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Education level required for employment as EE
Posted by
Omega Glory
on 27 Aug, 2016 01:07
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I will be applying to colleges this year, and I am interested in pursuing a career in electrical engineering. From what I have gathered from this forum and other sources, most EE programs at colleges will not prepare you well for a career in electrical engineering, but rather, most of your knowledge and skill will come from work experience. I have, however, read that in order to secure an EE job at many companies, you must possess a EE degree. I was wondering if any of you would tell me if a bachelors degree is adequate, or if a masters degree is required for most job applications. Also, if I have misunderstood how a college education and degree in EE benefits students, I would be grateful if you corrected me.
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#1 Reply
Posted by
nanofrog
on 27 Aug, 2016 02:21
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It'll depend on what you're applying for (i.e. more generalized/common areas vs. something highly specialized). But just starting out in a more common/general topic area, a BS is enough to get your foot in the door. It's the highly specialized stuff, such as CPU design, that will require a graduate degree (MS or PhD, with the latter being more common for my example). And if you want to go into management, an MBA would be in order.
The degree teaches you how to think and gives you the relevant background to be able to understand what you'll encounter once in the workplace. Ideally, you'll get to mentor with some more experienced engineers along the way (common in large companies; SMB's & startups, not so much).
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#2 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 27 Aug, 2016 02:41
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I wish electronic engineering had a different designator than electrical engineering. I realize the topic here is electronics and electronic engineering but in my view electrical engineering is a completely different field having to do with power generation, distribution and utilization. There's good money in designing electrical systems for industrial applications and good security in working for a public utility., Side issues, I know...
I would think a BS would be a way to get a foot in the door but these days, degrees are all over the place. An MSEE might provide better opportunities as long as the major is in the right area. Try to get one or more summer intern jobs. Yes, it will be scut work but at least you'll meet people in the field and get known around the company.
Whether you go for MSEE or MBA, plan on doing one of the other. Management usually pays better than actually doing the work but it has the downside of having to deal with personnel issues.
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#3 Reply
Posted by
German_EE
on 28 Aug, 2016 11:16
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"I wish electronic engineering had a different designator than electrical engineering. I realize the topic here is electronics and electronic engineering but in my view electrical engineering is a completely different field having to do with power generation, distribution and utilization. There's good money in designing electrical systems for industrial applications and good security in working for a public utility., Side issues, I know..."
As an Electrical Engineer I feel your pain. I do however work on electronics for fun as I'm now too old and too fat to climb up and down elevator shafts.
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#4 Reply
Posted by
EEVblog
on 28 Aug, 2016 13:46
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The BS will get your foot into the door on most engineering jobs.
The MS degree may actually be of no benefit if the job you are going for is outside the scope of your MS thesis. But then again there are lots of higher end jobs that simply ask for an MS or higher, just because.
A candidate with a BS and experience in the field the job requires will almost always trump an MS with no experience in the field the job is about.
Experience almost always trumps qualifications. So pick the field you have an interest in and get whatever degree you want, then take the first job in that field that comes along.
Worrying "should I get a BS or an MS" without knowing what interests you and what field you might want to get into can be a bit of a pointless debate.
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#5 Reply
Posted by
Wilo
on 28 Aug, 2016 15:13
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In my experience, a BS is fine; most of my EE coworkers only have undergraduate degrees. What really helps is a background in a related industry - aviation, in my case.
Higher level degrees help for promotion/specialization.
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#6 Reply
Posted by
T3sl4co1l
on 28 Aug, 2016 19:54
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From what I've seen in the US, it's very unlikely that you'll get a job title and pay, consistent with an Electrical Engineering position, unless you have a BS or higher degree.
There are plenty of techs, with highschool or associate's education, who are doing the full functions of an EE -- but aren't getting paid for it!
/
/
I don't think more than MS is worthwhile. MS will be requested in more advanced and specialized fields, and an MS curriculum teaches more specialized knowledge. But heck, if you can show you're good enough at the subject, go ahead and apply for jobs asking for more than your degree -- the worst that can happen is HR filters strictly and your resume ends up in the bin.
Not that places will turn down a PhD, but I don't think the incremental value is anywhere near justified getting a PhD. Not like other PhD-heavy fields, like medicine.
A PhD also implies an area of extremely focused study, which means huge value to the handful of companies working in that field, but not much outside of that. I've met plenty of PhDs who, in general, away from their narrow field, aren't much smarter than an average BS; that's not strange, it's just human.
As for where you get your degree(s), you'll certainly have a better education* at a better school, and you can probably negotiate higher starting salary with that too. But as for what you've learned, it doesn't matter much. All that matters is your own grasp of the subject, and how well that fits industry.
*Don't forget the primary purpose of school.
It's not education. Education is secondary, no matter what they say. Successful people see through that, and find the true purpose: making business connections. Befriend the faculty: they usually have industry connections. Find the sharpest, nicest, and most entrepreneurial students and befriend them. Partner up, start a thing, fail, and start more things! Even if you and your partners do nothing but fail miserably, you'll have the experience to know what
not to do, and that's something you can put on your resume. (Suitably prettied up, of course. But don't be afraid to be honest with these things in the interview. Honesty can take you far. Lying is for politicians, not engineers!)
Tim
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Thank you all very much for your replies, they were all quite helpful.
A candidate with a BS and experience in the field the job requires will almost always trump an MS with no experience in the field the job is about. Experience almost always trumps qualifications. So pick the field you have an interest in and get whatever degree you want, then take the first job in that field that comes along. Worrying "should I get a BS or an MS" without knowing what interests you and what field you might want to get into can be a bit of a pointless debate.
That does bring up another point. Electrical Engineering is a very broad field, and there are many different kinds of jobs that fall under that category. I know I am interested in electronics engineering as opposed to power engineering, which narrows it down some, but that is still pretty broad. I will definitely look into the different fields and will try to learn more about what is involved in day to day work in those fields. How did you all decided what to specialize in?
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#8 Reply
Posted by
MT
on 28 Aug, 2016 23:12
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Stay away from places who can only offer you cow cubicles as work place.
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#9 Reply
Posted by
Galenbo
on 31 Aug, 2016 23:38
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Stay away from places who can only offer you cow cubicles as work place.
Still better than lean desk open workplaces.
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#10 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 01 Sep, 2016 00:16
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I don't think much of the electronics business. I read the other day that Cisco was laying off thousands of electronic engineers and hiring as many code wienies. It seems there is more profit in selling code than in selling hardware. I have no idea where the industry is headed but I guess I would try to work with FPGAs if I could or almost anything having to do with embedded processors. Both are actually code wienie work. If you want to do electronics, try to design motherboards or graphics cards.
OR...
Get your BSEE and sign up for a hitch in the Air Force (Navy and Army also). They have serious electronics needs and their systems span decades. You will get a heck of a lot of experience in a short period of time. Then go to work for a defense contractor. Hire back as an overpaid consultant!
With all of the fabrication and most of the board design being done off-shore, I'm not sure what to think of the future of electronics in this country.
Whatever you decide to do, make sure it requires that YOU lay your hands on it. If it can be outsourced, it will be!
This is a serious issue for me. My grandson is starting college and talking about becoming an EE. I'll help where I can but I'm not too certain of the future. I want to make sure he also takes classes in programming. Lots of classes - even an extra year or two.
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#11 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 01 Sep, 2016 00:32
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As an electronics engineer, you will probably spend your entire career sitting behind a desk designing stuff. Never a breath of fresh air! And the stuff you design won't even be interesting. It will be just day after day of total monotony. I hated desk work and my mechanical drafting sucked. The instructor said my arrow heads looked like squashed butterflies! Well, he was a great draftsman, no doubt. But I traveled the world building stuff. I never spent a day using my BS or MS in electronics. They were just the price of admission.
Get interested in electrical. You can design buildings, factories, automation! You will soon get out of engineering and into project management where you will have to get away from your desk and supervise projects and people. You will be more self-directed and, actually, the work will be more interesting.
Think about automation. Some factory is going to build the robot and it won't be a factory in the US. But some factory in the US will need to install and maintain the robot and that's where you can come in. Some electrical, some electronics. But at least it's not sitting behind a desk. Hook up with the manufacturer and try to get a service business going. They are often quite open to having someone local to handle repairs. Start your own company!
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#12 Reply
Posted by
IanB
on 01 Sep, 2016 01:21
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I will be applying to colleges this year, and I am interested in pursuing a career in electrical engineering. From what I have gathered from this forum and other sources, most EE programs at colleges will not prepare you well for a career in electrical engineering, but rather, most of your knowledge and skill will come from work experience.
On the contrary, a good engineering program will prepare you very well for a career in engineering, no matter what you may have heard from some people. It prepares you by teaching you a lot of the important fundamentals, the foundation of knowledge that you will build on later in the workplace. If you have no foundation, you cannot build.
I have, however, read that in order to secure an EE job at many companies, you must possess a EE degree.
And this is the reason. Companies want to be sure you have the required foundation, and a degree from an accredited institution should give you that.
Do also note the comments from others above about electrical engineering vs electronics. Professional engineering can be a career with enormous breadth, challenges and responsibilities, but these things are associated with large, high value projects. So for a rewarding career, consider going where the money is, which is where the big, expensive projects are (hint: it is not consumer goods). An engineering degree can get you there. You aren't going to walk in off the street and be responsible for high value infrastructure where design codes have to be satisfied, the cost of failure is large, and life and safety may be at risk without having formal training.
(I am not myself an EE, I am a chemical engineer, but all the same considerations have applied in my career.)
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#13 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 01 Sep, 2016 08:46
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From what I have gathered from this forum and other sources, most EE programs at colleges will not prepare you well for a career in electrical engineering, but rather, most of your knowledge and skill will come from work experience. I have, however, read that in order to secure an EE job at many companies, you must possess a EE degree. I was wondering if any of you would tell me if a bachelors degree is adequate, or if a masters degree is required for most job applications. Also, if I have misunderstood how a college education and degree in EE benefits students, I would be grateful if you corrected me.
You will find some people that say a degree is a waste of time. You must assess that person and why they have that opinion. Usually they don't have a degree, and often they have been unable to get a degree. If that's the case, how can they possibly know the value of a degree?
An engineering degree should teach you how to think, how to understand and apply fundamental theory that will last your lifetime, give you an overview of the many sub-disciplines in your chosen field (e.g. for an EE, analogue, RF, digital, high current), how to determine which are the key engineering/technical questions that should be asked and answered.
