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Comment by torginus | Hacker News Reader

The thing is even though I went to school for EE, I found it weird that EE jobs demanded an incredibly wide and difficult to obtain skillset, including rudimentary CS knowledge, yet paid less than what I could sell said CS knowledge for.

We live in a society.

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I saw getting my bachelor's in electrical engineering as similar to when an aspiring writer gets a degree in classics instead of English lit. I always knew I'd end up a software engineer, I just also knew I really wanted to know how things worked on the physical level and wouldn't be able to muster up the energy to touch enough differential equations and vector calculus to actually grok it for myself ever again after college.

Walking in with that mindset made the whole thing really enjoyable, actually. Recommended!

I kinda find this relatable - in HS, I did some summer work writing software (amateurishly doing what felt right instead of being taught how to do it properly - if only I'd have known), and went for EE, because I felt like "wait this cannot be it"

I chose EE cause it was harder (for me at least) and everyone would drop out into CS. Wound up doing software development, which I loved as a hobby and wanted to avoid ruining, so to speak.

Fast forward to today, I've ended up coming to the conclusion that the whole university system (much like the tech, banking & finance industry) subsidizes foreign nationals to the detriment of anyone who's native & pays taxes to support these institutions of "learning".

I didn't really see a straightforward way to do anything interesting with EE, which seems to entail going for a phd and navigating all the financial costs along with that.

Immigrants pay taxes. Maybe question your own biases.

I have no problem with immigration but having worked for many (supposedly critically important) organizations it's clear to me that the immigration system we have now that they depend on to staff their departments (which there are certainly native americans who could be doing those jobs) is just a scam for corporate profits that corrodes society. Additionally I've found immigrants themselves are often possibly even more racist than the average American. Couldn't believe it when I found out the racial disputes that had to be managed between foreign workers.

It's the other way around, most of the big universities charge international students through the nose to subsidise domestic students.

I would go back from software to EE in a heartbeat if the compensation was even remotely comparable

This is a huge source of emotional pain for me to be completely honest.

Why? Genuine question, what is the exciting differences in the day to day work for you?

Playing with electricity just feels more "real" in the sense that you're working directly with the constraints of the physical world. It's more tangible.

This is why I switched out of firmware after years of twiddling bits and routing circuits. Imagine working on difficult threading issues one minute then needing to deeply understand a circuit layout the other and getting paid less than entry level bootcamp python programmers. Oh yes, with constant threat of being sent to country_of_manufacture to work out manufacturing issues on a moments notice. It’s capitalisms way of saying “we don’t really want or need this right now.” I heard you loud and clear, American tech companies.

I started EE, switched to CS because it was easier.

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