Career advice

[Myasnik]

Please help me choose my career.

Righ now I'm studying undergraduate program of IT and finishing it soon. But when I finish there are two paths either postgrad in EE or postgrad in CS. Both are two years. I don't know what I should choose, I want both but it is not possible. On one hand software development is my job (I'm self employed, I make small games, freelance and stuff), on the other hand EE is also my hobby. I don't think I can make my EE hobby into a work and I never had any education in that field, I just fiddled with kits and stuff, only basic things, so I don't think it is possible. Software on the other hand is something I have been doing since I was small.

I like both programms but I'm already 25, it's time to start a "live" get family and stuff, I can't possible spend 5 more years studying.

So, what do you guys think, which path should I choose?

I know it sounds kinda strange but it is a honest question, and I hope you can help me decide.

[AndyC_772]

If you've not had the formal education in hardware, then I'd probably be inclined to suggest going down the software route.

Engineers with hardware experience tend to be very good at solving problems that they've seen before - but engineers with the kind of sound, theoretical background that comes from a university degree are also good at solving problems that they've *not* seen before.

Most of my designs consist partly of tried-and-tested existing technology - which, by definition, doesn't contain too many bugs - and partly of new stuff. It's the new stuff that tends to have the issues that need thinking through and debugging, and that's where the degree counts for a lot more than the experience. "What did I do last time?" isn't a useful question if you're doing something you've never done before - and much of the time that's exactly what you'll be doing.

You could probably get a hardware job if you wanted, but it would most likely mean starting doing production or repairs and trying to work your way up. That could take a long time; if you become an excellent repair technician, a company is much more likely to want to keep you as an excellent technician rather than moving you into a design role and training up a new technician from scratch.

In my experience the number of hardware jobs that come up is less than the number of software vacancies. Many small companies have only one or two full-time hardware people, but maybe 3 or 4 times that many doing software.

If you're interested in hardware, my advice to you would be to move into doing embedded systems and device drivers. You'll get to work with hardware at a low level and might get to work with both. Any hardware engineer will appreciate working with a software engineer who can read a schematic and operate an oscilloscope.

[Myasnik]

AndyC_772, thank you very much for your detailed reply.

Still, I would like to hear several opinions before making a final decision.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I say keep on coding if that's your skill and you are proficient. Remember, you can be anywhere in the world these days and you can code away. Hardware engineering can confine you to a lab. However, if you say you are settling down, a lab might be the way to go since it's hard to do software development at 2am in the morning when you've got a family. Or study for that matter.

Why not do both?

The trick is to manage your time.

 

[westfw]

An MSEE is somewhat likely to require a level of Math that you may not have from an IT undergraduate program...

[EEVblog]

Well, you've already spent 4(?) years studying software, why do another 2 more?
IMO you'll be more valuable in industry if you have a software degree and a masters(?) in EE as well.
Potentially gives you a lot more career options. e.g. you could use your hobby project experience to bootstrap yourself into a hardware role if you want.

But then again, if you know your career is only software, then the masters in CS might be more appropriate.

There has been talk on here before about the value of a masters, being a kind of "half-arsed" doctorate and not worth the trouble and all that.
YMMV.

Dave.