An engineering degree is the
easiest, fastest and surest way of mastering those topics. But while those topics are
necessary for being a good engineer, but they are not
sufficient for being a good engineer.
Product technology knowledge has a half-life of maybe 5 years. Therefore while project work in an engineering degree will probably use todays products, it should not concentrate on todays hardware/software.
Practical experience is also
necessary, and the best way for you to gain that is to do your own personal projects outside the course. Employers will love that, since it shows you have drive and initiative; don't hide your mistakes from them, since that shows you know how to improve.
Higher degrees are only useful if they are directly relevant to your first job.
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.
As an example of how what you learn in a degree course should last a lifetime, consider that even last week I referred to a textbooks I used 40 years ago! The information is still just as accurate, pertinent and useful! (Of course, I also use newer textbooks where appropriate!)
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#14 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 01 Sep, 2016 09:10
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You will find some people that say a degree is a waste of time. You must assess that person and why they have that opinion. Usually they don't have a degree, and often they have been unable to get a degree. If that's the case, how can they possibly know the value of a degree?
I think the reason why some people will say that a degree is a waste of time is because they've worked with people who are very well qualified but are totally useless at their job. Of course I wouldn't say a degree is a waste of time. It just won't make anyone a good engineer.
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.
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.
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#15 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 01 Sep, 2016 09:51
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You will find some people that say a degree is a waste of time. You must assess that person and why they have that opinion. Usually they don't have a degree, and often they have been unable to get a degree. If that's the case, how can they possibly know the value of a degree?
I think the reason why some people will say that a degree is a waste of time is because they've worked with people who are very well qualified but are totally useless at their job. Of course I wouldn't say a degree is a waste of time. It just won't make anyone a good engineer.
I refer you to my other key statement, viz: "An engineering degree is the easiest, fastest and surest way of mastering those topics[gained from a degree]. But while those topics are
necessary for being a good engineer, but they are not
sufficient for being a good engineer. "
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.
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.
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.
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#16 Reply
Posted by
Galenbo
on 01 Sep, 2016 11:04
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As an electronics engineer... And the stuff you design won't even be interesting...
... You will soon get out of engineering and into project management where you will have to get away from your desk and supervise projects and people. You will be more self-directed and, actually, the work will be more interesting.
... and try to get a service business going...
Good to see that guys who totally suck in every de-facto technical aspect of engineering can take some voluntary steps down and end up in management, and be happy there.
Someone has to do it !
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#17 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 01 Sep, 2016 14:49
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There's a side issue to an engineering degree independent of which field you choose: You will take a LOT of math classes and you will learn a great deal about Physics.
Physics makes the world run and understanding it is a leg up. Truly my favorite subject - especally Mechanics! With Physics, I can explain just about everything there is to know about any other science. Except gravity...
Math: Well, EE has a bunch of math classes and I have come to the conclusion that the better you are at math, the more money you make. Regrettably, Statistics is included in that observation. I hate Statistics! Truth be known, and keep this quiet, I'm not sure I really understood Maxwell's Equations. It's only since I started playing with an analog computer that I have finally gotten a handle on Differential Equations. They were a drag to solve with a sliderule...
Even the entry level Calculus classes are useful in various ways. Never underestimate the value of those math classes.
It is a fact of life that managing engineers pays better than engineering itself. As long as you plan to work for money, you might as well get as much as you can. So, if you don't want to get an MSEE, get an MBA. Heck, get both! The MBA program can be a lot of fun. Try to get over in the Operations Research side of the program. Those folks get to play with some cool math and simulations. I watched suit-and-tie engineers programming the CDC 6400 to investigate learning curves in an effort to understand the cost of assembling airplanes. They were so far above me... Circa '70...
Later in my career, I spent less time engineering and more time managing. I simply bought engineering. We had a list of consultants and all I had to do was call and engineering just happened. I worked on the big picture and left the details to those far more qualified.
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#18 Reply
Posted by
Jeff_Birt
on 01 Sep, 2016 15:27
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I work as an engineer at a university, I do not have a 'degree'. I took two years of industrial electronics in high school which was roughly equivalent to an associate degree. Without a degree the hardest thing is to get your foot in the door. I got a job once as I agreed to start at a lower salary and prove I could do the work and then be bumped up to the normal salary. I have a friend who taught high school band for 20 years while electronics was his hobby. When he got tired of teaching he got a job as a technician at Dale (which Vishay bought up later) and when they saw he knew his stuff they promoted him to engineer because he had 'a' degree, it did not matter to them what the degree was in. So being self taught in electronics and having a degree in education allowed him to be an engineer at Dale.
Students coming out of university (in the USA) with a bachelor's degree in engineering may be qualified and some are still dumb as a box of rocks. The 'dumb as a box of rocks' group are smart enough to pass each class but have no clue how to apply what they have learned. I'm in the EE department (but work as an ME/EE mix) and senior level students do a 'senior design' group project. Some of the projects can really highlight the student's abilities and with some students I have to explain why they can't drive a stepper motor with the logic level output form their microcontroller. In the general EE track this is the most 'hands on' experience they get. There are opportunities for undergraduate to do research projects, be on student design teams, internships, and similar things. If a student has the initiative to get involved with these types of activities they have a much greater chance of learning to apply the theory they are taught.
When I first started at the university I taught the lab sections of some classes. We would do a different project each semester that the professor and I dreamed up that was sometimes based on a current research project we were involved in (a simplified version). We tried to make the projects reasonable but we did not know the outcome, they were open ended as they might work or not. We acted as the customer saying "we want a product to do this", gave them some background info, provided technical assistance, etc. These were 300-400 level classes so the students were well seasoned but most had no idea how to approach a real world problem where there was not 'right' answer or an answer in the back of a book. I can remember vividly one student who was upset saying, "I have no idea how to do this". To which I replied, "welcome to being an engineer". After a couple of weeks of him doing some research on the subject and talking with us his attitude changed as he realized he could take what he knew and apply it to the problem and learn what he did not know. This is not an opportunity most students get, and that is sad.
Being close to 50 now and without a degree I can look back at how much easier it would have been in some cases if I had a degree. There are opportunities at a university to be involved in research projects and actually learn to apply your skills but the student has to seek them out. I wish they were somehow mandatory. I suspect most students who go through a bachelor's degree and have no real hand on ability wind up in middle management. Some companies, like UPS, prefer to hire drivers who have a degree in anything as they tend to be better employees. So go get a BS in something useless and you can drive for UPS.
You can be self taught but it is a tough row to hoe, i.e. it is hard to get your foot in the door. You need math skills, I had algebra and geometry in high school and some basic calculus in me EE course in VoTech. I learned what I needed as I went along but sometimes that is the long way around as you could have done something much simpler or quicker if you had known a bit more math. It is soooo easy these days to search things online that you can learn about different mathematic techniques that apply to your project. If you are self taught you have to have examples of your accomplishments to demonstrate your knowledge. When I started at the university I had a list of accomplishments at previous jobs that demonstrated my abilities. And, to be honest at my age now I get offered jobs based on what I know and who I know. I have had side jobs doing programming, board layout, etc. based on demonstrable skills. My dad sold newspaper advertising for several years and on the back of his business card he had a cartoon of a fella with his feet up on his desk and the heading of "The fella who doesn't advertise may know his business but nobody else does!" Engineers tend to be introverts but you do have to 'advertise' yourself to prospective employers, if you don't have a degree you have to advertise accomplishments.
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#19 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 01 Sep, 2016 15:42
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Not to take away from electrical or electronics engineering but if you want a somewhat easier field of study for which there will be an increasing demand, consider Environmental, Health & Safety. It's junk science but with all the regulations promulgated by every level of government, EVERY company needs the services of an EHS professional.
You do realize that, as a company, you can't just throw away burned out fluorescent lamps, right? Nope! You are a waste generator and you are responsible for those lamps from purchase through disposal. There's paperwork, disposal companies to deal with, records to keep and so on. I wouldn't recommend signing up for the clerk work but at the management level, these folks make good money with decent job security.
Just try to find a high tech company that doesn't have a large EHS department!
Consultants make a ton of bucks because they attend all the seminars and understand all the quirks in permitting. You can't just poke a hole through the roof and exhaust a chem sink without an Air Quality Permit. There are regulations!
I never thought much of their engineering capabilities but I did realize that EHS folks were totally necessary to staying out of jail.
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#20 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 08 Sep, 2016 21:39
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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#21 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 08 Sep, 2016 23:48
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.........
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#22 Reply
Posted by
arlipscomb
on 08 Sep, 2016 23:59
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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.
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#23 Reply
Posted by
dmills
on 09 Sep, 2016 00:44
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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.........
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.
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#24 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 09 Sep, 2016 08:23
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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.........
Interesting, I am one of those non degree types (As in don't have one, not don't value them),
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.
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),
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!
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.
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!
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.
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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#25 Reply
Posted by
CM800
on 09 Sep, 2016 08:32
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Does anyone know the general consensis on an HNC in Electronic Engineering? It's considered an equivilent stand alone (usually work based) qualification to a first year of a degree.
Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas (HNCs/HNDs) are work-related qualifications.
Study is usually full or part-time over one or two years. An HNC is equivalent to the first year of a degree, an HND to the second year of a degree.
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#26 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 09 Sep, 2016 08:36
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Does anyone know the general consensis on an HNC in Electronic Engineering? It's considered an equivilent stand alone (usually work based) qualification to a first year of a degree.
Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas (HNCs/HNDs) are work-related qualifications.
Study is usually full or part-time over one or two years. An HNC is equivalent to the first year of a degree, an HND to the second year of a degree.
My opinion is that HNC/HND don't have anywhere near as much theory as a
good degree course; they are more practically-focussed. That's fine, but be aware of every alternative's limitations.
However, there are a lot of poor degree courses around. Caveat emptor.
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#27 Reply
Posted by
LabSpokane
on 09 Sep, 2016 08:42
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Just plan on getting a MS or PE depending on your field: electronics, power, etc.
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#28 Reply
Posted by
CM800
on 09 Sep, 2016 09:47
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Does anyone know the general consensis on an HNC in Electronic Engineering? It's considered an equivilent stand alone (usually work based) qualification to a first year of a degree.
Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas (HNCs/HNDs) are work-related qualifications.
Study is usually full or part-time over one or two years. An HNC is equivalent to the first year of a degree, an HND to the second year of a degree.
My opinion is that HNC/HND don't have anywhere near as much theory as a good degree course; they are more practically-focussed. That's fine, but be aware of every alternative's limitations.
