Need to interview a computer engineer Please help

[Lynn369]

Need to interview a computer engineer! Please help!

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Hi, I'm a sophomore in high school who's the only girl in my principles of engineering class. my class is doing a paper over the type of engineering we are looking into persuing. well, i want to become a computer engineer, i need an interviwee for my paper and i need 10 questions answered. so if you'd please take some time out of your day to help me it would be deeply appriciated. my 10 questions are: 1. what made you decide to go into the computer engineering field? 2. what type of equipment do you work with daily? 3. what types of classes did you take in college for this field? 4. what do you like the most about being a computer engineer? 5. what don't you like about being a computer engineer? 6. what's the average starting salary for a computer engineer> 7. how many hours do you work on average? 8. was it hard to find a job after college? 9. do you work in a group or by yourself? 10. is there any advice you'd like to give students looking into persuing this carreer? thank you so very very much for helping me! this is deeply appreciated.

 

[berkeman]

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Hi, I'm a sophomore in high school who's the only girl in my principles of engineering class. my class is doing a paper over the type of engineering we are looking into persuing. well, i want to become a computer engineer, i need an interviwee for my paper and i need 10 questions answered. so if you'd please take some time out of your day to help me it would be deeply appriciated. my 10 questions are: 1. what made you decide to go into the computer engineering field? 2. what type of equipment do you work with daily? 3. what types of classes did you take in college for this field? 4. what do you like the most about being a computer engineer? 5. what don't you like about being a computer engineer? 6. what's the average starting salary for a computer engineer> 7. how many hours do you work on average? 8. was it hard to find a job after college? 9. do you work in a group or by yourself? 10. is there any advice you'd like to give students looking into persuing this carreer? thank you so very very much for helping me! this is deeply appreciated.

The days of interview question threads on the PF and other forums may be limited. Often they are posted by spammers looking for personal info. You don't seem to be doing that, so I'll at least take a cut at answering your questions. I'm an Analog and Digital Design Engineer, but my degrees are in EE and Computer Science, and I do some software and architecture work as part of my work.

1. what made you decide to go into the computer engineering field?
I started undergrad as an EE/ME double major, but my first programming class (in Fortran!) showed me how challenging EE/CS can be, and how much I loved the challenge.

2. what type of equipment do you work with daily?
CS-wise, programming in C, Tck/TK, NI WinCVI, etc. EE-wise, typical lab instrumentation from oscilloscopes to impedance analyzers to curve tracers, etc.

3. what types of classes did you take in college for this field?
Typical mix of EE and CS courses. Compilers was especially interesting. I'd always wondered how the heck a compiler works -- it was so cool that we had to write one ourselves for the course!

4. what do you like the most about being a computer engineer?
Making things that do some work in the real world. For the CS part, it's writing programs with user interfaces (UIs) that are intuitive and easy to work with (as opposed to crap like Vista). For the EE part, it's helping to design/build/test products that sell in the millions and help your company grow.

5. what don't you like about being a computer engineer?
Silicon Valley is the local ground zero for EE/CS work. I would much prefer to live in the country, like I did when I was growing up thru high school.

6. what's the average starting salary for a computer engineer>
Beats me. Use Google.

7. how many hours do you work on average?
When the company I'm at now was a start-up, it was several years of 60-90 hour weeks straight, including some all-nighters. Now that we're public and more mature as a company, it's more like 40-hour weeks with occasional fire drills thrown in.

8. was it hard to find a job after college?
No. 1979 and got a scholarship/job with Bell Labs. Then later moved back to California and worked with HP. I worked my behind off in school, so companies were courting me, not the other way around.

9. do you work in a group or by yourself?
Both. You work as a group in terms of goals, but you take on assignments that you need to complete on your own to ensure that the group meets its goals. Lance Mills at HP used to call the better engineers "goal oriented achievers". You need to be able to trust the others in your group to complete their tasks, or to ask for help or ideas if there are problems.

10. is there any advice you'd like to give students looking into persuing this carreer?
Be positive. Relax and focus. Work hard, and feel good about where that puts you. Be a good mentor, and appreciate good mentoring. Work really hard. (did I mention that part already?)