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where otherwise good ideas go to waste

ECE vs CS

Posted by Nicholas Chen Mon, 08 Nov 2004 10:24:00 GMT

After much contemplation (and also almost 3 wasted semesters), I have to say that I have discovered that ECE is not really for me. Why? Especially since I am already half way through with my curriculum. The reasons are aplenty but I will list the ones that I think are the most influential.

  1. Materials which I do not envision myself doing 10 years down the road
    I believe that this is the most important reason for me. I am not able to see myself 10 years down the road doing something like this. I do not think that I will be able to design circuits. Neither would I enjoy dealing with all the communications stuff. It is true that ECE is an exciting field. More innovations are going to come out of it I am sure. But for me to be one of those people, I would rather stake my chances at being a biologist. It could be because I do not see things in the world of current, voltages, waves, etc. Or it could be because the materials they teach us for our core classes does not do enough justice to the field of ECE. Most courses do not incite any interests in those of us who do not have much to begin with.
  2. Not created anything useful yet!
    This is the second most important reason for me. I have not created anything! There was ECE 110 that had us build a car that was able to navigate through a path using some sensors. Boy, that was fun! Except for the fact that we did not build the car and all we had to do was wire some cheap circuit up. That might have worked to entice me when I was a kid but I really do not see anything special about being able to do that. In fact, I would have been more impressed had they make us program the car just like the other kids had to do for the LEGO MindStorm. Most labs are too theoretical and I am not able to see how they would be used later on. The lecturers just tell you that this would be useful and it is used for this and that. Well, I still am not doing anything that uses this and that. Bottom line, there is no relation between theory and practice. The lab sessions are nothing more than a tough assignment which you forget once it is done.
  3. Lecturers who do not pique your appetite
    There are of course those that do make the class interesting but the course itself still does not satify reasons 1 and 2 above. Most of the other lecturers just try to impart either a whole lot of knowledge to you or too little and expect you to learn them on your own. I have mixed feelings about methods of teaching but I am pretty sure exploratory learning does not involve having to consult google to find out 90% of what should be taught. What bothers me even more is the fact that some textbooks are utterly horrendous to begin with. There are textbooks that the professors themselves would never read at an undergraduate level. Sure, those books have a lot of stuff in them, but most of them deal with the main ideas in a cursory manner and the student has to go find out about them himself. For me, I expect to have 80% of the facts imparted to me, and the other 20% of the subtle facts revealed to me later on as I do some of the homework.
  4. Less friendly people
    There are of course CS majors who are jerks but the numbers are few in comparison I think. The fact that almost all the CS course I have taken has a community of dedicated newsgroup users help assert that fact. If you were to go into the ECE webboard discussion, you would notice that most people do not bother to reply. Heck, in fact some of the TA's do not even reply to the webboard. What is the use of a webboard then?

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