However, there are a lot of poor degree courses around. Caveat emptor.
I'm on the course, I'd have to agree with that view... But that doesn't mean I don't need to come out of it on top! :X
I guessi if I continue it on to Bsc I'll be good.
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#29 Reply
Posted by
SteveyG
on 09 Sep, 2016 10:26
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I wish electronic engineering had a different designator than electrical engineering.
It does in every other country as far as I know. Just you crazy Americans call it Electrical Engineering for designing Electronics
The BS will get your foot into the door on most engineering jobs.
The MS degree may actually be of no benefit if the job you are going for is outside the scope of your MS thesis. But then again there are lots of higher end jobs that simply ask for an MS or higher, just because.
Interesting - if you apply for a MEng in the UK, you generally do 4 years of lectures rather than 3 - i.e. you just learn more rather than doing a thesis. The final year project that you would have done in the 3rd year is done in the 4th year instead. If you took a BEng, there's not usually a simple route to getting an MEng - probably doing a new degree.
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#30 Reply
Posted by
IanB
on 09 Sep, 2016 15:36
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Interesting - if you apply for a MEng in the UK, you generally do 4 years of lectures rather than 3 - i.e. you just learn more rather than doing a thesis. The final year project that you would have done in the 3rd year is done in the 4th year instead. If you took a BEng, there's not usually a simple route to getting an MEng - probably doing a new degree.
But an MEng first degree is not equivalent to a MSc postgraduate degree.
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#31 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 09 Sep, 2016 17:21
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Does anyone know the general consensis on an HNC in Electronic Engineering? It's considered an equivilent stand alone (usually work based) qualification to a first year of a degree.
Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas (HNCs/HNDs) are work-related qualifications.
Study is usually full or part-time over one or two years. An HNC is equivalent to the first year of a degree, an HND to the second year of a degree.
My opinion is that HNC/HND don't have anywhere near as much theory as a good degree course; they are more practically-focussed. That's fine, but be aware of every alternative's limitations.
However, there are a lot of poor degree courses around. Caveat emptor.
Well I don't have a degree so don't know for sure about the theory but the HND course I studied contained very little practical work. Most of the practical work I did was on the job training and didn't have anything to do with the HND but it counter towards city and guilds, a different qualification. I was told by my lecturer that if I wanted to do a degree, the theory wouldn't necessarily be more complicated, just more in-depth and more specialised, depending on the course. After completing my HND I felt burned out, as far as study is concerned and decided to take a gap before going back to do a degree but I never did.
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#32 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 09 Sep, 2016 20:20
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Does anyone know the general consensis on an HNC in Electronic Engineering? It's considered an equivilent stand alone (usually work based) qualification to a first year of a degree.
Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas (HNCs/HNDs) are work-related qualifications.
Study is usually full or part-time over one or two years. An HNC is equivalent to the first year of a degree, an HND to the second year of a degree.
My opinion is that HNC/HND don't have anywhere near as much theory as a good degree course; they are more practically-focussed. That's fine, but be aware of every alternative's limitations.
However, there are a lot of poor degree courses around. Caveat emptor.
Well I don't have a degree so don't know for sure about the theory but the HND course I studied contained very little practical work. Most of the practical work I did was on the job training and didn't have anything to do with the HND but it counter towards city and guilds, a different qualification. I was told by my lecturer that if I wanted to do a degree, the theory wouldn't necessarily be more complicated, just more in-depth and more specialised, depending on the course.
It seems not much has changed in 30 years, and that there is broad agreement about a degree vs an HND.
One anecdote is that I remember a 2nd year maths student seeing our maths lectures, and being flabbergasted that we were covering much the same topics as he was! The end-of-year exams started "full marks will be obtained for answers to
about six questions"; the lecturer wasn't too certain how much we could have assimilated! Bloody hard work
After completing my HND I felt burned out, as far as study is concerned and decided to take a gap before going back to do a degree but I never did.
That's fair enough, and no doubt that was the best decision for you.
As to a lot of theory in a good electronic engineering course: yes, and that's just what I wanted and needed before starting the course. I was knackered at the end, but raring to get out and put it into practice in industry - which I promptly did
The main thing which annoys me (and I'm not implying you have this view) is statements to the effect that "nurses claiming there's no benefit to being a doctor, and that doctors are impractical and useless". Both doctors and nurses are necessary; neither is sufficient.
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#33 Reply
Posted by
Tabs
on 09 Sep, 2016 23:09
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I'm the hardware lead for my company and I'm also responsible for selecting new hw hires. I thought I'd give you my POV regarding what I look for in a candidate and why.
I prefer a generalist over a specialist. 90% of the work needs people with a broad skill set. When we get stuck in a niche area on 10% of time, we usually hire a contractor with specialist knowledge/expertise in that area. These people never have a MEng/Msc or PhD , just a lot of experience gained over time. The above is probably true for the vast majority of employers since only a few companies do high end new research.
This makes me consider BEng/MEng over Msc/PhD. This is backed up by experience when conducting interviews. The amount of times I see a BEng beat Msc makes me think it's a waste of time going any further than a BEng. That being said, the standard of BEng/MEng/Msc seem to be dropping every year. The MEng candidates are pot luck. Some are very good, others are worse than BEng. The ones that are good, are better than Msc.
The qualification is there just to get you past the hr department. Once you get to me, I can quickly tell if your're any good with a skim of your CV and phone call. That's when I decide to give you a face to face interview.
I would recommend analogue, digital, control, communication as core electives. Followed up by digital, especially if your university offers anything around FPGAs (verilog/vhdl) or embedded. In the UK we have a mechatronics degree which is a specialised eee degree concentrating on robotics and mechanical electronics.
Then there is ise which information systems engineering. This is a mixture of ee and computer science and it's primarily intended for software/hardware embedded people.
This will give you the kind of skills for any electronics job except rf/microwave (for which you will need electromagnetism and up to MEng), or microelectronics (for which you will need work experience).
The above field are niche(er) and you have less competition but fewer opportunity for employment. The general skills give you more competition but more opportunity for employment.
Specific things to learn: FPGAs, ARM, circuit analysis, feedback, PSU design.
Easiest places for jobs for new grad ee are in defence. The projects are not normally high end (mostly supporting legacy designs) unless you have an UOR. the time lines and money are not usually as critical in commercial sector.
These companies are usually filled with old grey beards that you can learn a lot from. It's generally a good place to incubate your skills. Stay about 4 years and move to commercial side where salary is a little higher (so is commercial pressure).
Also, have a realistic expectation of salary. I offer places to UK students only for them to ask for way over the top. Negotiation is OK, but be realistic. The last two positions went to two Spaniards. One left after a year because she learnt enough to get a better paid job just down the road. The other is still with us and he's doing great work. After 1.5 years he's on the salary the UK applicants we asking for. The UK applicants came back after a week to ask for the job but it had already gone.
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#34 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 09 Sep, 2016 23:43
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I agree with your view; it matches my experience.
I prefer a generalist over a specialist. 90% of the work needs people with a broad skill set. When we get stuck in a niche area on 10% of time, we usually hire a contractor with specialist knowledge/expertise in that area.
Yes indeed, but I'll add that I look for a generalist that has succeeded in depth in some topic, since that tends to indicates they can learn whatever we need
next and apply it. To be checked during the interview, of course.
This makes me consider BEng/MEng over Msc/PhD.
Our experience was that there was only one valid reason for doing a PhD, and many spurious ones. The latter included better job prospects/money; the former was "because I wanted to".
The qualification is there just to get you past the hr department. Once you get to me, I can quickly tell if your're any good with a skim of your CV and phone call. That's when I decide to give you a face to face interview.
Yes, in spades. I'd add recruitment agencies to HR-droids.
A major problem is that PHBs and HR-droids don't know enough to assess technical competence, and can be so clueless they don't even realise it. While everybody has a tendency to "recruit in their own image", that's all PHBs and HR-droids can do. Hence the concept of "the old school tie".
I would recommend ...
Look for a curriculum that preserves your ability to make late choices, and avoid those that mention very specific technologies. Hence "real time software" and "digital design" are OK, but "Xilinx Artix" or "WinRT" are not. The former will be useful in 30 years. The latter will be irrelevant in 5 years.
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#35 Reply
Posted by
VK3DRB
on 10 Sep, 2016 04:11
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An EE degree is fine for any work in electronics. What is important is the mindset of an EE and the ability to learn. You don't need a masters or PhD, unless the job is specifically related to their thesis. One of the smartest electronics guru I ever knew was a technician who was often asked for his advice in electronics from seasoned engineers. I also know degree qualified EE's who leave PhD's for dead with skills.
Unfortunately I have come across discrimination by narrow minded people who think unless you have qualifications like them[/i], you can't join the club. One IBM manager would ignore you if you did not have an MBA like him. And there was another manager without a degree who ignored all job applications if they had a PhD. Its a bit like those ham radio operators who came up with any excuse to keep Morse Code as a requirement to work 20 metres HF. It really boiled down to the fact they had to learn Morse Code, so, so should everyone else. But the bigger problem in IBM was age discrimination. Unless you were young like them, you were going nowhere. In Australia, age discrimination is rampant and is out of control, a reflection on our culture that focuses on the young. I have heard older people become "invisible" when shopping - the shop assistants ignore them. A older colleague recently said to me, "Interviewers never ask if a young person can work with older people. Instead they ask whether the older person can work with young people."
So, you will always suffer some discrimination, irrespective of your educational level or your age.
In my own family we have a single degree EE, a PhD, a double degree EE/CS, a CS graduate, with older and younger engineers, and two ham radio operators (including the wife), so maybe I can speak from some experience.
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#36 Reply
Posted by
Tim F
on 10 Sep, 2016 05:25
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Completing a degree shows that you possess the ability to learn enough about a topic in a short time frame to complete a task satisfactorily - a laboratory exercise, an assignment, an exam paper etc. EE is such a broad field that an undergraduate degree alone cannot teach you enough to be competent in any one discipline/area such that you could become employed in that area without additional training. Anything extra you can add to your resume/CV to show that you already trained in the required areas or you are an exceptional autonomous learner will be seen favourably by most employers as this means that they will not need to invest as much $$$ into training you for the job. From this point of view a person who has extracurricular experience in the necessary discipline will be more desirable than a person who has a higher academic degree in the wrong discipline. Extracurricular experience can be anything from work experience or volunteer work, building projects at home, attending hackerspaces/competitions - whatever you're interested in doing.
