Electrical Engineers?

[hypn0tik]

As some of you may have read, I am going into my third year of Engineering this September and I'm planning on specializing in Electrical Engineering.

I was hoping if some EEs out there could tell me a little bit about what they do at work, what they like and dislike about it, approximately how long they have been in the field for, how bright they anticipate the future in this field to be and how much they make. If you could include what a typical day at work would be (apart from neffing), that would be great.

Any advice you may have to offer or any informaion you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Cliffs:
Need advice and information in the field of Electrical Engineering.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

mm do help me out too. I'm an Materials Science Engineering major with the Electronic Materials focus which is pretty much semiconductors and what not, going for an EECS minor. I'm going on to my 2nd year, and I would sure like some advice too. Ok no more neffing today at work.

 

[91TTZ]

FYI- you don't need to capitalize words such as "electrical engineering".

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

holy crap, you are going to be a junior andd you are just deciding this!!!!!!!!!
most schools start you in your engineering classes 1st or second semester of frosh year

 

[hypn0tik]

Originally posted by: iwantanewcomputer
holy crap, you are going to be a junior andd you are just deciding this!!!!!!!!!
most schools start you in your engineering classes 1st or second semester of frosh year

Well, I am in a program known as Engineering Science where you do a bit of everything in the first two years and then pick a field of specialization for your last two years.

 

[Connoisseur]

Here's the thing. if you're planning to do circuit design (cpu's, circuit boards), electrician, or working in the power industry then what you learned in EE MIGHT help. But the majority of EE majors don't even pursue careers in their field. Otherwise you're just gonna use your degree to steal jobs from other majors. That's basically what I did and i'm damn happy. I hate EE.

 

[hypn0tik]

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
Here's the thing. if you're planning to do circuit design (cpu's, circuit boards), electrician, or working in the power industry then what you learned in EE MIGHT help. But the majority of EE majors don't even pursue careers in their field. Otherwise you're just gonna use your degree to steal jobs from other majors. That's basically what I did and i'm damn happy. I hate EE.

Could you please elaborate? I assume you are an EE. What do you do at work? Do you enjoy it?

 

[Connoisseur]

Originally posted by: hypn0tik

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
Here's the thing. if you're planning to do circuit design (cpu's, circuit boards), electrician, or working in the power industry then what you learned in EE MIGHT help. But the majority of EE majors don't even pursue careers in their field. Otherwise you're just gonna use your degree to steal jobs from other majors. That's basically what I did and i'm damn happy. I hate EE.

Could you please elaborate? I assume you are an EE. What do you do at work? Do you enjoy it?

My degree was actually Electrical and Computer Engineering. I focused on CE but i was EE first. Honestly, my EE classes sucked and were hard as hell. CE wasn't that much better cause I got all the most difficult professors. But at least with CE you're more likely to use what you've learned. In CE you focus on lots of languages: MATLAB (for DSP), C, C++, Java, SQL. Depending on your college's curriculum, you can really get into a lot of advanced logic design/programming. EE is a lot more mathematical and theoretical. Sure you work a lot with circuit boards and stuff in the labs but in the end you're mostly just simulating stuff in MATLAB or one of those circuit analysis programs. Class that made me switch was Pricipals of Communication Systems (professor was a crazy MIT guy who gave us insane problems).

By the way, I work on a forensic and litigation consulting firm. We deal with:
forensic analysis
data recovery
data analysis (using SQL and proprietary programs like Attenex, Ringtail)
Litigation presentations

It's fun, interesting and not incredibly difficult.

 

[oznerol]

You're going into year 3 and are just asking this now? Eh, that sounds about right.

I'll be an EE senior in sept, so I can't say I'm talking from too much experience, but I suggest getting an internship if you don't already have one. They are a great way to be surrounded by other engineers and not have to do too much work.

First thing I can tell you is being an electrical engineer doesn't just limit you to electrical engineering. You can get a job in just about any engineering field, and a lot of EE positions also require you to know some mechanical and aeronautical things as well.

For example, I'm working on and debugging circuit boards and systems for door openers (not glamorous, I know, but it's engineering). Aside from powering the circuit and it's components, it's essential that you understand the fundamentals of mechanics since moving parts are involved (motors are everywhere).

Any other questions let me know.

 

[Mo0o]

Somebody here had the sig:

Theres EE in SLEEP
But no SLEEP in EE

That just about sums it up.

 

[hypn0tik]

Originally posted by: ducci
You're going into year 3 and are just asking this now? Eh, that sounds about right.

I'll be an EE senior in sept, so I can't say I'm talking from too much experience, but I suggest getting an internship if you don't already have one. They are a great way to be surrounded by other engineers and not have to do too much work.

