Questions concerning the field of electrical engineer.

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Q. I am a high school student. Recently, i am doing a project about the career of electrical engineering. i need some information from people working in this career. Can anybody please help me with the following questions? 1. What does an electrical engineer do? 2. What are the most interesting aspects of this career? 3. What kinds of problems or challenges do electrical engineers usuallly find in their job? 4. Besides dealing with electrical engineers, what other fields of people do you usually work with? 5. What specific skills are important in order to be superior than other job seekers? 6. Has the demand of electrical engineers increased or decreased in recent years? Do you think the demand is going to change in the next decade? 7. What is the starting salary of an electrical engieer? ( in Canadian dolloars) 8. As an electrical engineer, i am sure you have some knowledge of other branches of electrical engineering, such as the developments of telecommunications, electronics, and computers? Can you briefly explian what do engineers do in these fields? 9. Among these three branches (telecommunications, electronics and computer engineering), which specialization has the greatest potential? 10. How does electrical engineering relate to computer engineering? 11. How do you update your knowledge continously? Do you take any courses? 12. How do engineers with master degrees superior than engineers with just bachelor? 13. How important is electrical engineering to the world? 14. Finally, can you give me some general advice?

A. >I am a high school student. Recently, i am doing a project about the career >of electrical engineering. i need some information from people working in >this career. Can anybody please help me with the following questions? >1. What does an electrical engineer do? People with electrical engineering degrees do a number of things: 1. Circuit design. This can be both challenging and rewarding. 2. System design. Usually the more senior circuit designers move into this area. This type of work is also challenging and rewarding. 3. Research and development. Depending on the particular assignment, this type of work ranges from being very rewarding (when your design or analysis works) to being very disappointing (when things don't quite work out as you'd hoped.) R&D leaves open the possibility that what you're trying to do won't work. 4. Engineering management. If senior engineers don't go into system design, they often go into management. 5. Component and systems sales. This is a waste of an education. 6. Technical writing. This is pretty much a waste of an education, too. >2. What are the most interesting aspects of this career? Speaking for myself, it's undertaking a new challenge that stretches your knowledge just a bit, just enough to make an assignment "doable" with a little added research. Try to make every assignment a growth experience. Many such undertakings over a span of several years can turn a new-grad neophyte into a capable engineer who management and other engineers can rely upon and come to for answers to difficult problems. >3. What kinds of problems or challenges do electrical engineers usuallly >find in their job? Read "Dilbert" cartoons and you'll get a pretty good idea. Seriously, EEs do circuit/system design, circuit/system analysis, technical writing (usually about their own designs and ideas, plus writing proposals to solicit new business), and presentations to upper management and to customers. Real life challenges include selecting a component that will do exactly what you want done, then find out that the part isn't available or management or some other bean counter won't let you use it. Or, management forces you to use an alternate part that you know is inferior. Or, management forces you to take an approach to the design that you know is wrong or bad. As a minor aspect of being an EE, it's hard to explain to others exactly what you do at work. The non-engineers at your company (e.g., the factory workers and non-engineering management) have very strong suspicions that engineering does little or nothing productive, that they worry about the wrong problems, and that what little they do is done wrong. >4. Besides dealing with electrical engineers, what other fields of people >do you usually work with? Customers, management, other engineering departments and other engineering disciplines, production people, component vendors, secretaries, contracts managers, reliability analysts, test equipment vendors and test equipment repairmen, technicians, design/drafting. There are undoubtedly others, but these happened to come to mind. >5. What specific skills are important in order to be superior than other job >seekers? As a beginner, before college, be sharp at mathematics and abstract thought. Understand and appreciate the basic concepts of physics. Be a tinkerer, someone who enjoys building things or discovering how clever mechanisms and circuits work. As an engineer, find a specialty that appeals to you, one at which you feel you can excel. For example RF (radio) engineering, controls