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#37 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 10 Sep, 2016 08:34
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This makes me consider BEng/MEng over Msc/PhD.
Our experience was that there was only one valid reason for doing a PhD, and many spurious ones. The latter included better job prospects/money; the former was "because I wanted to".
Another factor is to get deeper insight. PhD education forces one to travel through more circles and dig deeper to the paramount of his business, while MS are not required.
In the meantime, a PhD sees the trend and details in the latest technology, rather than already marketed technology. Which means, a PhD can lead a team to research future technology, not essentially pursuing immediate revenue, but rather like a technology reserve for the future of the company.
... but only in a very narrow technology. While that technology and knowledge are current and relevant, it is very valuable to a company. If not then its value is no more (and arguably less) than that which can be gained without a PhD. In many cases a company will quickly discard a world expert when they feel their expertise is no longer relevant.
IMNSHO it is possible and necessary to "get deeper insight" into whatever your employer is doing at the moment. The ability to do that can be demonstrated while still partway through a first degree course, let alone after doing a PhD. Any competent interviewer will take 5 minutes to give a yea/nay on that ability. But having the paper qualification is often a pre-requisite to meeting the competent interviewer
Be aware that I have worked in several R&D labs and companies for decades, and have been involved in recruiting in all of them. Without exception a PhD was only of interest if it
directly matched our
current needs. Even then we would reject any candidate that we felt wouldn't be useful after the current project finished. In no cases did we offer more money or a better starting position because of the PhD.
There's a career choice to be made: in melodramatic terms become "a world expert in 'Xerox Toner Mechanisms'" or become "a jack of all trades and master of none". Both are valid strategies, both have advantages and disadvantages.
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#38 Reply
Posted by
SteveyG
on 10 Sep, 2016 09:19
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But an MEng first degree is not equivalent to a MSc postgraduate degree.
In what way?
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#39 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 10 Sep, 2016 09:44
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Completing a degree shows that you possess the ability to learn enough about a topic in a short time frame to complete a task satisfactorily - a laboratory exercise, an assignment, an exam paper etc. EE is such a broad field that an undergraduate degree alone cannot teach you enough to be competent in any one discipline/area such that you could become employed in that area without additional training.
In a decent degree course you
should learn enough to know what is fundamentally possible/impossible.
Eric Laithwaite at Imperial College used to set exams where one question was easy and sufficient get you a pass mark, one was more challenging and couuld get you a good degree, and one could not be answered adequately in the time available.
He expected his undergraduate engineers to be able to determine which questions to avoid. If they couldn't, they wouldn't make good engineers anyway.
Anything extra you can add to your resume/CV to show that you already trained in the required areas or you are an exceptional autonomous learner will be seen favourably by most employers as this means that they will not need to invest as much $$$ into training you for the job. From this point of view a person who has extracurricular experience in the necessary discipline will be more desirable than a person who has a higher academic degree in the wrong discipline. Extracurricular experience can be anything from work experience or volunteer work, building projects at home, attending hackerspaces/competitions - whatever you're interested in doing.
Yes, except for the cost of training. The real benefit to an employer is that extracurricular experience shows the candidate is motivated, can set objectives and learn - actually enjoys the subject. A PhD can achieve the same, of course.
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#40 Reply
Posted by
Tabs
on 10 Sep, 2016 09:45
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But an MEng first degree is not equivalent to a MSc postgraduate degree.
In what way?
An MEng still allows you to stay generic because the modules are electives and can be unrelated to each other or part of different disciplines. Examples are control theory and microwave communication.
An Msc restricts your electives to modules that are related to the discipline. It's targeted more towards a specific area but doesn't ask you to research new areas to advance the field like a PhD.
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#41 Reply
Posted by
VK3DRB
on 10 Sep, 2016 11:52
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The danger with too much specialisation is you learn more and more about less and less, until eventually you will know everything about nothing.
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#42 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 10 Sep, 2016 20:02
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The main thing which annoys me (and I'm not implying you have this view) is statements to the effect that "nurses claiming there's no benefit to being a doctor, and that doctors are impractical and useless". Both doctors and nurses are necessary; neither is sufficient.
Well I agree with you about doctors and nurses but think the analogy is totally invalid as far as engineering is concerned. Perhaps it was true 30 years ago or is still the case in very large organisations and factories but not in the places I've worked.
In a relatively small organisation, it makes no sense to employ a technician and an engineer. It makes far more sense to find someone who's highly skilled both in theory and practically and can do both.
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#43 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 10 Sep, 2016 20:55
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The main thing which annoys me (and I'm not implying you have this view) is statements to the effect that "nurses claiming there's no benefit to being a doctor, and that doctors are impractical and useless". Both doctors and nurses are necessary; neither is sufficient.
Well I agree with you about doctors and nurses but think the analogy is totally invalid as far as engineering is concerned. Perhaps it was true 30 years ago or is still the case in very large organisations and factories but not in the places I've worked.
In a relatively small organisation, it makes no sense to employ a technician and an engineer. It makes far more sense to find someone who's highly skilled both in theory and practically and can do both.
That presumes a technician is capable of doing an engineer's job, and vice versa. While there can be overlap, in general it isn't true. I, for example, can solder, but not well enough for production quality. OTOH, I can find a way of making an optical receiver with 180bB dynamic range from jellybean low tolerance components, etc etc.
That presumes there isn't enough work for two people.
That presumes people all have the same personalities and skills. They don't. A classic mistake is to try to make a team with everybody having the same team role; see Belbin's work for why that is suboptimum.
So yes, it is always being wary of assuming your experience is generally true. Usually a subset of one person's experience corresponds to a subset of situations.
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#44 Reply
Posted by
nfmax
on 10 Sep, 2016 21:18
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It seems not much has changed in 30 years, and that there is broad agreement about a degree vs an HND.
One anecdote is that I remember a 2nd year maths student seeing our maths lectures, and being flabbergasted that we were covering much the same topics as he was! The end-of-year exams started "full marks will be obtained for answers to about six questions"; the lecturer wasn't too certain how much we could have assimilated! Bloody hard work
Second year maths! I remember it well - "Can you get a move on, please - I'm catching up"
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#45 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 10 Sep, 2016 22:24
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The main thing which annoys me (and I'm not implying you have this view) is statements to the effect that "nurses claiming there's no benefit to being a doctor, and that doctors are impractical and useless". Both doctors and nurses are necessary; neither is sufficient.
Well I agree with you about doctors and nurses but think the analogy is totally invalid as far as engineering is concerned. Perhaps it was true 30 years ago or is still the case in very large organisations and factories but not in the places I've worked.
In a relatively small organisation, it makes no sense to employ a technician and an engineer. It makes far more sense to find someone who's highly skilled both in theory and practically and can do both.
That presumes a technician is capable of doing an engineer's job, and vice versa. While there can be overlap, in general it isn't true. I, for example, can solder, but not well enough for production quality. OTOH, I can find a way of making an optical receiver with 180bB dynamic range from jellybean low tolerance components, etc etc.
There's not much need for people who can solder to production quality these days and even when there was, it was seldom done by people with any theoretical qualifications but by assemblers who often knew nothing about electronics theory. There were electronic assemblers at the defence contractor I used to work at. They knew the resistor colour code, IC packages and could solder to a very high standard but didn't even know Ohm's law.
That presumes there isn't enough work for two people.
That presumes people all have the same personalities and skills. They don't. A classic mistake is to try to make a team with everybody having the same team role; see Belbin's work for why that is suboptimum.
So yes, it is always being wary of assuming your experience is generally true. Usually a subset of one person's experience corresponds to a subset of situations.
Yes, in larger organisations there will be more of a tendency for people to specialise: a programmer for the software, an analogue engineer will design the part with filters, op-amps etc. a digital designer for the FPGAs and a technician to get the prototype working. Smaller organisations will tend to employ one or two people and may use contractors and consultants to get extra work done and fill in the gaps in knowledge
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#46 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 10 Sep, 2016 23:08
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The main thing which annoys me (and I'm not implying you have this view) is statements to the effect that "nurses claiming there's no benefit to being a doctor, and that doctors are impractical and useless". Both doctors and nurses are necessary; neither is sufficient.
Well I agree with you about doctors and nurses but think the analogy is totally invalid as far as engineering is concerned. Perhaps it was true 30 years ago or is still the case in very large organisations and factories but not in the places I've worked.
In a relatively small organisation, it makes no sense to employ a technician and an engineer. It makes far more sense to find someone who's highly skilled both in theory and practically and can do both.
That presumes a technician is capable of doing an engineer's job, and vice versa. While there can be overlap, in general it isn't true. I, for example, can solder, but not well enough for production quality. OTOH, I can find a way of making an optical receiver with 180bB dynamic range from jellybean low tolerance components, etc etc.
There's not much need for people who can solder to production quality these days and even when there was, it was seldom done by people with any theoretical qualifications but by assemblers who often knew nothing about electronics theory. There were electronic assemblers at the defence contractor I used to work at. They knew the resistor colour code, IC packages and could solder to a very high standard but didn't even know Ohm's law.
It was a too brief and not very well chosen example on my part, and you are reading more into the specifics than they deserve.
Instead of soldering, I could equally well have chosen examples relating to maintaining development environment infrastructure, or IT infrastructure, some test harnesses, or routine elaboration/mutation of designs to meet the next customer's requirements. I have little interest in, and am barely competent to do those vital activities. Cf a nurse in a hospital.
Instead of the optical receiver I could have chosen examples related to architecting high-availability telecom systems and understanding failure modes that can never be avoided (e.g. "split brain syndrome") or the limits on time synchronisation, or selecting which technologies are best suited to nextgen products and which should be avoided, or inventing and patenting novel techniques etc. Cf a doctor in a hospital.
Doctors tend to be incompetent at nurses's tasks. Nurses do not have the training or skills to do the doctors' tasks - but some of them think they do, usually because they never see/understand what a doctor does and how they reach their decisions.
That presumes there isn't enough work for two people.
That presumes people all have the same personalities and skills. They don't. A classic mistake is to try to make a team with everybody having the same team role; see Belbin's work for why that is suboptimum.
So yes, it is always being wary of assuming your experience is generally true. Usually a subset of one person's experience corresponds to a subset of situations.
Yes, in larger organisations there will be more of a tendency for people to specialise: a programmer for the software, an analogue engineer will design the part with filters, op-amps etc. a digital designer for the FPGAs and a technician to get the prototype working. Smaller organisations will tend to employ one or two people and may use contractors and consultants to get extra work done and fill in the gaps in knowledge
Specialisation can occur, but does not have to. But you are missing the concepts I was alluding to.