First thing I can tell you is being an electrical engineer doesn't just limit you to electrical engineering. You can get a job in just about any engineering field, and a lot of EE positions also require you to know some mechanical and aeronautical things as well.

For example, I'm working on and debugging circuit boards and systems for door openers (not glamorous, I know, but it's engineering). Aside from powering the circuit and it's components, it's essential that you understand the fundamentals of mechanics since moving parts are involved (motors are everywhere).

Any other questions let me know.

Well, I do have a summer Co-op placement right now with a company but they're mostly making me update CAD drawing on Microstation. Sure, it's easy but it's BORING. The past two days there were some Engineers that came down to install a new device making use of PLCs and stuff and I asked my supervisor if I could shadow them and talk to them. He let me and I found it extremely interesting and looked fun. Granted it required programming (ugh) in assembly (ugh^2) but it's something I can handle. I'm really into the robotics and automation side of things, but photonics seems extremely interesting as well. Electromechanics = pwnage.

 

[blahblah99]

Originally posted by: hypn0tik
As some of you may have read, I am going into my third year of Engineering this September and I'm planning on specializing in Electrical Engineering.

I was hoping if some EEs out there could tell me a little bit about what they do at work, what they like and dislike about it, approximately how long they have been in the field for, how bright they anticipate the future in this field to be and how much they make. If you could include what a typical day at work would be (apart from neffing), that would be great.

Any advice you may have to offer or any informaion you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Cliffs:
Need advice and information in the field of Electrical Engineering.

I'm an electrical engineer and I've been in the field for 3 years... I work in the audio industry designing extremely high performance digital audio products...

Topics & work include analog circuit design (mainly with opamps, some discrete transistor designs), digital logic design (combinatorial & sequential systems), vhdl coding, logic simulation, timing analysis, schematic capture, PCB component placement & layout, auto-routing, design for manufacturing, design for testing, design for EMI/EMC & regulatory compliance.

Those are just some of the work off the top of my head that I deal with as an electrical engineer. Of course, there's also lab skills that you'll need to know - how to use all sorts of test equipment, how to troubleshoot a circuit & new design, how to solder, how to present your ideas to non-engineering folks, how to communicate with other job fields (software programmers, marketing folks).

There's more to it, but that's all I can think of right now.

 

[JDCentral]

Umm.. programming and ESPECIALLY assembly are vital components to CMPE.

I'm going into my 3rd year as a CMPE, and I'm taking my... 3rd? class with a semi-focus on Assembly languages.

 

[hypn0tik]

Originally posted by: Connoisseur

Originally posted by: hypn0tik

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
Here's the thing. if you're planning to do circuit design (cpu's, circuit boards), electrician, or working in the power industry then what you learned in EE MIGHT help. But the majority of EE majors don't even pursue careers in their field. Otherwise you're just gonna use your degree to steal jobs from other majors. That's basically what I did and i'm damn happy. I hate EE.

Could you please elaborate? I assume you are an EE. What do you do at work? Do you enjoy it?

My degree was actually Electrical and Computer Engineering. I focused on CE but i was EE first. Honestly, my EE classes sucked and were hard as hell. CE wasn't that much better cause I got all the most difficult professors. But at least with CE you're more likely to use what you've learned. In CE you focus on lots of languages: MATLAB (for DSP), C, C++, Java, SQL. Depending on your college's curriculum, you can really get into a lot of advanced logic design/programming. EE is a lot more mathematical and theoretical. Sure you work a lot with circuit boards and stuff in the labs but in the end you're mostly just simulating stuff in MATLAB or one of those circuit analysis programs. Class that made me switch was Pricipals of Communication Systems (professor was a crazy MIT guy who gave us insane problems).

By the way, I work on a forensic and litigation consulting firm. We deal with:
forensic analysis
data recovery
data analysis (using SQL and proprietary programs like Attenex, Ringtail)
Litigation presentations

It's fun, interesting and not incredibly difficult.

Thanks for the input. I have used MATLAB quite a bit and sometimes it's annoying as hell.

As far as EE being mathematical and theoretical goes, that's what I like. I'm a fan of math and I like it's applications. Yes, I'm a nerd.

I was considering going into CE, but I HATE programming. Segmentation faults are the devil.

 

[Connoisseur]

Originally posted by: hypn0tik

Originally posted by: Connoisseur

Originally posted by: hypn0tik

Originally posted by: Connoisseur
Here's the thing. if you're planning to do circuit design (cpu's, circuit boards), electrician, or working in the power industry then what you learned in EE MIGHT help. But the majority of EE majors don't even pursue careers in their field. Otherwise you're just gonna use your degree to steal jobs from other majors. That's basically what I did and i'm damn happy. I hate EE.

Could you please elaborate? I assume you are an EE. What do you do at work? Do you enjoy it?

