Additional Information
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."