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Computer Engineer

What To Learn

High School

What high school courses should you take if you're interested in this career? Get your answers from the Information Technology cluster Programming and Software Development pathway.

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You'll need at least a bachelor's degree in computer engineering (or a related field). A master's degree can help open doors, but it's not essential.

"I can say that our [students with] bachelor's degrees are never complaining about not getting jobs or being turned down because they don't have the advanced degree," says Wayne Loucks. He's a professor of computer engineering.

Although you can get plenty of jobs with just a bachelor's degree, a master's program will develop your research skills. This can lead to opportunities with larger companies.

"Graduate students would tend to work for bigger companies," says Loucks. "The big companies can sort of manage and handle a person who wants to [do] the research.... On the other hand, the little companies -- and I don't mean tiny, just not the giant ones -- probably get all the value they need from an undergraduate degree."

Ruth Dameron says there are things high school students can do to prepare for a career in computer engineering. She's a computer engineering instructor.

"They need to take a lot of math and enjoy using it," she says. "They don't have to enjoy the math itself, but they need to enjoy being able to use math as a tool and be good at it.

"And they would likely want to take a programming class because a computer engineer [needs to] understand what's going on -- from the software to the hardware to the interface to some other device," she adds. "So, the whole gamut."

Joining a club can be a great way to see if computer engineering is for you. See if your school has a computer or robot club.

"A robot is an embedded system," says Dameron. "An embedded system is something that's inside and controling something else....

"So a robot is going to have a microprocessor or multiple microprocessors in it that are programmed to gather data from sensors and respond by sending out directions to different parts of the robot to perform certain actions, and so forth. That's a great example of computer engineering, so join a robot club and see if you like it."

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