Very briefly, one cut on Belbin's team roles is to divide them into "chairman", "ideas man", "critic", "worker", "finisher", "contacts man" and a couple of others. Each role has its required strengths and allowable weaknesses. To have a successful team, you need different people to fill a cross section of those roles.
A team made up of "ideas men" will be very inventive, impractical and nothing will be shipped. A team made up of "critics" will be boring, practical, and nothing will be shipped. A team made up of "contacts men" will have lots of customers, but nothing will be shipped. A team made up of "workers" and "finishers" will ship the same as everybody else.
But a team where a "critic" selects the sound ideas emitted by an "ideas man", gets them made by a "worker" and polished by a "finisher" will be able to ship things to clients discovered by the "contacts man". And the "chairman" will get them all working together.
"Engineers" are usually primarily "ideas men" or "critics", with a secondary "worker" role. "Technicians" are usually primarily "workers" or "finishers", with a secondary "critic" role. Vive la difference.
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I just want to say this thread has provided some fantastic insight into various things, and I've enjoyed reading everyone's posts. I'm learning a lot here, and hope the discussion continues.
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#48 Reply
Posted by
SteveyG
on 12 Sep, 2016 18:44
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But an MEng first degree is not equivalent to a MSc postgraduate degree.
In what way?
An MEng still allows you to stay generic because the modules are electives and can be unrelated to each other or part of different disciplines. Examples are control theory and microwave communication.
An Msc restricts your electives to modules that are related to the discipline. It's targeted more towards a specific area but doesn't ask you to research new areas to advance the field like a PhD.
That must be a university specific thing. We were only allowed to choose subjects that were taught by the engineering department
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#49 Reply
Posted by
Galenbo
on 13 Sep, 2016 11:25
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Math: Well, EE has a bunch of math classes and I have come to the conclusion that the better you are at math, the more money you make. Regrettably, Statistics is included in that observation. I hate Statistics!
Math is needed to be able to make money, and Statistics is necessary to prevent liars from taking your money away.
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#50 Reply
Posted by
void_error
on 13 Sep, 2016 13:43
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The danger with too much specialisation is you learn more and more about less and less, until eventually you will know everything about nothing.
Over here, from my experience, a lot of EEs know nothing about EE even after they graduate. They either find a way to cheat through exams or learn everything mechanically (and get good grades for that), without understanding it and are unable to apply what they studied. The whole education system is ass-backwards if you ask me, outdated by at least 25-30 years. I've given up trying to get my degree in Applied Electronics for a few years but I'll be back to university this autumn and hopefully I'll get that bloody piece of paper. I've learned too much by myself during those years not to officially be an engineer, even had (still have, until this month passes) a job in this field as they couldn't find anyone with a degree capable enough.
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#51 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 13 Sep, 2016 21:08
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Math: Well, EE has a bunch of math classes and I have come to the conclusion that the better you are at math, the more money you make. Regrettably, Statistics is included in that observation. I hate Statistics!
Math is needed to be able to make money, and Statistics is necessary to prevent liars from taking your money away.
Indeed! It actually helps if you are born cynical. Not believing much of anything is probably the best way to keep your money.
Here is a dandy little book "How To Lie With Statistics" some 60+ years old.
http://www.horace.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/How-to-Lie-With-Statistics-1954-Huff.pdf
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#52 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 13 Sep, 2016 22:46
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Math: Well, EE has a bunch of math classes and I have come to the conclusion that the better you are at math, the more money you make. Regrettably, Statistics is included in that observation. I hate Statistics!
Math is needed to be able to make money, and Statistics is necessary to prevent liars from taking your money away.
Indeed! It actually helps if you are born cynical. Not believing much of anything is probably the best way to keep your money.
Here is a dandy little book "How To Lie With Statistics" some 60+ years old.
http://www.horace.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/How-to-Lie-With-Statistics-1954-Huff.pdf
Yes to all of that. Huff's book is just as accurate and relevant today.
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I second that, Huff's book is a masterpiece that everybody should have read long before graduating.
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#54 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 14 Sep, 2016 10:53
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Another perspective.
From the age of about 8 I was interested in electronics and had been designing and building things from scratch since about the age of 12. I taught myself algebra and calculus from books from the library before I picked it up at school. I got in trouble for skipping some language lessons and religious education to hide and play with transistors instead.
So I thought, hey I'll do an EE degree. Which I did, 18 years ago at a good university here in the UK. I quit after a year, with good grades I will add. I have precisely zero prospects of getting an EE job. That's the way I like it and I have no regrets at all.
Why?
It was hell. SPICE, VHDL, PASCAL were the soup of the day served cold with a side helping of politics. This thoroughly ruined my interest in the subject for a good few years. Also, only one subject, digital electronics, was well taught and enjoyable and the lecturer actually wrote decent material and a supporting book.
Turns out I was pretty good at writing software, which is all we really did in the EE degree anyway, not that I explicitly like doing it so I jumped on that bandwagon and went for cash instead. This paid off and I spent a good few years working at a hardware company with EE's running their operational and asset management software. Spoke to lots of EE's there and they agreed with my perspective. So over many a lunch time I filled in any gaps with real people in the industry and learned a lot more than I ever would have elsewhere.
On this basis I'm all for apprenticeships. University is an expensive way of obtaining some paper that proves nothing. I also have to recruit software engineers regularly and this is definitely apparent there too.
Also I'm a firm believer that if you are interested in something, don't make it into work. Do something you hate that pays well and keep your spare time for the things you really care about.
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#55 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 14 Sep, 2016 14:57
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Setq wrote about his experiences.
Regardless of the student, bad teaching and uninteresting (to the student) subjects will put anybody off. There are analogies with apprenticeships, where there was a tradition of shatting on the apprentice to "toughen them up" and "make them pay their dues".
I have long thought that apprenticeships are underrated and underused, and for some people are much more appropriate and better that a degree. It narked me when Polytechnics rebranded themselves as Unis, because Polys offered a different type of course to a trad Uni course. Horses/students for courses.
Having said that, in electronics the theory (inc maths) cannot be ignored, since it underpins every reliable reproducable design. It is pretty difficult (although not impossible) to get a good grounding in the theory without formal course.
In software there is far more latitude for, well, hacking in the pejorative sense. Many would argue that's a main contributor to the dismal state of most of today's software systems.
As for the quality of graduate software writer... there are many that shouldn't be let anywhere near a keyboard. But the same is true of non-graduate software writers.
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#56 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 14 Sep, 2016 15:49
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Which incidentally suggests that the deciding factor is aptitude, not education and the latter does not necessarily correlate to the former.
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#57 Reply
Posted by
dmills
on 14 Sep, 2016 16:07
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Which incidentally suggests that the deciding factor is aptitude, not education and the latter does not necessarily correlate to the former.
More so for software I think, because the elephant in the room there is not learning a language and typing code into a computer, it is acquiring the sense of taste to know how to structure reasonably large real world systems so that they are maintainable, and you can sort of do things on a small but somewhat useful scale without that.
Something similar happens with hardware design, but the barriers to entry are rather higher so it is a little less obvious, and somewhat easier to test in an interview.
The closer you get to the physics the more the math matters.
Agree that the loss of the polytechnics was a disaster.
Regards, Dan.
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#58 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 14 Sep, 2016 16:14
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That's a fair point. I ascended to architect status eventually and there's a lot of rigorous engineering going on these days but there is a mire at the entry point and in older products that is quite scary. I've walked into a couple of companies in the last decade or so and quit immediately. If they were hardware we'd all be dead or on fire.
The mathematics is the interesting bit for me. Physics and electronics comes from being able to apply it to something that does something rather than just ponder the existence of abstract constructs.
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#59 Reply
Posted by
rstofer
on 14 Sep, 2016 16:21
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I second that, Huff's book is a masterpiece that everybody should have read long before graduating.
One more masterpiece: "The Ropes To Skip And The Ropes To Know" The book is/was used at Santa Clara University (Silicon Gulch) and was given to me back in the late '70s. I can't find a free version but if you want to know how the game is played, this is the book to read.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0470169672/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=allLiterally everything you need to know in order to understand and thrive in a corporate culture.
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#60 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 14 Sep, 2016 16:30
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It's not possible to thrive in corporate culture without treading on people I have found, books be damned. Being ridiculously accountable is the biggest weapon in your toolbox.
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#61 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 14 Sep, 2016 17:20
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The only book on management theory that I ever thought was worth a damn was "Up the Organisation" by Robert Townshend, who built Avis into the number 2 car hire company.
It is short, with most topic taking only one or two pages. A sample, in its entirety is "Personnel Department. Fire the lot".
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#62 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 14 Sep, 2016 17:23
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It's not possible to thrive in corporate culture without treading on people I have found, books be damned. Being ridiculously accountable is the biggest weapon in your toolbox.
Depends on the corporation.
For example, in HP I saw one person depart quickly because she stated that <my HP entity> was lucky to be better than <other HP entities>. Nobody thought we were better, just different, with differing objectives advantages and disadvantages.
Other organisations are much less pleasant, of course.
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One more masterpiece: "The Ropes To Skip And The Ropes To Know" The book is/was used at Santa Clara University (Silicon Gulch) and was given to me back in the late '70s. I can't find a free version but if you want to know how the game is played, this is the book to read.
Oh... Thanks you very much, I've never heard of it before. I had a look on the reviews on Amazon. Is it like a "Dilbert Principle", minus the sarcasm?
The only book on management theory that I ever thought was worth a damn was "Up the Organisation" by Robert Townshend, who built Avis into the number 2 car hire company.
It is short, with most topic taking only one or two pages. A sample, in its entirety is "Personnel Department. Fire the lot".
I've put this one on my read list too, thanks you! And I love the quote
I observed that >95% of books about management are utter crap (Lean, Team building, 6 sigma, HR... Append something to the list as you wish). The best book I've read on management up to date is Drucker's
Management Tasks Responsibilities Practices. It's not really about what we're chatting about = "field operations", but top management. Nevertheless, very interresting read, would read again. One of my favorite quotes :
When managers speak of marketing, they usually mean the organized performance of all selling functions. This is still selling. It still starts out with “our products.” It still looks for “our market.” True marketing starts out the way Sears starts out—with the customer, his demographics, his realities, his needs, his values. It does not ask, “What do we want to sell?” It asks, “What does the customer want to buy?” It does not say, “This is what our product or service does.” It says, “These are the satisfactions the customer looks for, values, and needs.”
