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What are the best classes to take in high school if I plan on getting a computer enginerings degree in collage? I am a freshman and I have already built a computer my self and worked on many other computers.
Also what is the best collage to go to for a computer enginerings degree in California perferably near the coast?
Thank you very much for your help.

Programming classes will help. Hardware classes may help(depends on how technical they get about how they work). Taking AP classes will probably also help(looks good on a transcript and if you score well enough on the test, you won't have to take the class in college).

As far as the best college in California, I don't really know, but I'd start looking at CalTech, Stanford, and the state colleges.

Thank you for responding so quickly. I already am planning to take the 2 years of programing that my school offers and I am in electronics right now at the moment. next year the might be getting red of electronics and adding Mechatronics instead and if the do I will definantly take that. I am currently in Geometry and my school is switching to a 4x4 scheduale next year and this will allow me to get 2 semesters of calculus out of the way because I can take one at my school and then one at my local community collage as an unschedualed class. I can also take physics at my school. I have been looking at UCSD but will start looking at CalTech. Has any one gotten there degree from UCSD I would like to hear feedback about the school.
Thank you all again.

What exactly are you looking to do when you say Computer Engineering? Computer Engineering means different things to different people. For me, it sounds almost like Electrical Engineering (ie. low level hardware design) vs software programming/IT/etc.

Take every math course your school offers. Everything else is gravy.

By computer engineering I mean like working with microprossecors and things like that.

Take every advanced math class you can. Focus on Calculus though. You will be taking Cal 1, through Cal 4 most likely. Cal 4 kicked my ass too. A lot of your actual engineering classes will be based on Cal and physics. The way you will solve problems and analyze will be based on Calculus and physics, regardless of what you concentrate on i.e. Petro Eng, Elec. Eng, COmp Sci. Eng. etc... Another thing to take would be physics or pre-physics. These two subjects will be your CORE subjects prividing the foundations to everything else.

Microprocessors? You might want to consider EE then. I don't know where that term "computer engineering" came from, but I am not sure that it is even a type of engineering? Most all universities have the option of either Comp Sci Eng. or Elec. Eng. as far as that goes. A friend of mine is in Comp Sci. , and they never get even close to anything like that. However, it does not mean you can't get a job later working with them if your also into programming. But as stated, if your not just into microprocessors and actually want to design them EE is probably your best bet. Also, in EE, you will not focus that much on computer related stuff. A lot will be based on power applications also, which is where the majority of my interest lays.

Either way, the most important thing is the math and physics (those are guranteed), because who knows after the mechatronics class, you may actually find out your more interested in the mechanical aspect.

Yeah, what Reklaw said.

I majored in Computer Science. We did have some hardware stuff way back when, but it was really low level gates and circuits. Just basic background, and not to the level you are talking about. It was more logic and set theory, in addition to programming.

EE is really where you want to go. There should be some sort of guide at CalTech that would give you an idea on what the required courses are for that type of degree. You'd want classes that would help out with those courses.

The other thing to think about. Look on the job sites and see what jobs are out there and what requirements they have. If you're looking to do design for microprocessors, you're probably looking at having to get a masters or PHD.

Computer Engineering is the integration of the hardware and software. So you learn about hardware and software(not as much as an EE or a CS would), and you learn how to integrate them. If you want to lean more heavily towards one side, you could dual major, and most of the classes will probably overlap.

Yeah I was looking at that, I see Georgia Tech has that degree. I wasn't sure, I didn't know they offered the integration of the two. Thats cool.

That would be a great background for designing bio-medical devices/instrumentation because you would need both the programing and electronics. Now, that is a job with nice paycheck too.


edit: Here are a few you could start with-

http://www.cpe.calpoly.edu/

http://www.allengineeringschools.com/schools/ID867/

http://www.sci.csuhayward.edu/engineering/

If "working with microprocessors" means designing them as in working at the Intel design sites at Santa Clara or Hillsboro then you probably want an EE degree. Which school is the "best" school near the west coast... will just cause an argument. However, what you might want to look at is top rated schools. Which those are depends heavily on who is doing the ratings, but Cal Tech, UCLA, UCB and Stanford are usually up there. Other good schools are UCSD and UCSB. USC is rated highly in some rankings but it's not exactly near the coast (kind of a nasty neighborhood actually). The Cal State schools are usually not rated as highly as the schools above (although that depends on the degree and what you want to do with it). The cost of the private universities may (or may not) be a significant factor.

I suggest you talk to your high school guidance counselor to make sure you are taking the right classes to end up with the right classes in the end. I also suggest you try to talk to a recruiter at a couple schools you are interested in to find out what they are looking for. High school guidance counselors can sometimes be surprisingly ignorant about that type of thing. And lastly try to talk to people that went to your high school that got into the schools you are interested in and a couple people who working in the industry you are interested in. I suppose it depends on the high school but I think AP calculus, AP chemistry and AP physics are likely to be high priority goals both in terms of preparation as well as university acceptance for an engineering degree.

If you want to work supporting operations at Intel for example, a BS in CS and few years of experience was good a while back (if you wanted to get into their system administration department for instance). I know someone who got a Ph.d in EE at UCLA and got a great job at Intel actually working on microprocessor design. Of course, a Ph.d from a school like UCLA is a major undertaking and that's why I think it's important to find out if that is really what you want to do.

If you are planning to major in Computer Engineer and not Computer Science, I'd advise that you also take any of the engineering drawing/drafting courses your school has available. Computer Engineers typically follow a more traditional engineering curriculum and will require you to do these types of things to get past your engineering fundamentals courses. And like it has been said already...take the computer science courses and advanced math.

That's not necessarily true. I'm half way through my third year of a computer and electrical engineering degree, and the closest I've come to doing drafting type stuff, is to layout a circuit board design on the computer, once. I didn't even have to take the intro engineering courses all the other engineering majors did. You don't really need much drafting ability to draw circuits.