Engineering Advice

>>277303
I am a database developer. I mostly work with Microsoft SQL Server, its business intelligence products, IIS and C#.

I design and maintain both OLTP and OLAP databases.

I have also worked with Oracle, Informatica, Python, Java, XML, XSLT and some other stuff.

I am not a full stack developer, and don't know a lot about traditional software development, or building cool websites, but feel free to ask me any questions.

My first questions to you are: what do you like? Why? What don't you like? Why?

Why did decide to study computers?

>>277312
I decided to study computers because I was a little bit interested in the hardware aspect.
What I really wanted to study, and still do, was something along the lines of sound or acoustics, but I didn't really know where the would fall under. Eventually, I settled for computer.

>>277329
>What I really wanted to study, and still do, was something along the lines of sound or acoustics, but I didn't really know where the would fall under. Eventually, I settled for computer.

I am not an expert in acoustics, but this is what I think.

First, if you going to any field related to science or engineering, you are going to have to need to program, and your colleagues will expect it.

But, this doesn't mean you need to be an expert at any programming language. All you will need to is the fundamentals, how to write clean and efficient code, and a strong knowledge of algebra.

Therefore, if you are interested in pursuing something like acoustical engineering, studying programming and computer science may not help you get the job you like.

On the other hand, you probably will need to have an expertise (or at least a degree) in the particular scientific and engineering problems in a particular fields. A degree in mechanical or electrical engineering will probably serve you better.

What you should do is find out the names of people who are doing the type of work you are interested in, and contact them. Send them and email, and say, "I want to be like you. I'm in college right now. What do you think I would study to get a job doing what you do?"

I did this when I was in college and had a lot of people write back and give me good advice. They provided much better advice than any school counselors.

To find people's names, I would search IEEE Spectrum and MIT Technology Review.

https://www.technologyreview.com/search/?s=acoustic

http://spectrum.ieee.org/searchContent?q=acoustic

>>277329
Sounds kind of like audio/acoustical engineer. That degree tends to have more musical connotations. They aren't as common as computer engineering degrees though. Some do have ABET accreditation so it might be worth looking into.
Computer engineering is basically applied electrical engineering. figure you'll be learning the stuff no one wants to know about computers, such as tonnes of Assembly, and digital logic (circuit gates and what not).

>>277329
the only course on my masters that dealt with actual sound was "audio and video encoding" and even that was still just a small part of it
if you are really passionate about audio/music and want to follow that as a career you will probably need to take a degree in music too
or you can just leave the audio stuff as an ongoing personal dedication.
take a look at audio synthesis (hardware & software [ym2149]) and music tracking software (fasttracker2, impulse tracker, v2, renoise, etc.).
learn how musical instruments work, how strings instruments produce their distinct sound. learn the whats and hows of it all, build your own software solutions based on what you learned, design and implement physical based audio synthesis, keep experimenting, improve it, never stop doing what you like and avoid mixing it up with work stuff as much as you can, thats what i do (not that it is bad working on what you really like, but it will take some fun out of what you love after some time).
gl