current community

your communities

more stack exchange communities

Stack Exchange
tour help
Take the 2-minute tour ×
Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for electronics and electrical engineering professionals, students, and enthusiasts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

If get admitted in "computer science and Engineering" department of any university, would there be any subject for programming Arduino? This Arduino also looks like a subject of "Mechanical Engineering" ... Can anyone explain me, in which department "Programming hardware" belongs...

share|improve this question
2  
Microcontrollers fall under Electrical and Computer Engineering. Least the universities I know about in my area (Canada). But why dont you just ask the university ? Or look at their curriculum and course calendar to see whats covered and where ? –  efox29 Jul 24 '13 at 14:22
5  
There probably won't be a subject dedicated to Arduino boards, but usually there is a class called "Embedded Systems" of some sort. These classes study various aspects of micro-controllers which the Arduino is. –  Josh Jul 24 '13 at 14:26
    
Where I work we teach Embedded Systems as part of Computer Engineering using ARM Cortex-M3 microcontrollers, but microcontrollers are not taught as part of Computer Science. As far as I know, the Arduino is not used as a formal part of any course. –  Joe Hass Jul 24 '13 at 15:22
    
I teach microcontroller programming. This year I switched from PIC 16F887 to Cortex LPC1114. If I would use the Arduino as hardware plaform, I would not use the Arduino development environment, as it hides a lot of details that I think students should learn. –  Wouter van Ooijen Jul 24 '13 at 20:25

1 Answer 1

up vote 2 down vote accepted

"Computer science" is algorithms and other "big picture" and theoretical items. Practical learning such as embedded development (with MCUs or otherwise) falls under "computer engineering".

share|improve this answer
    
Funny, Computer Science here was another name for Computer Programming. –  Passerby Jul 24 '13 at 18:00
    
Another way of looking at it is "computer science" = "doing things", "computer engineering" = "getting things done". –  Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jul 24 '13 at 18:09

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.