Indeed, selling and marketing are antithetical rather than synonymous or even complementary. There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available, i.e., logistics rather than salesmanship, and statistical distribution rather than promotion.
The book distills the monumental author's wisdoms like this on every page.
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#64 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 15 Sep, 2016 06:50
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When managers speak of marketing, they usually mean the organized performance of all selling functions. This is still selling. It still starts out with “our products.” It still looks for “our market.” True marketing starts out the way Sears starts out—with the customer, his demographics, his realities, his needs, his values. It does not ask, “What do we want to sell?” It asks, “What does the customer want to buy?” It does not say, “This is what our product or service does.” It says, “These are the satisfactions the customer looks for, values, and needs.”
Indeed, selling and marketing are antithetical rather than synonymous or even complementary. There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available, i.e., logistics rather than salesmanship, and statistical distribution rather than promotion.
The book distills the monumental author's wisdoms like this on every page.
Interesting. I asked an HP manager what he thought was the distinction between marketing and selling. He said "Selling represents the factory to the customer. Marketing represents the customer to the factory". That's the only answer I've ever been able to understand.
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#65 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 15 Sep, 2016 07:40
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HP sounded clued. Congratulations!
I observed that >95% of books about management are utter crap (Lean, Team building, 6 sigma, HR...
Six sigma victim here. Couldn't agree more.
I got dragged into the mandatory process remodelling of a large defence company starting many years ago that was based around that. Nothing but complete unadulterated bollocks. The ethics section was comedic. It was taught with PowerPoint and an American guy who had clearly been doing copious amounts of speed or something. He was way too cheery and being British, we weren't having any of that shit. We all got a nice certificate with Dilbert on it at the end that we had to print ourselves to stick on our cube dividers over the pictures of missiles and bombs we made to kill people with and the surveillance products we made to enslave the ones we didn't manage to kill, whilst being careful not to exceed our free printing allowance or we'd have to fill in a form, on paper, to request more paper. It merely proved we could navigate ten multiple choice questions by expending the least amount of effort so we could crawl to the canteen and get some more subsidised shit coffee so we could self-flagellate some more whilst dreaming the weekend and escaping the compound where we were held prisoner with no natural light.
And that's corporate culture
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#66 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 15 Sep, 2016 08:30
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HP sounded clued. Congratulations!
It was. I decided to leave when Carly was in full swing, "doubling down" and all that crap.
I've seen reports (probably on the internal usenet) that she had a meeting with Bill. Bill said nothing until the end, when he said "get me out of here". I wish I could find some confirmation of that.
I observed that >95% of books about management are utter crap (Lean, Team building, 6 sigma, HR...
... canteen and get some more subsidised shit coffee so we could self-flagellate some more whilst dreaming the weekend and escaping the compound where we were held prisoner with no natural light.
And that's corporate culture
Don't overreach; it casts doubts on your other statements. Most of the companies I've worked for have been very different. Of course, during the university milkround I visited 12 companies - and chose to avoid GEC/Marconi and similar.
HP used to have suckling pig, frogs legs, and many other very nice items on the menu. The Grenoble factory canteen was better than most restaurants, with fresh oysters and racks of wine.
At another place, I've known people that have booked 25 hours on a timesheet for one day ("I went in at 9 on Saturday and left at 10 on Sunday"), and have gone in to work on a project on Christmas Day.
An engineer should always have a mistress. That way they can tell the mistress they are with the wife, the wife they are with the mistress - and go and have some fun in the lab.
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#67 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 15 Sep, 2016 08:43
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My statements are pretty run of the mill in the UK. We like to complain
To be fair my last two appointments have been pretty good. I work from home now and we have a fairly open work schedule so there is plenty of opportunity for personal development, on topic of course. People have lots of places to ask questions about what to expect out of education and life these days. Back then we just had to work off poorly taught assumptions and assume the bad stuff was normal.
Definitely agree with your last statement
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#68 Reply
Posted by
CJay
on 15 Sep, 2016 11:32
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Now after reading all of that, I need to work out if it's worth my doing a degree at age (nearly) *cough* 48.
I don't know if it'd be worth the effort from a career point of view or just for my own satisfaction.
It'd have to be the OU as well...
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#69 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 15 Sep, 2016 11:42
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Now after reading all of that, I need to work out if it's worth my doing a degree at age (nearly) *cough* 48.
I don't know if it'd be worth the effort from a career point of view
Probably not. You are, as someone I know found on an agent's copy of their CV, "PSBD". That's "past sell by date". In some ways we were glad, because that meant he was able to be employed by my department
or just for my own satisfaction.
Quite possibly. I know someone your age that has just started an astrophysics course.
It'd have to be the OU as well...
There are many many distance learning courses available, of course. Most big unis do them now.
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#70 Reply
Posted by
setq
on 15 Sep, 2016 14:06
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OU are pretty good from what I understand.
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#71 Reply
Posted by
CJay
on 15 Sep, 2016 14:41
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Now after reading all of that, I need to work out if it's worth my doing a degree at age (nearly) *cough* 48.
I don't know if it'd be worth the effort from a career point of view
Probably not. You are, as someone I know found on an agent's copy of their CV, "PSBD". That's "past sell by date". In some ways we were glad, because that meant he was able to be employed by my department
or just for my own satisfaction.
Quite possibly. I know someone your age that has just started an astrophysics course.
It'd have to be the OU as well...
There are many many distance learning courses available, of course. Most big unis do them now.
While I'm well aware my career is pretty much set and I'll work out the rest of my days wandering around various government departments trying to find brick walls to batter my head against at the stupidity of the management, it's not a fun realisation that I'm, as they say, PSBD.
Hence the push to 'do something with my life' (I've had a pretty good one so far, lots of fun experiences but it's not gone the way I'd have wanted) so the OU (or other) distance learning course is going to happen.
Just have to decide what in now
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#72 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 15 Sep, 2016 14:49
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Now after reading all of that, I need to work out if it's worth my doing a degree at age (nearly) *cough* 48.
I don't know if it'd be worth the effort from a career point of view
Probably not. You are, as someone I know found on an agent's copy of their CV, "PSBD". That's "past sell by date". In some ways we were glad, because that meant he was able to be employed by my department
or just for my own satisfaction.
Quite possibly. I know someone your age that has just started an astrophysics course.
It'd have to be the OU as well...
There are many many distance learning courses available, of course. Most big unis do them now.
While I'm well aware my career is pretty much set and I'll work out the rest of my days wandering around various government departments trying to find brick walls to batter my head against at the stupidity of the management, it's not a fun realisation that I'm, as they say, PSBD.
Hence the push to 'do something with my life' (I've had a pretty good one so far, lots of fun experiences but it's not gone the way I'd have wanted) so the OU (or other) distance learning course is going to happen.
Just have to decide what in now
Welcome to one of the clubs you never wanted to join
Even where management is good, and there are such places, you will run into client stupidity (and if you let them get in the loop, salesman stupidity).
We are lucky; most people don't have much choice in what they do.
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It's been a while since I made the original post here, but since then I made the decision to go to college, and I've now just graduated a few days ago, so I thought I would put down some of what I learned about the experience.
For some context, I'm American and I attended Lehigh University in the state of Pennsylvania which is primarily an engineering and business school. I majored in what they called "Computer Engineering" which is a blend between their Electrical Engineering and Computer Science programs.
In my experience, I did not get better at a lot of the practical aspects of engineering by taking classes there. For example, many of the skills required to make the projects I was interested in weren't taught there. These skills include such things as soldering, PCB design, sourcing parts, and knowing how to set up a basic board with a microcontroller, voltage regulator, and support circuitry. These sorts of skills I had from past personal projects, and continued to improve upon them in my limited spare time, however they were not a part of the curriculum. The one exception to this might be programming. I believe that I definitely became a better programmer while in school, but I believe most of this came from simply being forced to do it so often rather than because of how the classes were taught (a significant exception to this was an operating systems class which was absolutely incredible).
However, besides the obvious difference in employment eligibility by holding a degree, I believe the experience was worth it for some other reasons that I did not expect when I first started:
First, going to college drastically increased my mathematical literacy. I found this to be incredibly important because it allowed me to be able to read textbooks and papers in all sorts of engineering and scientific topics that previously were completely inaccessible to me. I believe this was one of the most valuable things I learned because it enables me to continue to learn on my own in new ways after school.
Having the improved mathematical literacy opened me up to whole areas I didn't know existed, or thought were simplistic and boring. For example, I used to believe that the physics of electricity and magnetism was not particularly interesting, but after taking calc 3, I was able to appreciate its beauty, and it became one of my favorite subjects to learn about. I also used to not know a thing about signal processing, and I thought analog design was boring until I took a signals class where the world of frequency analysis was opened up to me, and it not only became one of my favorite subjects, but also completely changed how I saw a lot of the world. None of this would have been possible (at least to the same degree) had I not had classes in differential equations, linear algebra, and complex variables. Knowing that math enabled me to read and learn new things I could have never accessed before.
Second, the curriculum at college opened me up to fantastic textbooks from which I could teach myself things outside of class, whether in the subjects of mathematics, circuit design, physics, signal processing, computer architecture, or operating system design. While it certainly isn't necessary to go to school to know what good texts are available, I found that to be a very helpful part of the experience. At some point I would like to compile a list of good resources so that high schoolers interested in those subjects know where to look if they want to learn things on their own (When I was in high school, I found that quite difficult, but I was also homeschooled, so that might have had something to do with it).
Third, once I got to some of the more advanced classes, professors started to teach material that I could not easily find online or in textbooks. I found this to be the case in my mixed signals class, my linear systems class, and in a class on special relativity. While there are resources on these subjects available, the best professors were able to offer insight from industry or from new research which would have been much harder to discover on my own even with a library, the internet, and forums.
Fourth, some of the better professors at the school were very helpful with offering me guidance on what classes to take to learn more about specific areas, and learning more about research opportunities during school and after graduation. My academic advisor, Dr. Shalinee Kishore, in particular was very caring and helpful, and she encouraged me to apply to PhD programs in ECE. This fall I'll be starting a PhD at UPenn, focusing on FPGA development which particularly excites me. I know that this sort of thing would not have been an option had I not attended college.
