion, a calling even, I have fun doing it, it gives me deep satisfaction. It's not about money its about impact. While the impact of one engineer might be small the impact of a good team is exponentially more. Apes strong together ammirite. Good engineering is the reason we live in climate controlled and isolated dwellings driving chemical reactors, eating safe food and being healed by almost magical means. I digress. The future is now.

Hello everyone, I'm an M02 student in Computer Engineering and I am currently looking for graduation project Ideas so I kindly request your guidance as Engineers in the field.
thank you for sharing your thoughts

Hello I was wondering if I should sell my 2022 MacBook. I’m a first year at a community college and live at home. I have a desktop gaming pc that I usually use for my school work and I kinda need the money right now. Is it better for me to sell or keep my MacBook. I don’t really use it in class so that’s why I’ve come to this. I don’t know if it’s smarter to still have the laptop even though I have a desktop at home that’s much stronger in terms of computing power. If this is the wrong place to ask sorry just wanted to ask here because different majors have different needs and this is what I’m majoring in 😅

Im looking to minor in one of these, while nearly 3/4 of the way through my Computer Engineering degree.

Which would be best for which situations practically just for a future job search. I already know how many extra courses I need to take, I just dont want that to factor into the feedback. In my opinion it would go EE, AM, AS in that order.

I am researching the SCSI-1 and pre-SATA IDE/ATA-1 or ATA-2 computer interfaces from the late '80s, early '90s, and protocols so that I can make a project for my own personal learning. I want to make a bridge so that I can use an old computer with a SCSI interface and an IDE/ATA hard drive. If there is a single chip solution for this, I'd love to hear about it. There are so many chips, but finding the datasheet is difficult or impossible for many of them.

I already have a SCSI controller chip in stock. I will be using the SCSI-1 standard with 1.5 MBps asynchronous mode. Now my next step is to decide on a IDE controller. I've read that 74x chips could implement it, but I'd like to keep the chips to a minimum, so I'd prefer to use a chip designed for the job.

Any recommendations?

Sorry if this question is not really appropriate for this sub.. please kindly point me to the right place if so.

My projects have lead me down the path of understanding the difference between raw NAND and NAND based disks (such as SD/eMMC and SATA/NVMe SSD's). That difference is the inclusion of a controller that implements an FTL. The FTL sits between the OS/CPU (or whatever your computing device may be) and the raw NAND and handles write leveling, sector erasing, etc to make the raw NAND appear to behave more like a traditional block device.

The alternative would be letting the OS/CPU talk directly to the raw NAND chip and use UBIFS. UBIFS handles all the things the FTL was needed for.

My question: why is the external FTL the dominant computer/SSD architecture? Is there a performance difference between UBIFS->raw NAND vs traditional block based FS (NTFS/ext4/etc)->FTL->raw NAND? Perhaps offloading tasks to an external FTL saves processing overhead from the main processor, but at the same time FTL controllers are so small and low power.. it can't be that much of a performance hit. On the flip side, UBIFS can optimize in ways an external FTL can't; UBIFS knows which sectors contain deleted files, for instance, and can avoid needless operations on them as pointed out in this article.

So what gives? Is it just that using FTL was the path of least resistance to introducing NAND to replace traditional block devices without major change to the rest of the system architecture? Is performance a wash between the two options.

The reason this is coming up for me is that I am designing spacecraft computing systems and there really are no rad-tolerant/rad-hard SD cards or eMMCs. I am forced to look at raw NAND chips and use UBIFS. There doesn't seem to be a downside to this architecture which makes me wonder why we still use FTLs for regular computing applications.

So I'm currently a CS major but thinking about changing to Computer Engineering.

Does being a CE major actually offer more flexibility than CS in terms of being able to immerse in software and hardware job roles or is this just my misinterpretation?

If I go into CE, can I still apply for the same software roles that a CS major could or would it put me at a significant disadvantage?

I'm still unsure of my interests and so idk if I wanna commit to software or hardware yet.

I was curious if anyone with any industry experience could give me some advice on getting an internship. I currently have a 3.4 as a Computer Engineering major. I have applied to some 150-200 odd internships and have had no luck, the previous two summers I have done some programming/education research which is not super related. I am interested in Embedded Systems and DSP. Any advice would be appreciated!

So I have to interview a professional in the Computer Engineering field for my Technical Communication class. From what I know, computer engineer isn't a job title but a specialized category in computer science. Titles include Embedded Systems Engineer, Hardware Engineer, Firmware Engineer, and many more. I have 6 to 7 questions that need to be answered, but it can be over email or video. Would appreciate it if I could get a volunteer. If not totally okay.

This semester in CSE, we study engineering mechancis and dynamics, and have to work on a project related to it. Anyone have cool ideas that I can work on it with my team?

I live in nyc and there aren't many schools with a computer/electrical engineering bachelors program and i'm about to transfer to a cuny. I decided to double major in computer science and physics, then apply for a 1 year masters program for engineering. The thing is, i beleive when you double major only one major is actually shown on your diploma. The other one is just written somewhere on your transcript.

So to get into grad school, and just in general if i don't even do grad school, is it better for my main major (that's going to appear on my diploma) to be computer science or physics? What is a more flexible degree?

I am a current sophomore and I’ve been applying for internships for the summer. I’ve applied to at least 20 positions and haven’t really had any luck. I’ve taken physics and calc 1 and 2. Taken 3 CS courses in python, java, and C(I am not a very strong programmer). And I am taking a circuit analysis class right now. I want to become a hardware engineer in the future but want to start early with the internship process because I am very passionate about this. I am starting to lose hope that I’ll get anything for this summer.

