Is EE the Right Choice for a Computer Science Major with a Dislike for Physics?

[Marshillboy]

Like 85% of people who applied to the University of Washington's Computer Science program, I was rejected and am now going into my Junior year without a major. Last quarter, I took the first introductory EE class and found it pretty enjoyable.

As much as I like the idea of going with EE as a backup plan, the Physics teaching at this university is positively horrendous. To give you one example of how poorly it is taught, I brought a question off one of the E&M midterms to a review session taught by an undergraduate physics major, and he didn't even have any idea how to solve it. I'm sure the Physics profs are brilliant, but they are some of the worst teachers in the university, plus the curriculum is more work than any other undergrad class I've yet taken.

Although I've already scraped by the first two required physics courses (Mechanics and EM), unfortunately another physics class is a graduation requirement for the EE department. Even the idea of having to take a third Physics class here is enough to make me not pursue any major that would require it. So, given this option compounded by my current distaste for physics, I'm stuck debating whether or not EE is really the right choice for me.

 

[clope023]

Like 85% of people who applied to the University of Washington's Computer Science program, I was rejected and am now going into my Junior year without a major. Last quarter, I took the first introductory EE class and found it pretty enjoyable.

As much as I like the idea of going with EE as a backup plan, the Physics teaching at this university is positively horrendous. To give you one example of how poorly it is taught, I brought a question off one of the E&M midterms to a review session taught by an undergraduate physics major, and he didn't even have any idea how to solve it. I'm sure the Physics profs are brilliant, but they are some of the worst teachers in the university, plus the curriculum is more work than any other undergrad class I've yet taken.

Although I've already scraped by the first two required physics courses (Mechanics and EM), unfortunately another physics class is a graduation requirement for the EE department. Even the idea of having to take a third Physics class here is enough to make me not pursue any major that would require it. So, given this option compounded by my current distaste for physics, I'm stuck debating whether or not EE is really the right choice for me.

I can only speak for my school but except for a few exceptions the EE professors at my school are far worse teachers than the physics professors.

As far as physicsy research areas in EE you could take a nano-electronics route in which you would be study plenty of applied quantum mechanics or you could do electromagnetics in which case it's lots of programming and E&M.

 

[maxwellic]

You could get deeper into you computer studies and get into embedded systems. It is the EE route of literally following every "1" and "0" that travels through your computer. Embedded Systems and Computer Science would complement each other nicely.