Hey i had a few quick questions for upper year engineers on this forum (specifically software/ computer engineers).
1.) what are the differences mainly between software eng and computer eng?
2.) is it true that software eng has the most demand for jobs in the market? How are the co-op work terms for students in software eng and do you think it is relatively easy to get a placement while studying?
3.) whats the difference between software eng. vs embedded systems w/ soft eng. is embedded systems more beneficial than just software and what is it mostly about?

Thanks

Originally Posted by Arka

Hey i had a few quick questions for upper year engineers on this forum (specifically software/ computer engineers).
1.) what are the differences mainly between software eng and computer eng?
2.) is it true that software eng has the most demand for jobs in the market? How are the co-op work terms for students in software eng and do you think it is relatively easy to get a placement while studying?
3.) whats the difference between software eng. vs embedded systems w/ soft eng. is embedded systems more beneficial than just software and what is it mostly about?

Thanks

No offense to any S.Eng/Comp.Eng students, but I'll just take a stab at this anyway:

1) Software Engineers are mainly known to go into development, a.k.a. program, code, or as Khedri likes to say 'design large scale systems'. So, gather software requirements, design, and implementation of it. Computer Engineers have to do with the hardware side of things mainly, but deal with lower level software related items. Computer Engineers would focus on designing the hardware components that are found inside of a laptop/computer today and help in the process of actually creating it.

2) No one can say for sure that the Software Engineering discipline has the most amount of demand in the job market. One can say with confidence though, that there is a great amount of demand for it though. Co-op work terms are flexible. You can do a 4 month co-op term whenever you'd like, or even do an internship. It's your call at the end of the day. If you find a co-op placement outside of OscarPlus, before you accept your job offer you'd have to get it approved my the co-op office and pay a co-op fee (so make sure to take Eng 1EE0 or whatever it's called). Relatively speaking, from what I gathered from these forums, it's easier to get an internship vs. co-op placement in general. Most people prefer co-op placements during the summer since they don't want to change their study cycle so that time of year is the most competitive. Internships on the other hand and co-op terms during other parts of the year, in comparison aren't as competitive, but they still are. Keeping that in mind, getting good grades would be a step in the right direction, but not all companies expect you to have stellar grades. Some companies rather would prefer you to have several side projects going on to display your knowledge that you've gained inside and outside of the classroom. So, you'll just have to do your own research there.

3) What's beneficial depends on what you mean. If you mean which will yield more money for you/year, it depends. If you mean which would secure a job upon graduation, neither or. You have to clarify your definition of beneficial since it may vary person to person at times. If you Googled embedded systems, you would get an idea/feel for it. That specialization would be more closely related to Electrical/Computer Engineering I believe, but I may be wrong considering I'm not in any Engineering discipline myself. Mind you, I still am in the faculty of Engineering, and several of my courses are cross-listed with Software Engineering students, so I've talked to a couple every now and then when time permits.

Good luck.

Embedded stream contains the regular Software stream minus your electives. The electives are turned into mandatory courses on circuits. Viola! Embedded programming.

Either stream you picked is fine. Do you like choices or not? I love vanilla.

Any streams will get you the high paying job you crave. You just got to work for it. Don't be slacking and getting into meaningless relationships and party all the time. Join a engineering club. From your glasses you seems smart. Keep up the hard work.

Originally Posted by Arka

Hey i had a few quick questions for upper year engineers on this forum (specifically software/ computer engineers).
1.) what are the differences mainly between software eng and computer eng?
2.) is it true that software eng has the most demand for jobs in the market? How are the co-op work terms for students in software eng and do you think it is relatively easy to get a placement while studying?
3.) whats the difference between software eng. vs embedded systems w/ soft eng. is embedded systems more beneficial than just software and what is it mostly about?

Thanks

1) Computer Engineering is synonymous to Electronics and Communication. It is a heavily electrical and computer hardware based engineering stream. You have almost 65-70% courses same as Electrical engineering students. The rest are your Computer hardware courses along with a couple courses in software. Typically a Computer engineering graduate would go on to do a hardware based job. e.g. Semiconductor Engineer

Software Engineering is very similar to Computer Science. It differs from Computer Science in the aspect of using Engineering practices in the field of Software. They learn about Software Architecture and Design in slightly more detail. It is also Math heavy as compared to CS - engineering math mainly. (any Software student, please feel free to correct me here, as this is based off of the feedback I got from my Software Eng friends). Also Software engineers get an iron ring. CS students don't. Typically a Software Engineering/Computer Science graduate would go on to do a software based job - surprise! e.g. Software Developer, Software Tester

I'd suggest you select Comp Eng if you like Electrical stuff. Circuits etc. From the feedback I get from my friends in ECE, both Electrical and Computer Engineering programs seem a lot more challenging than Software Eng or CS. I'd think if its challenging, it'd be more rewarding, but I see a lot of ECE students do their coops in Software industry. There are definitely more jobs out there in Software industry than others. At least that's my understanding.

2) I'd say it's incredibly easy to get a co-op work term, regardless of whether you are in CE/SE/SE(emb) as long as you have good grades and show passion for your field through some side projects (which are easier to do if you are a SE student). 16 month coops are easier to score than 4 month coops.