Hey guys, I just got recruited by a defense contractor for an internship position and I think they lowballed me. For context, I’m a junior in computer engineering. We had a call to discuss pay, and they offered me $15/hour, and I suggested that the average was 20-25 so we agreed on 20. So they sent me a contract to sign but I still don’t feel good about it because upon further research I see that 20 is not even in the 25th percentile. They want me to sign the contract and start next week, but I just don’t know how to ask for more than that without coming off as pushy. What would be a fair rate and how could I word the email?

Hello, I am a junior in mechanical engineering and switching to computer engineering. I will also be a junior when I switch. How do I go about internships? Last summer I applied for mechanical engineering internships no luck this fall the same before I switched and I also went to engineering fairs. Many said I’m a good candidate and ghosted me. I applied to more and kept getting no’s. So I switched my major because my passion was actually is ce not mech. What advice for maybe an internship this summer? ( I don’t have much code experience only c++ and I’m in a class right now that uses rstudio. If I don’t get one this summer what should I do to prepare for a job before I graduate.

Note: I’m transferring colleges also and I joined the robotics club and cs club. I’m open to any advice because I am new to this degree and I want to be prepared or at least get a head start. I’m currently working on learning python and also fixing my typing ( I was never taught to type properly) so I’m taking a typing club. ( graduating later isn’t really an option because I have an associates before undergrad and I graduated high school at the same time and many people at the engineering fair saw that as a negative thing on my resume)

Hello, I’m looking to create a single transistor silicon chip as a proof of concept and I need some help to answer some questions I have. I have been researching photolithography more actively recently and I don’t understand how Sam Zelof could get his silicon chip to hundreds of degrees for oxidization. I haven’t watched all of his videos yet but I assume that what he used to create the silicon oxide layer. I don’t fully understand many other parts but this is one of the larger pieces of my puzzle.

As I’m not that far into researching I understand he may have used another way to make the chip or may have used another transistor type that’s easier to make. This post is just to understand the basics so I can start designing a simple process to create a chip.

I would like to move up to a few hundred transistors within a few years if possible. But all in all, My end goal is to reach a point where I can process and create a chip with 1000-10000 transistors, to make a cpu I designed that can run a simple operating system at a few hundred KHZ hopefully. I’ve already finished researching and creating simple CPUs from scratch, I hope I can complete the photolithography now.

What do I do if this keeps popping up Error: JSON Parse error: Unrecognized token '<'. Im tryna load my document on this job website

I'm planning on majoring in computer engineering. I've had interest in really low level programming for a while. I'm curious what kind of internships I should shoot for around the second year college mark? I was interested in something like hardware engineering or embedded systems but l've heard that those internships are really rare? I'm not all too excited about software ones. Any ideas?

Hello everyone I am currently studying vhdl programming and i'd like excersice and learn the language by writing some code but when i asked my professor he told me to use altera's max plus two which is an obsolete app that has been discontinued for more than 20 years now and doesn't work on my laptop.I've also tried to intel's vhdl programmer but couldn't get the lisence to work

i have been a first year college since 2023, and i haven't been able to become a second year. i think i am failing, and our term now is about to end, idk if i should still enroll next term due to my failed grades in physics. idk, i am afraid to be delayed. right now i just want to rest and take time and go back to college whenever i can but i know that i will have too much regrets later on. i am such and embarassment and a shame. idk who to confide with in this problem

I am a sophomore going to a CC in the US. I have taken calc, physics and general classes so far. I have been applying to internships for Summer 2025 but I am starting to feel very unqualified because I haven't taken any circuit or programming classes. I do have some leadership items on my resume, including an (active) non profit I founded with a classmate, a club officer position, and NASA college of aerospace scholars missions on my resume, as well as a crappy Arduino project. Has anyone here gotten an internship or research assistant position having taken only these general classes?

are there any "odin project" or flagship projects that can be done on my own that are good for ECE? particularly computer hardware, digital design, FPGA stuff, etc? want some more projects for my resume.

I'm currently a high school sophomore taking CS as an elective. I'm looking forward to taking an engineering course in my junior year and searching for internships related to engineering. I am currently debating between computer hardware and computer system engineering because I researched about these and they are the most demanding career opportunities in this field. I need some guidance in understanding what CE field would look like going ahead and what courses and electives are needed to continue in this field.

Also, my friends are all in aerospace so can anyone tell me if it is worth taking the course or not?

Hello I’m currently in my second year of college and have been doing well in calc 2 but don’t even know what to do in physics. It is classical mechanics and next semester I’ll be taking physics 2 which is more of the physics I’m pretty sure I’ll actually need. My question is how often is physics used outside from school like on the job. I feel like rn I’m better at math than physics and wonder how much it’s actually going to be used.

Hi everyone I intend to apply for a Master's degree in the United States or the EU in the field of computer engineering, but my undergraduate degree is in computer engineering technology (I'm an international student). Will this constitute an obstacle for me to apply and obtain acceptance to a Master's program in computer engineering in the United States or the EU?

We don't know what would be Pakistan and the whole world after 3 to 4 years and I am very anxious regard choosing a field for the future I don't know if I should take cs ce or se or none of them and think to go in other fields like aeronautics engineering aerospace or airforce e.t.c I want everyone attention regarding this question throw your prospect and enlightenment in the comment section I would be very thankful to you all.

Currently a junior in cmpe and I'm curious what jobs grad school enables you to get. I read a comment on another post saying you don't start learning real computer engineering until grad school and without it you just kinda pick EE/CS.