Electrical Engineering, Computer Science or Economics

[Lukas Glatz]

Dear PhysicsForums members,
being currently in my final year of Austrian high school I have to decide what to pursue my Bachelors degree in. (Un)fortunately I have three huge interests. Those are Economics, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. All of which are highly fascinating and I thoroughly enjoy reading about those subjects in depth.
Now to the first part of my question. Presumably I will graduate in 2019, which if we think about the economic data of the past will be either shortly before, after or during a recession/depression. I know the times we are living in right now are way different from what we have experienced in the past, but yet I feel like I might graduate during a very bad time, economically speaking. So, which of my subjects of interest would be the best bet in terms of employability during the time of a recession/depression?
Now to the second part of my question. I am, according to my professor in mathematics, eligible to study any of the subjects above, but since I am paranoid could anyone inform me about the level of mathematics, which will be covered in said subjects, especially the latter. Now a little bit more information about myself.
- 18 yrs old
- Straight A's (1's) in all of my subjects
- Attending a school for "gifted" students
- Bad at spatial visualization (according to tests)
- Accepted to two top 20 Uni's in the world for economics (in Britain)
- taking a gap year due to military service

I excuse myself for any mistakes made in the text above, it is already quite late and English is not my native language!
Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post!

P.S. I know I should ask in a different forum, because this is a very general question, but I just love this forum and always look for answers here first since a lot of the people on this forum have such a profound knowledge!

 

[DEvens]

I would say, pick he subject you find the most interesting, and study that. Don't try to pick your profession by projecting what may or may not happen to the economy. If people could predict these things then they would be stupidly rich.

Electrical eng. and comp. sci. fit together quite well. You could take an electrical engineering degree and get most of what a comp. sci. degree gets. Or the other way around if you want. The demand for these types of professionals has been fairly strong even through bad economic times. Yes with ups-and-downs, but less downs than some professions.

I know nothing about economics. You should get somebody who does to guide you there.

In any case, the thing to do about the economy possibly going into the toilet is to acquire secondary skills. For example, if you choose economics, you should still learn something about computers as a "plan B." Maybe computer models of economic systems works out for that. Or if you choose comp. sci., you should learn something about the hardware as well as the software. And so on. Diversity and the ability to learn a new skill now and then will give you an excellent chance.