I chose
Duke University because I wasn't certain that I wanted to be an engineer... and at MIT there wasn't much to fall back on. But I ended up graduating with a double major in
Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science in May 2000.
In my opinion, you should evaluate the level of knowledge that you want to study about computers. When I decided to be an EE my freshman year in college, I decided that I would pick a curriculum where with any luck by the end I would have studied how computers work at every level from electron and hole mobility in doped silicon crystals to operating system services and computer networks.
But LOTS of my friends (who had similar aspirations) became very discouraged along the way. You see, as an Electrical Engineer, you will be forced to learn some things that you might not care about.
Some of my friends objected to having to learn about the device physics of semiconductors, which is an extremely detailed-level subject that requires a great deal of physics to understand (Fermi levels and bandgap energies are not immediately intuitive when one's only physics background has been classical mechanics and electromagnetics). At Duke, a course in semiconductor device physics is required to graduate with an EE degree.
Others did not like being forced to take a introductory signal processing class in EE. There is a huge jump in the level of math used in signal processing and that taught in typical math classes. I never learned about convolution integrals, Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms, Z-transforms, Autocorrelation functions, Bessel functions, Hankel functions, etc in ANY calculus math class. All of these are taught in an entry-level EE signal processing course. This also is a required course at Duke to graduate with an EE degree.
There are other classes that people gripe about. Some hate electromagnetics. Others don't like the cut-throat competition in the intro-level circuits class, which is generally set up to weed out those who just don't have what it takes to be engineers. But ALMOST EVERYONE likes the design classes that you get to take as a junior and senior. My personal favorite was a VLSI design class where as a final project my parner and I designed and laid out using Mentor Graphics CAD tools a 8,500 transistor finite impulse response filter chip. The tremendous sense of accomplishment you get when you've designed something from the ground up and see it working is tremendous and cannot be overstated. It's what I love about engineering.
So the attrition rate in EE was fairly high. Several of my friends became straight computer science majors; they didn't care about finding the oxide layer thickness in a p-channel mosfet at the onset of inversion, or the power spectral density of some random signal.
If I were you, take a look at the EE courses available at the school you're thinking of attending to see if you LIKE the course descriptions. Realize that some of the classes will be required, and some of them will NOT be available to you either because of a lack of time or simply because they won't be offerred when you can take them.
But if you like what you see,
if you are one of the elite few who care, and perhaps even YEARN, to know about the most intricate details of electrical systems, then perhaps an exciting career as an Electrical Engineer is for YOU![/b]