engineering, digital engineering, analog engineering, power engineering, communications engineering, EMI/EMC (interference) engineering. These are all aspects of EE. Be very good at one or more of these specialties. >6. Has the demand of electrical engineers increased or decreased in recent >years? Do you think the demand is going to change in the next >decade? The field can fluctuate wildly as the economy or the defense industry fluctuates. BUT a good engineer is always in demand. EE appears to be on a positive rebound at the moment. >7. What is the starting salary of an electrical engieer? ( in Canadian >dolloars) Sorry, but I don't know. Contact the IEEE (The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 345 East 47th Street, New York, NY 10017-2394 USA) for a quick answer to this question. >8. As an electrical engineer, i am sure you have some knowledge of other >branches of electrical engineering, such as the developments of >telecommunications, electronics, and computers? Can you briefly explian >what do engineers do in these fields? Sorry, it would take too much writing for a post such as this. >9. Among these three branches (telecommunications, electronics and computer >engineering), which specialization has the greatest potential? "Electronics" per se, isn't a branch of EE inasmuch as the other two branches you mentioned fall under the umbrella of "electronics." The other two branches that you mentioned are probably equally good in terms of potential. The world will always need telecomminications. On the other hand, it seems as if "everything" today is being designed using a microprocessor or a signal processor. >10. How does electrical engineering relate to computer engineering? EEs design computers. Computer science graduates are typically responsible for their programming. Don't get me wrong, an EE might do A LOT of programming. >11. How do you update your knowledge continously? Do you take any courses? I don't take any courses. That is, I've taken a couple a long time ago, but I have little interest in such things now, though short courses are always available. I find that when I'm faced with a design challenge that's outside my realm of knowledge, a judicious book purchase, followed by careful and intense reading, usually gets me through my challenge. Over the years, I have developed quite a respectable engineering library. Reading EE trade journals such as "EDN" and "Electronic Design" can keep an EE apprised of new and current technology. (By the way, these magazines do salary surveys. You might try to contact them for such information.) >12. How do engineers with master degrees superior than engineers with just >bachelor? An undergraduate degree (e.g., BSEE) is an exposure to all the fundamentals of math, physics, and electrical engineering. The last two years of that degree develop EE subjects rather intensely for the student. But when all is said and done, a newly minted BSEE is simply a vessel of new-found knowledge having no real experience and probably no real sense of exactly what he or she wants to do during a career. This naivete is removed by working with more senior engineers. After a year, maybe two, the new engineer has some sense of direction and enough experience to begin to feel he or she can now carry his own weight, so to speak. This engineer is in a good position to capitalize on an MSEE education. The BSEE who comes directly out of school and goes directly into an MSEE program lacks a certain engineering maturity, but he, too, will obviously benefit from more education. An MSEE program provides intense study in a particular specialty area (e.g., digital design, control systems, communications, photonics, solid state physics, microwaves.) The math is much more difficult and and diverse (e.g., random processes, estimation theory, signals and noise, parameter estimation, system identification.) An MSEE program can provide a student with a deep, detailed understanding of any one of several subject areas. Together with the understanding, the more advanced study gives the student more powerful analytical skills. >13. How important is electrical engineering to the world? VERY! We are surrounded by things electrical and electronic. Almost all the new technology we continuously hear about is based on electricity and electronics. Imagine the world without personal computers, high speed main frame computers, cellular phones, electronic switching networks for telephones, telephones themselves, radio, TV, GPS navigation, _any_ electronic navigation, "smart" weapons, the Internet, communication satellites, weather satellites, automotive electronic ignition systems, automotive emissions controls, radar, medical imaging systems, pacemakers, electric lighting, stereos, CDs, CD-ROMs, floppy disks, electric washing machines and dryers, power tools, baby monitors, microwave ovens, toasters, electric fans, air conditioners, traffic lights, burglar alarms, elevators, escalators. >14. Finally, can you give me some general advice? If you love to figure out how things work, if you love to try to make things work, you might be cut out for electrical/electronics engineering.

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