There are many other benefits and downsides to the college experience (in my opinion), but I don't think those are as relevant to this thread, which was originally about employment requirements for EEs. Over all, however, I believe the experience was a very good one, and I learned a ton. Even though this particular school did not directly help me improve on many of the practical aspects of engineering, I was still able to develop those sorts of skills on my own, and combined with the new theory I learned, I was able to create projects that previously would have been out of my reach. Here is a link to my senior design project, which I think demonstrates a lot of both the practical and theoretical:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/pet-on-a-chip/.
Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. It was very helpful when trying to figure this all out, 4 years ago.
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#74 Reply
Posted by
EEVblog
on 31 May, 2021 04:23
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It's been a while since I made the original post here, but since then I made the decision to go to college, and I've now just graduated a few days ago, so I thought I would put down some of what I learned about the experience.
For some context, I'm American and I attended Lehigh University in the state of Pennsylvania which is primarily an engineering and business school. I majored in what they called "Computer Engineering" which is a blend between their Electrical Engineering and Computer Science programs.
In my experience, I did not get better at a lot of the practical aspects of engineering by taking classes there. For example, many of the skills required to make the projects I was interested in weren't taught there. These skills include such things as soldering, PCB design, sourcing parts, and knowing how to set up a basic board with a microcontroller, voltage regulator, and support circuitry. These sorts of skills I had from past personal projects, and continued to improve upon them in my limited spare time, however they were not a part of the curriculum. The one exception to this might be programming. I believe that I definitely became a better programmer while in school, but I believe most of this came from simply being forced to do it so often rather than because of how the classes were taught (a significant exception to this was an operating systems class which was absolutely incredible).
However, besides the obvious difference in employment eligibility by holding a degree, I believe the experience was worth it for some other reasons that I did not expect when I first started:
First, going to college drastically increased my mathematical literacy. I found this to be incredibly important because it allowed me to be able to read text books and papers in all sorts of engineering and scientific topics that previously were completely inaccessible to me. I believe this was one of the most valuable things I learned because it enables me to continue to learn on my own in new ways after school.
Having the improved mathematical literacy opened me up to whole areas I didn't know existed, or thought were simplistic and boring. For example, I used to believe that the physics of electricity and magnetism was not particularly interesting, but after taking calc 3, I was able to appreciate its beauty, and it became one of my favorite subjects to learn about. I also used to not know a thing about signal processing, and I thought analog design was boring until I took a signals class where the world of frequency analysis was opened up to me, and it not only became one of my favorite subjects, but also completely changed how I saw a lot of the world. None of this would have been possible (at least to the same degree) had I not had classes in differential equations, linear algebra, and complex variables. Knowing that math enabled me to read and learn new things I could have never accessed before.
Second, the curriculum at college opened me up to fantastic textbooks from which I could teach myself things outside of class, whether in the subjects of mathematics, circuit design, physics, signal processing, computer architecture, or operating system design. While it certainly isn't necessary to go to school to know what good texts are available, I found that to be a very helpful part of the experience. At some point I would like to compile a list of good resources so that high schoolers interested in those subjects know where to look if they want to learn things on their own (When I was in high school, I found that quite difficult, but I was also homeschooled, so that might have had something to do with it).
Third, once I got to some of the more advanced classes, professors started to teach material that I could not easily find online or in textbooks. I found this to be the case in my mixed signals class, my linear systems class, and in a class on special relativity. While there are resources on these subjects available, the best professors were able to offer insight from industry or from new research which would have been much harder to discover on my own even with a library, the internet, and forums.
Fourth, some of the better professors at the school were very helpful with offering me guidance on what classes to take to learn more about specific areas, and learning more about research opportunities during school and after graduation. My academic advisor in particular was very caring and helpful, and she encouraged me to apply to PhD programs in ECE. This fall I'll be starting a PhD at UPenn, focusing on FPGA development which particularly excites me. I know that this sort of thing would not have been an option had I not attended college.
There are many other benefits and downsides to the college experience (in my opinion), but I don't think those are as relevant to this thread, which was originally about employment requirements for EEs. Over all, however, I believe the experience was a very good one, and I learned a ton. Even though this particular school did not directly help me improve on many of the practical aspects of engineering, I was still able to develop those sorts of skills on my own, and combined with the new theory I learned, I was able to create projects that previously would have been out of my reach. Here is a link to my senior design project, which I think demonstrates a lot of both the practical and theoretical: [url]https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/pet-on-a-chip/[/url].
Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. It was very helpful when trying to figure this all out, 4 years ago.
Great summary, thanks for sharing. Congrats on graduating!
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#75 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 31 May, 2021 07:32
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It's been a while since I made the original post here, but since then I made the decision to go to college, and I've now just graduated a few days ago, so I thought I would put down some of what I learned about the experience.
Thanks for writing this up. It
will be valuable to other people, partly because I'll refer to it when other people raise such questions or the perennial "degrees are useless because I knew a graduate that tried to measure the mains impedance with a multimeter" argument
It seems that you have had the experiences I would have hoped you would have. Or rather that you explicitly ensured that you made good use of your your time there. I'm sure such an attitude and diligence will stand you in good stead during the rest of your career.
Keep on learning, have fun, and don't let ten years of experience be one year repeated ten times
Congratulations on graduating, of course.
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#76 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 31 May, 2021 13:13
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Thanks for following up. It's rare someone will make this kind of thread and come back four years later!
I'm glad you had a positive experience at university. Presumably you're much younger than me. I'm even less likely to go back to study, now at the age of 39, than I was when this thread started. The idea of going to class with a load of freshers, young enough to be my children seems strange and somewhat intimidating now and I've forgotten a lot of the maths, so would struggle to get back into it.
Apprenticeships are also a good route and some even go up to degree level. The apprentice where I work has just left and found another employer who pay more and will fund him to do an HND, followed by a degree and good for him!
Again it's good you want to study further, but why not spend a year, or so on the job, before going back to university again? I have had experience with those who have spent a lot of time in education, away from industry and they can be challenging to work with.
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Keep on learning, have fun, and don't let ten years of experience be one year repeated ten times
I have not heard that before! Good advice, thank you!
Again it's good you want to study further, but why not spend a year, or so on the job, before going back to university again? I have had experience with those who have spent a lot of time in education, away from industry and they can be challenging to work with.
Yes, in some ways I think going directly into a PhD program without industry experience will work against me if I decide to enter industry afterwards instead of academia. I'm not sure there's a way around that if I continue this route, but I'm hopeful that if I'm humble and always willing to learn, then it will be less painful for those I end up working with, and I will be okay in the end.
For me, the PhD program is also less about taking more classes or improving my chances of employment, and more about having the freedom to do interesting research with some really talented people. One of the things the lab I'll be working with is doing is helping to develop the free and open source FPGA design flows. I got into FPGAs because of the free tools like Yosys, nextpnr, iceprog, etc, which just recently become available (2018 ish), and it excites me that I might have the opportunity to make useful contributions to the community. The lab is also experimenting with new dynamic partial reconfiguration techniques on FPGAs, and I'm also very interested in that as well.
So while this program may not make me a more employable engineer with lots of real world industry experience, I think it will allow me to explore certain areas with more freedom than if I went directly into industry. Looking back to my original post on this thread, I suppose my goals and interests have shifted. Originally I was very concerned that I might not make it through an undergrad program, and wanted to know if it was necessary to get a job. I thought PhD programs were completely theoretical, and I wanted nothing to do with them. Now I know I could probably get a job, (just about everyone else in my class got an offer), but now I know a bit more about the sorts of things I would get to do in a PhD program and it really appeals to me.
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#78 Reply
Posted by
tggzzz
on 31 May, 2021 22:17
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When working in HPLabs, we once mused about what were valid and invalid reasons for doing a PhD if you wanted to be employed in industrial R&D. We came to the conclusion the only valid reason was "because I wanted to". An academic career is, of course, different. (BTW, "only" is an exaggeration to make the point)
Getting a PhD
- delays you entering the workforce for 3+ years, so you are 3 years "behind" your classmates
- won't increase your salary; unless the PhD's subject is directly relevant you will be on a new graduate salary scale
- will be in a narrow subject that is unlikely to be of direct relevance to an employer (unlike a first degree)
- if it is of direct interest to an employer, you have to be careful they don't suck out your experience, then discard you
- will indicate that you can independently learn in depth about a subject. By implication that will be relevant to some industrial jobs, but there are other ways of demonstrating that
You might care to test the waters by having interviews with some potential employers, and asking them whether a PhD would be useful. They might be put off by a "lack of commitment", but if offered a job, you don't have to accept!
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#79 Reply
Posted by
IanB
on 31 May, 2021 22:47
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I have been surrounded by PhD's in jobs where I have worked, and the number of people with higher degrees may depend somewhat on the industry. In engineering disciplines there can be something akin to "an industrial PhD", often undertaken with sponsorship and collaboration with an industrial partner.
Research is definitely a component of industrial operations, especially when developing technologies to obtain market advantage and gain a lead over the competition. So PhD training does have industrial relevance beyond the specific research subject. Just as a first degree is about "learning how to learn", a higher degree should be about "learning how to investigate".
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#80 Reply
Posted by
wizard69
on 01 Jun, 2021 01:24
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I will be applying to colleges this year, and I am interested in pursuing a career in electrical engineering. From what I have gathered from this forum and other sources, most EE programs at colleges will not prepare you well for a career in electrical engineering,
I don't see this as true at all. Now your EE program should be oriented to solid state electronics. Honestly i couldn't even imagine working at the technician level without a solid grounding in the basics. Frankly I see college as one of the better ways to get the basics down for an engineer or technician. That doesn't mean that being self taught is impossible or bad, it certainly can be done.
In any event I think what you are talking about here is knowledge and experience learned from seasoned professionals that might not be covered in school. That is in fact very important in the development of ones career (frankly it is important be you a engineer or plumber). However I don't see most professionals wasting time on you to get you up to speed on basic concepts.
but rather, most of your knowledge and skill will come from work experience. I have, however, read that in order to secure an EE job at many companies, you must possess a EE degree.
Mostly true. In some locations there may be legal obligations depending upon the field of engineering. That is you may need to be licensed as a professional engineer.
I was wondering if any of you would tell me if a bachelors degree is adequate, or if a masters degree is required for most job applications. Also, if I have misunderstood how a college education and degree in EE benefits students, I would be grateful if you corrected me.
The degree requirement will vary with the job. You could very likely find positions demanding a PHd.
