LOL so was my original post any use to you at all?
Hmmm I don't know how you can go for three degrees at once - certainly mine required full working weeks or a lot more (near coursework deadlines and exams) - how can you do three like that?
Well, I hate to say this, but it's a lot more complicated than you say. The computer field actually consists of at least (but prob more) these topics:
Discrete maths, Data structures and algorithms theory, optimisation techniques, programming, compiler engineering, programming language design (formal methods etc.), computer architecture (not the motherboard layout
, but study of how modern processors load and execute instructions ), operating system design, hardware design (at the electronics level) - those are just some of the basics.
Communications is one of the main advanced topics into which networking fits. Then communications is usually split into sub-categories like cable-based (copper wire, coaxial cable etc. application: e.g. Ethernet) optical (lasers, fibers etc. - mostly worked on by physicists actually), radio and others (e.g. infrared). Networking falls under communications, and as you can probably tell it is evolving from cable-based to wireless (generally radio-based). Most new(ish) networking technologies use radio frequency comms - e.g. 802.11, Bluetooth, the GSM mobile phone network, the 3G UMTS (in Europe) network, the future 4th generation mobile phone network, sensor networks based on IEEE 802.15.x standards etc. So a good area to get into is communications inside which radio comms (I am being biased as this is what I'm in
, although I don't work on the physical layer, i.e. how the radio waves propagate, rather on the network layer, concerned with routing etc.)
Other advanced topics within computing are artificial intelligence, graphics, computer vision (i.e. the opposite of graphics - how computers can "see"), cyrptography (security), web technologies etc. These are the types of things you do doctorates in, as I said, not "hardware". Although if you wanted just to work on improving generic hardware, the closest you can get to that is to become a physicist and work on the materials (basically the semiconductors) that make up today's digital hardware. If you take a computing degree, and do as I said, and learn a hardware description language, you will be able to design a large variety of digital hardware. Analogue electronics is a different and more difficult kettle of fish, but if you're into computers then you don't need to worry about it (comps being digital as you know
)