My experience is that if your goal is to pursue higher education and become a researcher, you can choose electronics and communications. However, if your goal is to provide bread for your family right away after your course, it’s best to choose an electrical stream. After completing ECE, I was hopeful that I would find work in an electronics-related field or in software. Now I regret that decision. ECE is not recommended if you plan to work in the IT industry. However, ECE has helped people get jobs in this field. Finally, I chose operations instead of IT. I ended up selling electrical engineers’ products. Now, I regret the choice I made when choosing my stream. More importantly, I know very few people who work in pure electronics after they have completed ECE. Take my word for it, you can still survive in this field up to your 50s if the skills are good. The demand for IT workers is decreasing as everything is automated. In 1990, 100 people were required to do one IT job. Now, only 1 or 2 are required. In the next years, this will only increase exponentially. However, the core branches won’t be affected by this.
I don’t know what the future holds for opto electronics, aeronautical and medical-related engineering streams.
Whatever branch you choose, enjoy college life. Clear the arrears prior to the final semester. Most importantly, make as many contacts as possible. Remember that what you do after 5 years is dependent on who you are able to mingle with.
Take care.