General > General Technical Chat

Wayward EE lost and lamenting

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rstofer:
What tech jobs are available in your area?  How many courses would it take to have the equivalent of a major in that subject.

EE is mostly math and physics plus a very few specific electronics courses.  Converting to a major in software probably takes 6 classes and no other 'general education' courses.  A dual major, I suppose.  You might even be able to swing a Master's without having a Bachelor's.  This is typical for Master's in Business Administration (MBA).  In fact, it might be worthwhile to look into an MBA.  The field of "Operations Research" is very interesting (learning curves, scheduling, optimization, etc).

If there are no tech jobs in your area you might be able to get a 'work from home' job but I would bet it would be easier to do for software than for hardware.

In the US, we have the Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) which provides information on various careers and, to tell the truth, EE doesn't have much growth potential when compared to software.  Furthermore, BLS provides regional data - engineering in South Dakota doesn't pay as well as engineering in Silicon Valley.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm

Look at the difference in Employment Change.  There will be a LOT of jobs for software folks but EE newgrads are likely to have a problem.  The field only expands by around 1,000 jobs per year and I suspect we graduate a lot more than that!

You can click on the "State and Area" tab to find out that EE in Silicon Valley has a 90th percentile wage of $164k

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes172072.htm

Picking a major because it is fun is to duplicate my path.  I have an MSEE in electronics and never worked a day in that field.  I spent a lot of time working in the area of electrical systems and, ultimately, project management for all kinds of construction (more like an MBA grad which I am not).  I kept electronics as a hobby.  I can't imagine the boredom of sitting around designed little circuits for big projects when I could be out playing on a construction site.  I never liked drafting board work.  CAD sucks and is best left to others.  If the company needs a draftsman, they should hire a draftsman.  I did my work on the back of napkins.

Your degree does not limit you to a particular path, just consider it a cost of entry into any kind of technical or engineering path.  A technical degree of some sort is just table stakes.  I never actually did much engineering, I bought it.  I still had to be conversant in a wide range of topics but that comes with exposure.

coppercone2:
I don't know if manufacturing is so much on the way out with all the trouble with China, it would just take a few sanctions. Eventually those crusty cheap PCBs everyone is ordering might be burned at the port. And not all companies are going to work with a Han Solo getting them shipped through a neutral country.. I think there is still a bit of sweet CCP subsidy making that whole thing so appealing (economic warfare).

ANTALIFE:
OP are you working on any projects at home, if not then now might be a good time to start

Also is it possible for you to see your current job as a way to generate income to partially fund you hobbies/projects, or are you ready to jump to something new?

nctnico:

--- Quote from: coppercone2 on October 04, 2020, 07:11:18 pm ---I don't know if manufacturing is so much on the way out with all the trouble with China, it would just take a few sanctions.

--- End quote ---
You have to take a few steps back. A manufacturer of bulk items may get a 10% margin on the products. The margin between the manufacturer's price and what the end customer pays is around 80%. So guess where most of the money is made... So any way you turn it: manufacturing is the least profitable step in the entire process.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: nctnico on October 04, 2020, 10:45:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppercone2 on October 04, 2020, 07:11:18 pm ---I don't know if manufacturing is so much on the way out with all the trouble with China, it would just take a few sanctions.

--- End quote ---
You have to take a few steps back. A manufacturer of bulk items may get a 10% margin on the products. The margin between the manufacturer's price and what the end customer pays is around 80%. So guess where most of the money is made... So any way you turn it: manufacturing is the least profitable step in the entire process.

--- End quote ---

Which is why the US has out-sourced it.  The money is in creating magic, not manufacturing it.

A subjective view:  The rate of increase in 'magic' dm/dt has fallen considerably since the late '70s and early '80s.  I was there when the 8080 was new, 8" floppy drives were $400 and a 5 MB hard drive was a couple of grand.  I had a lot of fun writing BIOS code for CP/M on the Z80/8080/8085 platforms.  I was an early adopter of UCSD Pascal on the Z80 - I wrote a lot of interpreter code to add various peripherals.  Today it's just incremental improvements in stuff that's been around a long time.  Cell phones are an example; they are more sophisticated than what I had in the early '90s but it's evolutionary, not revolutionary.

The Internet is a counter example!  It is as close to magic as anything can get.  Whatever I need comes UPS in a day or so.  If they closed every brick-and-mortar store in town I wouldn't even notice.

EE is boring!  I wouldn't recommend spending the time and money to major in something with no growth.  Software development or applied mathematics would be my suggestion. I'm becoming more enamored with applied math as time goes on.  Large data, machine learning, AI; those are the growth areas.  Amazon and Google are the places to work.  The good news is that Google has fully embraced 'work from home' - even if it is a long way from Silicon Valley.  I could see myself working on a laptop while sitting on a beach in Thailand.  The big decision would be Mai Tai or Margarita?

I used to be of the opinion that you should find a career that required you to lay your hands on something.  You have to be physically present, the work couldn't be out-sourced or off-shored.  Now, with WFH, I'm rethinking that.  Of course, I'm long retired and this isn't a discussion that involves me.


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