Just e-mailed the following to my parents, brother, uncles and aunts:



Hello all,



When I came to Carnegie Mellon last Fall, my intention was to do

Mechanical Engineering since it was the nearest engineering field to

civil. Interest do change so I realized that I should give a shot in

getting into the Electrical & Computer Engineering department. To my very

surprise, an email from the engineering school told me that I've been

accepted. So, in the student database, I'm registered now as a Electrical

& Computer Engineering major.



The ECE department here has a more rigorous admission criteria than the

rest of the engineering departments like Mech E, Civil and Chem E.

Generally, the students here are the smarter ones. 98% of the Malaysian

engineering students here are in ECE too. Half of the Singaporeans are

here too (the other half goes to Computer Science). In fact, there are

more Asians than Caucasians in the undergraduate level. What more to say

in the graduate level.



In ECE undergraduate, there are 5 tracks that I can take - Applied

Physics, Signals & Systems, Circuits, Computer Hardware, and Computer

Software. I might going for either of the two later ones which is more

towards Computer Engineering. The ECE department here is one of the most

reputable in the states since it has a strong Computer Science school. So,

for Computer Engineering, it ranked 2nd after MIT. For EE, it ranked

around 8th/9th. There are more courses available here too because of these

5 tracks. Research is very well funded in the department. The department

also has the largest on-campus hard drive research facility in the world.



Career wise, the ECE majors get the most attention in terms of recruitment

on campus. In fact, the career center has a special career consultant

dealing only with ECE majors unlike Mech E who has a consultant who is

also consultant for civil, chem e and materials science. Companies like

Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Seagate etc. are the usual recruiters

on campus and they are mostly interested in ECE majors.



Perhaps the most important reason of all, I find myself more interested in

computers than in cars or buildings. I think this is a great option for me

-learning about software but still remain an engineer, like what my

parents prefer me to be. I've yet to tell my friends except for my

roommate, Kenneth, who was from Methodist Sibu. He's very supportive of

taking it since he's an ECE major himself and reasoned with all these

interest in programming, I should do ECE.



About getting MARA to approve my major change, I don't think that is a

problem especially when you're getting into a more reputable major on

campus. Furthermore, when I first obtained the scholarship, I was in for

Computer Engineering.



Still, with all these conviction, I am in slight doubt whether to pursue

ECE or not. I've yet to take the introductory course on ECE so I might

have to take it with high school students during summer. The courses are

rigorous enough but nothing comes easy.



So, I need the advice of you guys (mum & dad, uncles and aunts). I just

wanna make sure what I'm going to do is the right one.





Regards,

Crispin Ali Basah

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~cbasah