I studied Electronics Engineering for my diploma, current
studying my Degree in IT. In my opinion, Electrical/Electronic
Engineering (EEE) is definitely more difficult to study/learn than
Information Technology/Computer Science.
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In terms of learning/studying:
EEE requires people with:
Very good mathematical + good logical background
to do well.
The knowledge/skills you studied will always be useful unless
people stop using electronic/electrical machines/devices. (Unlikely
to happen in our lifetime)
IT/Computer Science people requires people with:
average mathematical + very logical background
to do well.
The knowledge/skills you studied will become less and less useful
as time passes by. Thus forcing you to learn new knowledge/skills
over time.
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In terms of work:
Engineering work general usually requires some/a lot traveling,
more than IT work. You may need to travel from office to site,
site-to-site everyday. You will definitely sweat more doing
engineering work than IT work since almost all IT work are done
indoors, in air-conditioned environment.
Have you even try fixing a malfunction traffic light system during
heavy rain? Your body will still be wet even when you are holding
an umbrella, and you still have to fix the damn traffic light
system.
Conclusion: Engineering work usually requires more traveling than
IT and involves working in harsh environments.
In terms of work challenge:
Both fields are very challenging. In both fields, you have to
handle problems that can happen very unexpectedly and have a
disaster/impact on the organisation. IT is only more challenging
than engineering when you are responsible for the security of your
organisation information system since it is much much more on
people-related problems rather than technical problems.
In IT security, there are probably hundreds of computer criminals
and malware-writers out there in the open trying to breach the
security of your system. They are generally smarter than you and
you have little idea who they are and what they are capable of. And
if you think most security threats comes from external sources, it
is a big mistake since it is more likely that security breaches are
commited internally (people from within the same organisation)
rather than from external sources.
Conclusion: Anything to do with security is always a VERY big
issue/problem and remember that there is no such thing as perfect
security. If you are working in the security field, you have to be
well-prepared for the worst case scenario and always expect
security breaches to happen anytime.
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In terms of job opportunities:
The demand for IT personnel is generally much higher than the
demand for engineering personnel. However, IT personnel are also
more common than engineering personnel. Overall, at is not
difficult to find a job in either field, it is just that the pay is
lower compare to the accounting/banking/law fields.
Conclusion: Both fields has acceptable/good job
opportunities.
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