General > General Technical Chat
Cross Road Future Decisions
aargee:
Actually, i stand by my comments here in Australia. Quoting outlooks for jobs in North America or Europe is quite a different thing. Our market is extremely small for R&D engineers in the electronics field, if the intention is to go abroad, then sure go for a Degree, Masters or PHD.
Slh:
My feeling would be that having bachelor's makes one a better engineer as it will introduce you to a lot of concepts and things that you won't need immediately but may find useful later in your career. That's not to say that you shouldn't do the practical stuff as well. Engineers who leave uni having never done anything practical on their own tend to be a little disappointing.
If you're just planning to do small Arduino type control boards then maybe it's not necessary but as soon as stuff starts to get more complicated then then the extra maths, analysis and sometimes concepts from completely different fields will be invaluable. Also, Arduino type control boards aren't going to last forever so having the degree gives you more options.
My degree had two years of general engineering. Everyone had to do maths, linear circuits, electromagnetism, structures, mechanics, thermal, materials and a bunch of others. I didn't enjoy doing all of them but I'm grateful that I did as i often need to work with engineers from other disciplines and it makes things better being able to talk their language. You'll probably find that no one wants to buy a PCB. It always needs a mechanical case, possibly some thermal modelling and nowadays some software. Also you often find people who think that because they can drive Solidworks that makes an mechanical engineer. If you work in small companies being able to correct and guide people like that is essential if you want to get a good product. Sometimes you find that customers have unrealistic expectations of mechanical or thermal problems and being able to demonstrate why this is an issue is an invaluable skill.
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