3) Embedded Systems is hardware. Many software students would say its dry. But, if you like it, you like it, period. I personally feel its pretty cool but challenging. If I were in SE, I would have taken Embedded just for learning. As for how beneficial it is, if you're talking in terms of how much would it affect your Salary upon graduation, I wouldn't say it would matter if you chose a Software job. If you chose a Software job, your salary would be based off of your knowledge and skill set rather than your degree. Studying those extra units for embedded systems every year, wouldn't matter. But if you're unsure about hardware or software as a career path, you can surely go for embedded systems and have both paths open. Also keep in mind that students in Software Engineering do the same Capstone as Mechatronics and Software (embedded) students and I've heard that the Capstone is very hardware based, so Tron and Emb students have a huge leg up on software students.

TL;DR: If you're unsure about Software/Hardware and don't like circuits too much, go for Software(Emb). If you love circuits, you could go for Comp Eng. Or go for vanilla software, if you like just software. Software industry definitely has more jobs out there. Keep good grades and have some side projects, you'll be fine. Good Luck.

Thanks so much for the feedback

Originally Posted by AvacadoLover

Embedded stream contains the regular Software stream minus your electives. The electives are turned into mandatory courses on circuits. Viola! Embedded programming.

This isn't true. You just take electives at a different time from normal software engineering people.

Don't be slacking and getting into meaningless relationships and party all the time. Join a engineering club.

Those are pretty contrary to each other from what I've seen of most engineering clubs.

Originally Posted by nikJ

Software Engineering is very similar to Computer Science. It differs from Computer Science in the aspect of using Engineering practices in the field of Software. They learn about Software Architecture and Design in slightly more detail. It is also Math heavy as compared to CS - engineering math mainly. (any Software student, please feel free to correct me here, as this is based off of the feedback I got from my Software Eng friends). Also Software engineers get an iron ring. CS students don't. Typically a Software Engineering/Computer Science graduate would go on to do a software based job - surprise! e.g. Software Developer, Software Tester

At the end of the day, for the most part, comp.sci and software engineers compete for the exact same jobs in industry. Nobody really cares about the iron ring as far as I can tell.

I'd suggest you select Comp Eng if you like Electrical stuff. Circuits etc. From the feedback I get from my friends in ECE, both Electrical and Computer Engineering programs seem a lot more challenging than Software Eng or CS. I'd think if its challenging, it'd be more rewarding, but I see a lot of ECE students do their coops in Software industry. There are definitely more jobs out there in Software industry than others. At least that's my understanding.

Ya, I agree with all of that.

2) I'd say it's incredibly easy to get a co-op work term, regardless of whether you are in CE/SE/SE(emb) as long as you have good grades and show passion for your field through some side projects (which are easier to do if you are a SE student). 16 month coops are easier to score than 4 month coops.

Indeed, when I did co-op at IBM, people were from all over electrical, software, mechatronics and computer engineering, yet all doing software jobs.

3) Embedded Systems is hardware. Many software students would say its dry. But, if you like it, you like it, period. I personally feel its pretty cool but challenging. If I were in SE, I would have taken Embedded just for learning.

That's pretty much exactly why I chose embedded. Personally, I find they didn't put enough into it... embedded systems is literally 4 courses extra: ENG 2MM3, ENG 3N03, MECH TRON 3TA4, MECH TRON 3TB4.

ENG 2MM3 is essentially pointless (a generalized view of how transformers work), 3TB4 is mostly redundant to a second year general software course and ENG 3N03 is really poorly done for the most part. 3TA4 is the only really beneficial class, which teaches you how to use microcontrollers at the low level.

I would have really liked a few more courses, because at the moment, I can't say I (or any of the other embedded systems people) got much out of it.

But if you're unsure about hardware or software as a career path, you can surely go for embedded systems and have both paths open. Also keep in mind that students in Software Engineering do the same Capstone as Mechatronics and Software (embedded) students and I've heard that the Capstone is very hardware based, so Tron and Emb students have a huge leg up on software students.

Ya, that's kind of true. I'm really unimpressed with how the capstone is conducted for this course. Poorly managed and a lot of "all software" groups that are struggling.

------

As an aside, I think I probably would have seriously considered straight computer science (most likely at some other school) or computer engineering had I had the opportunity to start over again. Software engineering at McMaster by and large is very unimpressive (same with Mechatronics). The curriculum is really dated, and a lot of the professors teach courses that they seem to only have limited knowledge about (Human Interface Design, Distributed Systems. etc).

A lot of the students in the program are only there because they couldn't get into anything else (software has a low entrance average), so your average colleague in the program won't care about anything. Most people are awful programmers too.

I've been to the lab with electrical/computer engineers before and overall I'm a lot more impressed. Everyone knows what's going on, the professors are all geniuses (not necessarily good teachers... but know what they're talking about) and funny enough, I find in general people are much better at programming.

So ask yourself this OP: Do you want to learn more and suffer more while doing it, or do you want to learn less while kinda cruising along? For the former, choose computer engineering and for the latter, select any stream in software.

Computer Engineering is brutal. Its better to pick Electrical and use your electives to fill in the missing spots.