[Megadeth1010]

I am 15 years old and turning 16 on August. I will be graduating the 10th grade on June and starting the 11th on September. Now I am stressing about what I should be in the future since High School graduation is like a 2 years away and I do not want to plan last minute. I am very advanced in math. I am taking trigonometry/pre-calculus when other students in my grade are taking algebra 2 and geometry:). I am pretty much done with all my four years of math in just two which is required for the top schools in my state.
I also love computers and building my own custom computers. I am considering becoming a computer engineer but I am not exactly sure what they do. When I research them they just give me a broad view of what they are capable of doing but I want some examples. I just want a detailed summary of what computer engineers do. Also what schools would be good to study to become one I live in L.A County in California and I don't plan moving to another state for a job or to go to college. So please help

I have also thought of every other career path I could take but I can't think of any I would like except maybe becoming a pilot.

[justcurious55]

You're only 15. You still have years before you have to start a career or choose a major. My advice you is to relax. Even if you decided, OK, my major is going to be computer engineering, you'll still have to take other classes than just computer classes and there's so many classes that you could find something else that interests you along the way and in the end major in something completely different. Look for internships that let you gain experience in anything you might be interested in. there's also personality tests that can help you find careers and majors that might suit you. But there's really no rush. Slow down and enjoy your youth.

[Kupit]

they do different things. There's not one who just does it all they specialize into an area. One way to split it up is hardware and software. Hardware computer engineers design computers and an example of this type would be the guys working at places like
intel and ibm. Those engineers make computers, intel makes the chips and prints cirtuits on them, ibm puts chips and other hardware parts together to make a computer but it takes engineers. The other category of computer engineer is the software side. Software engineers are computer engineers. Too but they don't make computers they make the programs that run computers. An example would be the guys at Microsoft who worked together to make vista and 98 and m.e. they don't make computers they make the systems that make computers operate. It's a big field that can be broken down even more for example, no software company does it all either,its too big of a field, they specialize and focus on an area. For instance in software you have software that runs a computer, that's one area of software, but you also have software that lets computers talk to each other over the communication lines like cable or telephone lines... two different focuses. You have to pick a specialty because its impossible to do it all. Cisco is a company that makes software that lets computers talk using communication lines. Those engineers there focus on that aspect.

going back up to hardware; you can break hardware up into a couple major areas where people do one or the other but they don't try to do both. Its consumer and industrial. Those aren't the official names but you can see that is a major division. Comsumer is what I call the hardware that I am typing on right now and the computer that you are using right now. That's consumer hardware. But there is a computer in my car engine that I have never seen. Its hardware and it's a computer and computer engeneers at gm made it but they never sold it to anyone they put it inside their car engine. Its an industrial computer. It's a good field. Read all you can about it.

As far as how they do what they do. Well those engineers in hardware who make chips have to know some serious physcis to determine how a circuit will act on a chip. The hardware guys who take parts and make a computer have to use a lot of mathematical and electrical equations. They do things like determine how much power will be used by the hardware and how much current will be flowing thrugh it. They do calculations to accomplish that.
the software guys, I don't think, will use as many mathematical equations in their job. The software guys write programs and use languages like c, dos, java, machine language and many others. The software side involes writing code and designing data structures. Hope it helps out some. Good luck.


and Computer engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia