Computer Engineering

Computer Engineering at UW is a highly prestigious program, and it has earned such a reputation for good reason. Expect to be challenged. Many of your professors will do their best to help you out, but the onus is on you to make sure that you attend class and get your work done. For many of you, this will be your first time living away from home, so with the extra freedom, it might be hard to focus on your responsibilities, but dedication is key to success.

As for course content, Comp is a pretty healthy mix of electrical engineering and computer science. You’ll be working with a number of programming languages (including C#, C++, and Assembly) and software concepts, and you’ll be exposed to a wide variety of circuitry and hardware concepts (Op-Amps, latches, hardware architectures, etc). You will also learn quite a lot of math via courses like calculus, physics, and discrete math, but these are taught with a practical engineering focus, and so many topics that would take months in a pure math course are taught in a week or two. This means a tremendously large volume of information without a solid background in the material, so you’ll have to do some work outside of class if you want to really understand what’s being taught.

My best tips would probably be to use the resources around you. EngSoc provides some great services like the exam bank to help you out, your professors have office hours when you can go in and get extra help or ask questions, and of course, you’ll make a bunch of friends in exactly the same position as you. Your class is your family, so get to know them and build a support network so that you can all work together.