“What’s your major? What’s your role at work?” Sometimes, all I manage to say is, “Electrical Engineering,” or “Computer Engineering,” before the other person’s eyes glaze over. If you have ever felt mystified by electronics and programming, this post is especially for you. Here’s my attempt to boil down the vast field of ECE/CS into a 3-minute read.
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Electrical Engineering (EE): The physics of electronics. If you can see the chip/board, know that EE was involved in designing, manufacturing, testing, and then board-level designing, manufacturing, and testing. Manufacturing these chips and building these system boards (the colorful ones that look like a miniature city) require extensive physics knowledge. Hopefully your physics course covered basic electronics. An electrical engineer starts there and uses those “useless” calculus concepts to design various types of hardware.
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Computer Engineering (CE): The field that bridges the gap between hardware and software. Computer engineers build computer systems that touch hardware. Have you ever thought about how your coffee maker knows what to do when you push the button? Software written in C or lower-level languanges is programmed into a microcontroller or microprocessor. The micro-whichever is a chip that goes on a system board (see #1) and runs code based on which button is pressed.
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Computer Science (CS): Probably not involved in how a coffee maker works, unless it’s a really fancy one with WiFi, USB, or other luxury features. Computer scientists that delve into computer architecture or write operating systems (Windows, OS X, Linux) have some hardware knowledge. They don’t build the hardware, but they do know how it works. The programs and applications we run on our desktops/laptops/phones fall into the field of CS.
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Software Engineering (SE): Based on my understanding, this field applies to any industry that relies on software. Software engineers focus on how to make systems that are reliable, testable, and scalable. I also believe that in an academic sense, SE students are taught how to derive requirements and build “good” software in general. I think both computer engineers and computer scientists can be qualified as software engineers.
A Little More Info
When you plug in your laptop and push the power button, what actually happens? You’re converting a voltage source into an appropriate voltage for the circuitry in your computer’s hardware. Take USB - your laptop circuitry probably has USB controller chips to manage voltages and data flow. When you plug in a USB drive, how does your computer know what to do? Engineers write drivers that enable operating systems to connect to USB sticks. Lastly, writing and reading data from the USB drive requires its own protocol. This protocol is written into the OS or individual applications to communicate with such peripherals.
The explanations here are generalized, and many people are not strictly “electrical engineers” or “computer scientists.” The intention was to explain the different fields and where the lines begin to blur. I stayed on the topic of computers and embedded systems, but ECE/CS includes power, imaging/sensing, networking, security, and more.
If you have a different perspective, please share!
West Coast Update
I finally made it to San Francisco after moving out to the bay. I thought the sea lions were lounging at Pier 39 just for me, but apparently they’re not picky. Here’s a picture:
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