Computer Engineering

What you'll do in college

Computer Engineering sits right at the chaotic intersection of electrical engineering and computer science. You'll take circuits and physics, but also data structures, algorithms, and operating systems. You'll learn how to build a processor from scratch and how to write low-level C code to make it actually run. Labs heavily involve FPGAs, microcontrollers, and debugging assembly code until you question your life choices.

What you'll do after college

CE grads are the wizards who make hardware and software actually talk to each other. They design microprocessors at AMD, Intel, or Apple; write firmware for Teslas and smart appliances; or build the physical infrastructure for cloud computing. Pay is incredibly high, job security is rock solid, and you get to feel slightly superior to pure software engineers because you actually know how the metal works.

Famous graduates

Larry Page - Co-founder of Google, B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan
Martin Eberhard - Co-founder of Tesla, B.S. in Computer Engineering from UIUC

Selectivity vs. earnings

By acceptance rate

$107,247

949

100–72%

$112,649

2,327

72–42%

$126,880

2,374

42–21%

$145,545

857

20–0%

Acceptance rate · bar = degree-weighted adjusted 5-year earnings

By SAT median

$102,773

753

400–1165

$111,280

1,722

1175–1365

$130,472

1,816

1365–1475

$139,217

722

1485–1600

Median SAT · bar = degree-weighted adjusted 5-year earnings

Majors in this category

Major	Colleges	Degrees ▼	Male/Female	Intl	5yr Earn
Computer Engineering	275	8,672	85% / 15%	11%	$114,512
Computer Engineering	274	8,641	85% / 15%	11%	$114,310
Computer Hardware Engineering	2	19	84% / 16%	11%	$148,994
Computer Engineering and Systems	1	12	100% / 0%	0%	$205,220