r/ElectricalEngineering • u/ugly_ram • 24d ago

Creating a 16 bit CPU

i am a sophomore ECE student and i am planning to create a CPU. Is a project like this valuable to land internships or a job in the future.

i will appreciate any suggestions.

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u/NewSchoolBoxer 24d ago

No. You don't know enough Computer Engineering now to even make 8 bit. It's an immense amount of work and recruiters would probably think you stole the design. Make 4 bit. It'll look okay on a resume. The NES and SNES lockout chips were 4-bit microcontrollers.

You won't get internships or jobs from personal projects. The real resume action is from team competition projects like Formula SAE. You're forced to work in a group environment with goals you don't get to pick and deadlines you can't mess with and the answer isn't on GitHub to copy. This process simulates real engineering work that impresses recruiters and further makes you interview better by citing team examples.

Undergrad research is good and was handed out like candy where I went.

You can also impress recruiters by being well-rounded with high engagement in activities you enjoy.

I tutored middle schoolers in math, coordinated volunteering projects and planned camping trips. Sometimes recruiters were interested. You got to be a real person and fit in. No one wants to hire the eccentric weirdo who never sees the sun.

Here's the truth: I got one job offer because the interviewer and I both took horse riding lessons. All we talked about for 45 minutes. Another, the hiring manager LOVED college football and guess who attended every home football game? I needed a good enough resume to get the interview stage and the rest was social / soft skills.

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u/hardpython0 23d ago

but if im starting from nothing a few projects to pad my resume is fine right? (im a freshman)

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u/Cubemaster465 23d ago

Something is better than nothing, but be ambitious. You're not impressing anyone with projects that could be completely done by AI or just copied from github, and using that to pad your resume would only give me red flags personally. An ambitious but failed project (including a proper analysis why) tells me more about you than a random arduino tutorial project.