The Importance Of Computer Engineering

Computer engineering is the lovechild of electrical engineering and computer science: “separate, but intimately related,” (Soldman 4). What is computer engineering, and what distinguishes it from its electrical engineering and computer science forefathers? What do kinds of jobs are available to them? What kinds of problems do they solve? These questions seek relatively superficial answers—just a couple words or sentences could suffice—but answering these questions is what will make us cognizant of this field’s importance. So to grasp how important computer engineers are in today’s society, we must understand what a computer engineer is and does.

What is a computer engineer? The Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula defines the discipline

To put it bluntly, anything she wants. Just about any company with a computer—meaning any company besides the Amish, probably—could use a computer engineer to help design software, hardware, microelectronics, informational technology, or informational systems, to name a few (Soldman 14). Our computer engineer could go into healthcare to create anything from surgical robots to computing genetic data, or if she wants to be involved in fashion, she could work for a large retailer like Nordstrom and implement ways to “meet the needs of users,” through “application integration and administration of computing technologies,” (Soldman 16). Computer-science focused engineers, also known as those who heavily focused their coursework on the computer science end of computer engineering, even those going so far as to minor in computer science, can even become software engineers (“Minor in Computer Science”). With all the overlaps between requirements, and the huge job availability after graduation in more software-based fields, minoring in computer science has become popular among computer engineering graduates (“Minor in Computer Science”). According to the U.S. Department of Labor, software developers get a “median yearly pay of $102,280,” with a promising projected job growth rate of 17%, 10 percentage points above the national average (“Software Developers”). So no matter where our our engineer’s interests lie, there is a path forward with her computer engineering degree under her