Computer Engineering

“honestly the most true thing i can say about comp eng is nobody's coming to hand you anything. i started a frc team from scratch in richmond and we hit top 20 in the world. i built a neural network in minecraft redstone because i wanted to actually understand backprop, not import it. yann lecun commented on it. that wasn't luck — i just decided the thing was worth building. comp eng at penn state has been less about classes and more about what you do at 2am when nobody's grading you. the externship building rag pipelines. the autonomous off-road research in ros2. flying to cmu and yale on weekends to win hackathons with people i met three hours before submission. handsforhearts.health came out of one of those weekends and now it might be a real thing. the degree is the floor, not the ceiling. the people getting the calls back are all building something visible. ship things. post about it. cold dm people. the worst that happens is somebody says no.”

“Good broad major, can do a lot of cool things with it.”

“Broad Area, can do a lot in both EE and CS. Useful to gain more breadth over depth as a young student. Broad Area, can do a lot in both EE and CS. Useful to gain more breadth over depth as a young student.”

“Computer Engineering interests me because it connects software with the physical systems that people use every day. I like that it is not limited to only writing code or only understanding hardware, but combines both sides to build practical and reliable technology. Through my coursework and projects, I have become especially interested in embedded systems, software development, and how hardware and software interact. I enjoy the process of breaking down a problem, designing a system, testing it, and improving it step by step. Even when the process is difficult, I find it rewarding because I can see how abstract concepts such as circuits, data structures, and computer organization become real working systems.”

“Computer Engineering interests me because it connects software with the physical systems that people use every day. I like that it is not limited to only writing code or only understanding hardware, but combines both sides to build practical and reliable technology. Through my coursework and projects, I have become especially interested in embedded systems, software development, and how hardware and software interact. I enjoy the process of breaking down a problem, designing a system, testing it, and improving it step by step. Even when the process is difficult, I find it rewarding because I can see how abstract concepts such as circuits, data structures, and computer organization become real working systems.”

“For me, it’s about taking something from concept to working prototype: whether that’s an embedded system, a robotics platform, or a distributed pipeline. I like seeing how software decisions affect hardware performance, and how constraints like power, latency, and memory shape what’s possible. It feels less like writing programs and more like engineering systems that have to work reliably outside a textbook.”

“For me, it’s about taking something from concept to working prototype: whether that’s an embedded system, a robotics platform, or a distributed pipeline. I like seeing how software decisions affect hardware performance, and how constraints like power, latency, and memory shape what’s possible. It feels less like writing programs and more like engineering systems that have to work reliably outside a textbook.”

“I like UCLA! :D It is fun. I am learning a lot of skills beyond just engineering and finding a community here. I'm improving my skills as an engineer and person overall.”

“Great major to do, and would highly recommend it to everyone interested”

“Its really a diverse major where you can do a little bit of everything!”

“It’s a good major for anyone interested in the intersection of software and hardware”

“Computer Engineering very highly regarded at UC San Diego. Workload can be quite challenging, especially when taking multiple major classes, such as multiple CS or EE classes, but it is not impossible to excel. Managing time wisely to do lots of fun stuff is key to maintaining joy in my major.”

“It is a great fit for people who wan't to gain experience in hardware and software and really understand the full end to end processing of running stuff on your computer. Love the hands on portions of EE labs.”

“Great if you like computer engineering or electrical engineering. Very concept focused.”

“I love hardware and making things that are physical and verifiable with lots of physics. Computer engineering gives me this freedom of expressing my love for hardware by building different components and I feel like in this modern day and age software has upgraded to a much higher level and our concept of hardware still lags behind.”