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| Education level required for employment as EE |
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| Zero999:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 01, 2016, 09:51:26 am --- --- Quote --- --- Quote ---An engineering degree isn't necessary if you want to become a technician. Consider that engineer:technician = doctor:nurse. Both doctors and nurses support each othe and both are vital; vive la difference. --- End quote --- I wouldn't agree with that. There are plenty of people without engineering degrees who are doing exactly the same jobs as engineers who have degrees but are paid less. --- End quote --- I haven't come across them in my career. Or, alternatively, such people are doing work that doesn't require an engineering degree (most jobs in the world are like that, but they don't interest me!). I have come across extremely competent engineers that didn't have a degree, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand. --- End quote --- Where I work, there doesn't seem to be any distinction between engineers and technicians. People need to be multi-skilled and have to do a range of jobs, including what some may consider to be the usual roles of technicians. For example, one day I could be repairing something, another I might be making cables, then later on I may be designing a schematic and PCB. |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: Hero999 on September 08, 2016, 09:39:39 pm --- --- Quote from: tggzzz on September 01, 2016, 09:51:26 am --- --- Quote --- --- Quote ---An engineering degree isn't necessary if you want to become a technician. Consider that engineer:technician = doctor:nurse. Both doctors and nurses support each othe and both are vital; vive la difference. --- End quote --- I wouldn't agree with that. There are plenty of people without engineering degrees who are doing exactly the same jobs as engineers who have degrees but are paid less. --- End quote --- I haven't come across them in my career. Or, alternatively, such people are doing work that doesn't require an engineering degree (most jobs in the world are like that, but they don't interest me!). I have come across extremely competent engineers that didn't have a degree, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand. --- End quote --- Where I work, there doesn't seem to be any distinction between engineers and technicians. People need to be multi-skilled and have to do a range of jobs, including what some may consider to be the usual roles of technicians. For example, one day I could be repairing something, another I might be making cables, then later on I may be designing a schematic and PCB. --- End quote --- Perhaps there is little novel engineering to be done in your work? In my experience, all your examples correspond to work that I would expect a competent technician to undertake. Having said that, a competent engineer would probably undertake schematic capture and should supervise the PCB layout. OTOH, I wouldn't expect a technician to define modulation schemes, create new comms protocols, design filters, define the locking strategy in an RDBMS, work out how high availability and/or realtime guarantees will be met, predict system load and latencies, decide how many clock domains there will be and how control/data will cross their boundaries, define whether mean/median/95th percentile performance measures are most appropriate, define implementation languages, create simulation models for system performance studies......... |
| arlipscomb:
Find a school with a program that interests you and dig into it for your personal edification. Go to school and be one of the people that is actually there to learn. When you get out look for jobs that allow you to grow, not just earn a paycheck. Lots of people try to target their education to get a "job". Try to figure out what will make you happy if you have to do it the rest of your life. And remember, making lots of money can contribute to happiness. |
| dmills:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2016, 11:48:06 pm ---OTOH, I wouldn't expect a technician to define modulation schemes, create new comms protocols, design filters, define the locking strategy in an RDBMS, work out how high availability and/or realtime guarantees will be met, predict system load and latencies, decide how many clock domains there will be and how control/data will cross their boundaries, define whether mean/median/95th percentile performance measures are most appropriate, define implementation languages, create simulation models for system performance studies......... --- End quote --- Interesting, I am one of those non degree types (As in don't have one, not don't value them), and about the only one of these that I have never tackled professionally is the locking strategy for the RDBMS, but I have also done capture and layout (Not a technician job unless you spend ages defining the design rules, edge rates are just too high these days, never mind what happens in the microwave world), and even board level fixes when that was what was needed, in between wrangling design rules for a 10Gb serial link and calculating link budgets for offshore microwave links, yay for small companies. These days my card calls me Senior Hardware Engineer (I tried for Senior Wrangler, couldn't get the boss to sign off), still not quite sure how that happened. The BS is probably the way in these days, but one piece of advice DONT follow the crowd, IoT may be cool this week, but knowing as much math as you can handle has a far better shelf life then some flavor of the month tech. Electromagnetism/Control Theory/Statistics/Modulation/Coding theory none of that stuff is going away, and most people hate that shit, so if you can hack it, it pays well. Regards, Dan. |
| tggzzz:
--- Quote from: dmills on September 09, 2016, 12:44:46 am --- --- Quote from: tggzzz on September 08, 2016, 11:48:06 pm ---OTOH, I wouldn't expect a technician to define modulation schemes, create new comms protocols, design filters, define the locking strategy in an RDBMS, work out how high availability and/or realtime guarantees will be met, predict system load and latencies, decide how many clock domains there will be and how control/data will cross their boundaries, define whether mean/median/95th percentile performance measures are most appropriate, define implementation languages, create simulation models for system performance studies......... --- End quote --- Interesting, I am one of those non degree types (As in don't have one, not don't value them), --- End quote --- Good for you (written without irony and without smileys!). As I've said elsewhere, I have come across extremely competent engineers without a degree, but I can count them on the fingers of one hand. My objection is that often people on this forum state "degrees are a waste of time" when clearly they don't understand significant sections of theory that they should have learned in a degree course. Clearly you don't fit into that category. --- Quote ---and about the only one of these that I have never tackled professionally is the locking strategy for the RDBMS, but I have also done capture and layout (Not a technician job unless you spend ages defining the design rules, edge rates are just too high these days, never mind what happens in the microwave world), --- End quote --- Just so. That's the kind of thing I was thinking of when I wrote "...a competent engineer ... should supervise the PCB layout....". And I agree about microwave layout, of course! --- Quote ---These days my card calls me Senior Hardware Engineer (I tried for Senior Wrangler, couldn't get the boss to sign off), still not quite sure how that happened. --- End quote --- There's a good case for some types of software engineers having "Applied Philosopher" on their business card! Anybody who has had to try and define, say, what is meant by "a person" in a specific software system will understand what I mean! --- Quote ---The BS is probably the way in these days, but one piece of advice DONT follow the crowd, IoT may be cool this week, but knowing as much math as you can handle has a far better shelf life then some flavor of the month tech. Electromagnetism/Control Theory/Statistics/Modulation/Coding theory none of that stuff is going away, and most people hate that shit, so if you can hack it, it pays well. --- End quote --- Agreed. I've no strong opinion as to whether a second degree is necessary or beneficial nowadays, but I still believe it is invalid to do a PhD "to get a better job". |
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