My degree was actually Electrical and Computer Engineering. I focused on CE but i was EE first. Honestly, my EE classes sucked and were hard as hell. CE wasn't that much better cause I got all the most difficult professors. But at least with CE you're more likely to use what you've learned. In CE you focus on lots of languages: MATLAB (for DSP), C, C++, Java, SQL. Depending on your college's curriculum, you can really get into a lot of advanced logic design/programming. EE is a lot more mathematical and theoretical. Sure you work a lot with circuit boards and stuff in the labs but in the end you're mostly just simulating stuff in MATLAB or one of those circuit analysis programs. Class that made me switch was Pricipals of Communication Systems (professor was a crazy MIT guy who gave us insane problems).

By the way, I work on a forensic and litigation consulting firm. We deal with:
forensic analysis
data recovery
data analysis (using SQL and proprietary programs like Attenex, Ringtail)
Litigation presentations

It's fun, interesting and not incredibly difficult.

Thanks for the input. I have used MATLAB quite a bit and sometimes it's annoying as hell.

As far as EE being mathematical and theoretical goes, that's what I like. I'm a fan of math and I like it's applications. Yes, I'm a nerd.

I was considering going into CE, but I HATE programming. Segmentation faults are the devil.

sorry forgot to mention, I HATE programming as well. which is why i mentioned that i'm glad i got into the field i'm in. SQL isn't really programming. it's more data analysis and trying to show only the data you need. all the other forensic stuff is just plain cool. i just mentioned CE because I can see it having more practical relevance in potential future jobs. If you honestly enjoy math and theory a lot more you might consider a future in research and maybe pursuing a masters/ph. d.

 

[hypn0tik]

Bump.

 

[MetalMat]

I just graduated in EE Computer option and am looking for a job, if that helps.

 

[KMurphy]

I'm a EE in the power engineering side. I work in a very large refining/chemical/plastics facility where my main focus is on the power distribution system from 230KV down to 480V. Some responsibilities include protective relay coordination studies, load flow, power circuit calculations, control cicuit design/testing and troubleshooting (mainly for large motors up to 25,000HP). I also perform maintenance engineering roles such as reliability studies, helping electricians in the field with problems they can't solve and facilitating operations by providing technical input on heavily loaded systems and the best/cheapes/quickest way to debottleneck them.

There are two options for my career:

Stay technical and be groomed for project engineering on mega projects which are going in mostly overseas now. New refineries, chem plants and LNG compressor trains going in all over the world. My responsibility would be to manage the installation of the electrical portion of these projects

Move into the management path where pay is better, hours are longer and stress is orders of magnitude worse. Forget that.

This field is not the highest paying, but it is very stable. I could choose just about anywhere to work; government, defense contractors, consultant, large to small industry, etc. The reason I'm staying on is due to the retirement benefits, pension plan and stock matching account.

 

[Analog]

After getting my MSEE from Cornell in '88, specializing in analog circuit design, I went into the field of data aquisition d/a and a/d conversion. 30% of my time was spent on embedded digital design as well (including programming). Zillions of projects later, I began teaching back in '99, and now I'm a full time prof in EE, as well as do consulting.

Does that help?

 

[hypn0tik]

What companies do you people work for? Any big names like Sony for example?

 

[GML3G0]

Bump, since I'm interested as well...

 

[hypn0tik]

Bump for the morning crew.

 

[Ferocious]

Well I graduated with a BSEE and was a Tau Beta Pi member too.

But I went into it for the wrong reasons. Jobe security, money, and prestige (It was the 1980's and it was a HOT field to major in). Actually while in school I had numerous offers for co-op with companies that never even interviewed me. Sight unseen. Not real uncommon back then.

AFter several years of being an EE, I bailed out. I couldn't stand it anymore. I got an unrelated job at 2/3 the pay and never looked back.

If you have a passion and true interest in the field...you will do fine. Just make sure you land with a company you are happy working at and where you enjoy the type of work you do. And keep your bills minimal until you find that company. Don't get trapped.

 

[SaturnX]

However, something you'll have to remember though is that people who started Elec Eng from first year, will probably have a bit of leg up on you since they've been learning about circuitry etc.. since the get go. I'm from the GTA so I know all about Eng Sci, I was considering it, but settled for Elec Eng at Waterloo instead.

Then again I just may be biased, hehe... but yeah I'm just finishing 2nd year and am currently working PLC control systems like you mentioned along with Professional EEs, and yeah, it's all about designing electrical systems for industrial applications, cool stuff.

--Mark

 

[amoeba]

BS EE, doing VLSI digital design now for almost 2 years.

Job is ok, kind of boring at times, hectic at others. Certain amount of office politics that happen at every big company.

Pay is good and job isn't too stressful but I miss the schedule of school.

probably go back for an MS soon, maybe move to another field.

time will tell.