Learn, learn, learn... Which probably means study hard, something may students drag their heels at. Think continuously about computers and their operating principles, not which key sequence controls which menu item. Don't waste much time on game skills as a user. Or on downloading music or warez. On the latter, you can't really learn very much from most commercial software except how to be a user of it. And that assumes that whatever you download isn't itself loaded with viruses and other malware. But if you must, running it on an emulated operating system which is running as a task on a higher security platform than Windows (Xen, Qemu, VMware, etc -- under LiInux) will lessen the timewasting impact of such malice. You're looking to learn about what goes on behind the scenes and being a game player will help you learn absolutely nothing about that. Now will spending hours an dhours copuing with the debris of malware do much for you.
No university will be able to teach you all you need to know in class. Or if you go the distance learning, on the screen and in email. You will have to study on your own and do so intelligently, looking always for the general principle rather than the picky detail. You'll have to cope with the details to be sure, but since they change all the time, it's a mug's game to waste much time mastering them beyond some easily reached level. The general principles don't.
Get as much practical experience with as much software as you can. in practice, this means Linux (which has the virtue of being free, and the biggest developer community) and open source software (which has the same virtue). Pick a class of software (say, content management systems like CVS or RCS or one of their derivatives) and learn it enough to use it. Or a backup software package (Amanda or Arkeia ) etc. Rinse, and repeat, perhaps in a one a month cycle. In addition to all the school work.
And, try to find a couple of old machines (486 stuff is probably enough, but a Pentium would be better) put Linux on each of them and set up a network. both Ethernet and than wireless and then both. Make it work, and then attack one computer from another. Set up a firewall, change the settings, and do it again. See if you can detect the attack with an intrusion detection system, and so on. Keep good records, just as if you were doing it for a client having intrusion attack problems. "What happened with this configuration and those options?" is a question which should take only moments to answer, weeks after you did that particular exercise. Bound notebooks and handwriting have virtues.
Once you've done all this, and more, see if you can find a way to afford to take one of the Linux based certificate tests. You needn't take them all, as a matter of employment strategic thinking, but it would be well to already have one of the better ones (the easiest ones aren't all that impressive to anyone who understands, which the HR department is not likely to do, but any line folks you interview with or who see your resume will certainly do so). Linux as the Microsoft certification tests are always a release or major change behind (or will be in a week), and so whatever you learn will be promptly obsolete. Cisco and other more obscure certifications are jsut that, specialized and ratehr obscure. There's one for network wiring which is reputed to be a real bear. It ;leves at the intersection of networking adminstration, carpentry on ladders, fire safety, and possible future developments. And much of it is beind made obsolete in any case as wireless conectivity is coming on strong.
Can you, just now, discuss the security implications and management implications of this change? Just the sort of question you'll be responsible for in future, and likely when you're just as prepared as I imagine you are now. In the immortla words of the boy Scouts (as interpreted hilariously by Tom Lehrer) Be Prepared.
And make it a habit to read at least one professional journal (ACM, one of the IEEE, etc) and at least one of the popular Windows magazines, and one of the Linux magazines (PCMag is OK, and Linux Journal or perhaps Linux Pro Magazine would be OK). You can't read them all, nice as that would be, but you should learn how to read both kinds without getting bogged down in trivia or presentation oddities. Because you should learn something about embedded programming, you might do well to read something like Circuit Cellar as well. You might even build one or another of the projects they describe. Do you know how to solder? Can you hadnle surface mount chips and components? Do you understand anything about PC board design, specificatino, layout, testing? Or, if you can raise the cash, learn something about using a scope and a logic analyzer which use a computer and its display (several get advertised in each issue). Or a multimeter with a computer interface. Or set up a mesh network (Zygbee) in your room. Maybe USB interfaced Zygbee notes (you get power with USB which is a relly good thing, and you may be able to use the computer it's attahced to for debugging). Pretty cheap and new enough that nothing is quite plug and play yet. Always a good learning situation. All this will help you learn something about hardware.
Sounds like a lot, eh? It is, but you seem to think you'd like to do one of the fastest moving of all engineering disciplines. If you'd like something more sedate, try civil engineering. Things move much more slowly there, but things sure speed up when a disaster happens, like the recent tsunami or an earthquake or one of the killer windstorms or ... You might then get both slow AND heartattack inducing emergency mode. Computer engineering is largely steady_as_you_go emergency mode.
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some suggestions
Hennessy and Patterson's books on computer architecture are excellent and well worth reading, Brooks' Mythical man-Month is a classic and still hugely valuable (and the illustrations are hilarious), and Knuth's Art of Programming is harder to approach, but well worth it; everyone needs to know how to program in MIX! Mastery of either is likely more than most can manage, but you should at least be exposed to the concepts. Try to cover them sometime before you're out of school.
Some stuff you'll need sooner than that are the Linux Documentation Project books and Guides. System Administrator's Guide and Network Administrator's Guide whether Linux is or not your study vehicle (and for beginners, Welch's Running Linux) and so on. Some of the How-Tos are really good, some are obsolete, some are written by folks whose acquaintance with English is merely glancing, ... Few are actually wrong, however confusing, ... All are freely downloadable. Paul Sheer's Rute Guide to Linux is a professionally prgressive text/reference, also freely downloadable (pointers to it on the LDP last time I looked). The Linux Cookbook by Michael Stutz is just as it says, a collection of recipes; in this instance, how to do this or that. Largely introductory, and command line oriented (not glitz and glitter) but a good learning tool -- "take two recipes before bed each night" kind of thing. From No Starch Press.
Learn at least one language every year. Write at least one major program (say, 500+ lines not counting comments) as a 'graduation' test. Lots of free compilers to practice with in the open source world. I would suggest Intercal as one of the projects, but no one deserves to laugh that much. Though there's a compiler for it too; see the Retrocomputing Museum maintained by Eric Raymond. Less side-splitting possibilities include Oberon (compilers available which produce Java output), and there's even an entire operating system + language + utilities + Internet browser and such; all available from ETH Zurich. It has the virtue, like many Wirthian influenced languages, of simplicity and clarity and a small footprint. There's little of a kitchen sink smell to them.
TeX / LaTeX (and the TeX word processor which comes with most distributions of Linux) would be well to learn (Knuth again), as would PHP, and at least a little JavaScript (or as it is supposed to be called ECMAScript), some SQL unless you want to be a database type in which case a lot of SQL, etc etc.
If you don't know a programming language well now, I suggest you get a copy of KN King's Modula 2, and do every exercise in it. You'll end up a good programmer (or learn you're hopeless) and will have done so without learning a lot of bad thought patterns. The book is among the best programming texts I've ever come across. Modula 2 has a very clean design, one that's small enough to master all of, but is not so complex as to twist your mind into pretzels. Some languages do. E W Dijksta's Unpleasant Truths essay explains, in hilarious and quite savage terms just why this A Good Thing (on the Web in the EWD collections, and in his Discipline of Programming). There are quite a few free compilers, for Linux and other OSes.
The computer articles on en.Wikipedia.org can be a pretty good overview of many topics (and not so good for others), as can some other of the technology glossaries and encyclopedias on the Web.