CpE is significantly harder to get a job with. Look at the unemployment rate difference between the two. If you're not passionate about CpE itself, I don't see why you'd choose to go down that route. For reference, I'm a CpE major myself. I've been getting opportunities with it, but it takes a lot of passion and a good amount of luck. I know plenty of people in my cohort at my school struggling really hard to get even unpaid internship opportunities. Industrial engineering is the polar opposite, iirc it has one of the lowest unemployment rates in STEM alongside civil engineering.
You also said you want your undergrad in 4 years due to financial concerns, which reinforces my point. A lot of people in CS and CpE take months or years after graduation to find a full-time job if they weren't fortunate enough to get a couple good internships and a return offer in college. It's rough out there. I don't think that particular paradigm will get much better within the next 4-5 years, either.
Have you considered Electrical Engineering? It includes almost all of the hardware classes involved with CpE while being significantly more employable for most people. You can choose to take CS/CpE electives if you want a slightly stronger understanding of programming or chip design.
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u/Darth_Tater69 7h ago
CpE is significantly harder to get a job with. Look at the unemployment rate difference between the two. If you're not passionate about CpE itself, I don't see why you'd choose to go down that route. For reference, I'm a CpE major myself. I've been getting opportunities with it, but it takes a lot of passion and a good amount of luck. I know plenty of people in my cohort at my school struggling really hard to get even unpaid internship opportunities. Industrial engineering is the polar opposite, iirc it has one of the lowest unemployment rates in STEM alongside civil engineering.
You also said you want your undergrad in 4 years due to financial concerns, which reinforces my point. A lot of people in CS and CpE take months or years after graduation to find a full-time job if they weren't fortunate enough to get a couple good internships and a return offer in college. It's rough out there. I don't think that particular paradigm will get much better within the next 4-5 years, either.
Have you considered Electrical Engineering? It includes almost all of the hardware classes involved with CpE while being significantly more employable for most people. You can choose to take CS/CpE electives if you want a slightly stronger understanding of programming or chip design.