You question about the benefits of a degree which can be generalized to any college degree perplexes me. It may be a case if you have not gone you don't know, but education doesn't stop at the 12th grade. Even a 2 year tech degree will do much for your understanding of the technology and you really can't dismiss the rounding out of your education. Things like communications classes, mathematics, and the required misc. classes do much to help your career. Personally I don't think you would have been able to understand my postings without the extra effort required to get through my communications classes. It really improved my ability to communicate with other team members on a daily basis. I really don't think you can improve yourself in this regard without feed back from people reading and evaluating what you write.
You are not alone and I suspect a lot of students entering college ask them selves is it worth it. In some cases it isn't so we have to be honest here. However in the specific case of electrical engineering I really see it as a requirement. You might get a job labeled "engineer" without the degree, but it is highly doubtful it will be in a position that offers real growth. Maybe more importantly you will have no mobility to move from employer to employer.
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#81 Reply
Posted by
wizard69
on 01 Jun, 2021 01:38
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This is so important to understand, an advanced education will not make a useless person useful!!!!!! There are far more "EE's" out there that are useless than most people realize as you would expect that a degree would imply some intelligence and drive. However a degree can pretty much assure that such a person will get a job over somebody else without a degree.
To put is simply if you have the drive and ability to be a good engineer, get a degree as you will end up supporting such useless people otherwise.
You will find some people that say a degree is a waste of time. You must assess that person and why they have that opinion. Usually they don't have a degree, and often they have been unable to get a degree. If that's the case, how can they possibly know the value of a degree?
I think the reason why some people will say that a degree is a waste of time is because they've worked with people who are very well qualified but are totally useless at their job. Of course I wouldn't say a degree is a waste of time. It just won't make anyone a good engineer.
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.
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.
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#82 Reply
Posted by
wizard69
on 01 Jun, 2021 02:09
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wow what a post! I didn't realize that this thread was so old (tired and it is getting late) so I responded to earlier comments. In any event I'm glad that you have managed to go as far as you have. Hopefully this message goes viral and more high school students will read it. Sometime college improves you in ways you don't expect looking from the outside. Looking back I really wish I had more time to invest in my education so go for all you can handle.
It's been a while since I made the original post here, but since then I made the decision to go to college, and I've now just graduated a few days ago, so I thought I would put down some of what I learned about the experience.
For some context, I'm American and I attended Lehigh University in the state of Pennsylvania which is primarily an engineering and business school. I majored in what they called "Computer Engineering" which is a blend between their Electrical Engineering and Computer Science programs.
In my experience, I did not get better at a lot of the practical aspects of engineering by taking classes there. For example, many of the skills required to make the projects I was interested in weren't taught there. These skills include such things as soldering, PCB design, sourcing parts, and knowing how to set up a basic board with a microcontroller, voltage regulator, and support circuitry. These sorts of skills I had from past personal projects, and continued to improve upon them in my limited spare time, however they were not a part of the curriculum. The one exception to this might be programming. I believe that I definitely became a better programmer while in school, but I believe most of this came from simply being forced to do it so often rather than because of how the classes were taught (a significant exception to this was an operating systems class which was absolutely incredible).
However, besides the obvious difference in employment eligibility by holding a degree, I believe the experience was worth it for some other reasons that I did not expect when I first started:
First, going to college drastically increased my mathematical literacy. I found this to be incredibly important because it allowed me to be able to read text books and papers in all sorts of engineering and scientific topics that previously were completely inaccessible to me. I believe this was one of the most valuable things I learned because it enables me to continue to learn on my own in new ways after school.
Having the improved mathematical literacy opened me up to whole areas I didn't know existed, or thought were simplistic and boring. For example, I used to believe that the physics of electricity and magnetism was not particularly interesting, but after taking calc 3, I was able to appreciate its beauty, and it became one of my favorite subjects to learn about. I also used to not know a thing about signal processing, and I thought analog design was boring until I took a signals class where the world of frequency analysis was opened up to me, and it not only became one of my favorite subjects, but also completely changed how I saw a lot of the world. None of this would have been possible (at least to the same degree) had I not had classes in differential equations, linear algebra, and complex variables. Knowing that math enabled me to read and learn new things I could have never accessed before.
Second, the curriculum at college opened me up to fantastic textbooks from which I could teach myself things outside of class, whether in the subjects of mathematics, circuit design, physics, signal processing, computer architecture, or operating system design. While it certainly isn't necessary to go to school to know what good texts are available, I found that to be a very helpful part of the experience. At some point I would like to compile a list of good resources so that high schoolers interested in those subjects know where to look if they want to learn things on their own (When I was in high school, I found that quite difficult, but I was also homeschooled, so that might have had something to do with it).
Third, once I got to some of the more advanced classes, professors started to teach material that I could not easily find online or in textbooks. I found this to be the case in my mixed signals class, my linear systems class, and in a class on special relativity. While there are resources on these subjects available, the best professors were able to offer insight from industry or from new research which would have been much harder to discover on my own even with a library, the internet, and forums.
Fourth, some of the better professors at the school were very helpful with offering me guidance on what classes to take to learn more about specific areas, and learning more about research opportunities during school and after graduation. My academic advisor in particular was very caring and helpful, and she encouraged me to apply to PhD programs in ECE. This fall I'll be starting a PhD at UPenn, focusing on FPGA development which particularly excites me. I know that this sort of thing would not have been an option had I not attended college.
There are many other benefits and downsides to the college experience (in my opinion), but I don't think those are as relevant to this thread, which was originally about employment requirements for EEs. Over all, however, I believe the experience was a very good one, and I learned a ton. Even though this particular school did not directly help me improve on many of the practical aspects of engineering, I was still able to develop those sorts of skills on my own, and combined with the new theory I learned, I was able to create projects that previously would have been out of my reach. Here is a link to my senior design project, which I think demonstrates a lot of both the practical and theoretical: [url]https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/pet-on-a-chip/[/url].
Thank you for all your advice and encouragement. It was very helpful when trying to figure this all out, 4 years ago.
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#83 Reply
Posted by
EEVblog
on 01 Jun, 2021 11:21
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Yes, in some ways I think going directly into a PhD program without industry experience will work against me if I decide to enter industry afterwards instead of academia. I'm not sure there's a way around that if I continue this route, but I'm hopeful that if I'm humble and always willing to learn, then it will be less painful for those I end up working with, and I will be okay in the end.
For me, the PhD program is also less about taking more classes or improving my chances of employment, and more about having the freedom to do interesting research with some really talented people. One of the things the lab I'll be working with is doing is helping to develop the free and open source FPGA design flows. I got into FPGAs because of the free tools like Yosys, nextpnr, iceprog, etc, which just recently become available (2018 ish), and it excites me that I might have the opportunity to make useful contributions to the community. The lab is also experimenting with new dynamic partial reconfiguration techniques on FPGAs, and I'm also very interested in that as well.
So while this program may not make me a more employable engineer with lots of real world industry experience, I think it will allow me to explore certain areas with more freedom than if I went directly into industry. Looking back to my original post on this thread, I suppose my goals and interests have shifted. Originally I was very concerned that I might not make it through an undergrad program, and wanted to know if it was necessary to get a job. I thought PhD programs were completely theoretical, and I wanted nothing to do with them. Now I know I could probably get a job, (just about everyone else in my class got an offer), but now I know a bit more about the sorts of things I would get to do in a PhD program and it really appeals to me.
Bolded by me.
The answer is simple and clear:
Doing something you enjoy, getting paid for it (presumably?), and having a PhD in a niche practical field, you'll be unbeatable on the other side of this.
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#84 Reply
Posted by
ebastler
on 16 Jun, 2022 16:10
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I wasn't sure what I want to do in future.. but reading this thread helped me to make a final decision. I am deeply grateful to everyone of you.
So what is it you want to do in the future? Posting link spam for a living?
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#85 Reply
Posted by
Zero999
on 16 Jun, 2022 16:49
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I wasn't sure what I want to do in future.. but reading this thread helped me to make a final decision. I am deeply grateful to everyone of you.
So what is it you want to do in the future? Posting link spam for a living?
Come on, give the poster a chance. He appeared to have read the thread.
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#86 Reply
Posted by
ebastler
on 16 Jun, 2022 18:32
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Come on, give the poster a chance. He appeared to have read the thread.
Yes, but no. All the other hallmarks of a spam poster are there -- new user, old thread, vaguely relevant short post. "Education" threads are a popular link-spam target; plenty of student help sites are looking for attention. And if you Google the poster's account name, you will find half a dozen posts to various forums, all dating from the last two days, apparently all with a similar theme.
Nice attempt, and bonus points for getting three "thanks" for a spam post. I have not reported the post yet to see how this plays out, but am pretty sure what to expect over the next couple of days...
EDIT: And here we go... A rather patient spammer, waited a full two weeks. But they dropped their payload eventually:
I wasn't sure what I want to do in future.. but reading this thread helped me to make a final decision. I am deeply grateful to everyone of you. However, I still think that the education system in the US is broken. It's not working as intended, or maybe I had a really bad experience. I had some teachers that were discriminating me, they've been always mean, not accepting my homework and so on. The worst part was about essays. I had to scan half of the internet and look for essays ideas like here [[spam link removed]] for example, in order to make my homework, and my teacher to happy with it. This kind of experience made me feel really disappointed in the whole education.
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#87 Reply
Posted by
Miyuki
on 16 Jun, 2022 20:22
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Come on, give the poster a chance. He appeared to have read the thread.
Yes, but no. All the other hallmarks of a spam poster are there -- new user, old thread, vaguely relevant short post. "Education" threads are a popular link-spam target; plenty of student help sites are looking for attention. And if you Google the poster's account name, you will find half a dozen posts to various forums, all dating from the last two days, apparently all with a similar theme.
Nice attempt, and bonus points for getting three "thanks" for a spam post. I have not reported the post yet to see how this plays out, but am pretty sure what to expect over the next couple of days...
At least it highlighted a nice thread.
I can just bring up my experience as I'm now changing a job related to EE and without a title
And the education importance at interviews is like: And btw what was your education?
So totally irrelevant, compared to experience and enthusiasm
University was just too crowded place for me to be, so I choose different way
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PhD
PHD Person Helpless at Designing... or Person Highly Defective
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#89 Reply
Posted by
armandine2
on 16 Jun, 2022 22:21
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In my experience, just a "red brick" undergraduate engineering course in the late 1980s, a PhD was not the prize for the best students. Industry beckoned all but the deferred PhD students, who had another agenda.
I've read those Feynman biographies, where the star's university career seems to be the allotted route for the high flier, without much contradiction.