[efoote868]

A little background. I am a senior in Electrical Engineering at Purdue University, and I have almost 2 years of job experience as a co-op for Technicolor (in their set top box division).

In high school, I learned C for robotics (back when the controls were from IFI), and Java from AP computer science.

Knowing what I know now (school / job experience, and languages since then including Matlab, Python, Javascript, Actionscript, Assembly, C++, Objective C), I wouldn't hesitate to tell you to pick a language and learn it well. Concepts you learn in one language usually transfer easily to another language.

If I were to recommend a language to you, I'd suggest a strongly typed one such as C/C++/Java.

At work, the language I use really depends on the application and situation. For instance, for quick and dirty desktop programs, I use Java almost exclusively (I recommend NetBeans for your IDE).

For driver level software and embedded systems, C is pretty much the de facto standard (well, depending on what type of chip you're using).

In the application layer of cable boxes, blu-ray players, and many phones, Java is widely used.

For web pages, Html5 / Javascript is common.


As far as factories and manufacturing goes, every factory will be different in the way they implement their controls. Usually these setups are very expensive and hard to obtain, and more than likely you'll receive on the job training. The more languages you're exposed to, the easier it should be to learn another.


Best of luck.