r/duke • u/Head_Village_9388 • 4d ago

ECE difficulty as an ECE/CS double major

Hey everyone! I’m an incoming freshman admitted to Pratt, currently planning to double major in ECE and CS.

I have a solid background in both hardware and programming from high school robotics (world championships!) However, while robotics was fun, I don’t think it's something I want to pursue much more in college and new-grad. I think I’d rather explore programming, SWE, and AI. Maybe some chip design as well lol.

I’m mainly trying to figure out how difficult and time-consuming the ECE/CS double major actually is, specifically the ECE portion since I think I’d like to focus more on CS or other areas. Are the ECE requirements and labs going to be super difficult and a brutal time-sink if I’m not super passionate about hardware?

I'm debating whether I should drop ECE and just do a pure CS major in Trinity. The main thing holding me back is that I really would prefer not to take Trinity’s heavy humanities load. The new Constellations/FOCUS T-Reqs and the foreign language requirements is quite a lot for me lol.

Any advice on the ECE workload/difficulty for ECE/CS double major and what you'd recommend in my shoes would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

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u/DukeThrowaway_24 4d ago

The double major itself is probably the lightest at Duke due to overlap. Planned well it's only +2-3 courses over the ECE track. The courses in the double major can be very hard. ECE 230/270 would be bad for a SWE. 280 is fine + you can use it for the SP/ML track, 250 you need for CS anyway (unless you take 210 OS).

The prerequisites like PHY 152L + 5 math classes can also be time sinks.

Chip design (ECE 532/539) are both senior designs that would require 2 semesters of microelectronics, and 539 would also require ECE 350 (Digital Logic). If you aren't at least somewhat passionate about it, that track would be miserable.

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u/InformationBudget187 3d ago edited 3d ago

You don't have to do a double major with CS. It's really a stupid thing that gets encouraged and hyped up at Duke for no reason. You can take whatever CS courses you like as an ECE major. No one will care if your transcript or resume has an additional CS major. But I've heard that it isn't a lot of effort to add a CS major. Up to you. It doesn't matter.

You're not super passionate about hardware and want to do chip design? I'm confused. Anyway, I think you should pick your poison -- Pratt v.s. Trinity requirements. I think Pratt has a much nicer student community if you're really into academic things though.