Electrical Engineers out there

Anything engineering related is setting yourself up for success almost 9/10. There will always be jobs available, and they pay really well too. Classes are going to be like most other majors until you get into engineering school and it'll be harder than a lot of fields.

Typically, most engineers in a larger company have opportunities to travel internationally for work. My dad works for UPS as a mechanical/electrical/computer science engineer; and when I was little, he would travel to Europe almost monthly at no expense to him.

I'm sure there are opportunities in the ski industry. It's a very desired field of work and companies are always looking for employees.

Yeah man I have no doubt in the pay or job availability, that's just a bonus because I'll be enjoying what I'm doing!

But man that's awesome yeah I'd love to do something like that. Electrical sounds like one of the broader types of engineering too, like you can do a lot of shit with it. Haha but I doubt there would be a lot of ski industry jobs and that's not really a factor for me, but if someone knew someone who was doing that with EE then that would be awesome to hear about.

There might be potential for outdoor seasonal electrical jobs too, which is even better.

yungmoneyBut man that's awesome yeah I'd love to do something like that. Electrical sounds like one of the broader types of engineering too, like you can do a lot of shit with it. Haha but I doubt there would be a lot of ski industry jobs and that's not really a factor for me, but if someone knew someone who was doing that with EE then that would be awesome to hear about.

There might be potential for outdoor seasonal electrical jobs too, which is even better.

I'm studying engineering and I'm deciding between Mechanical and Electrical. Mechanical more broadly applicable than Electrical. If you get a bachelors in Mechanical you can go get your masters/PHD in pretty much any discipline of engineering, but with Electrical you don't really have that option. Most mechanical engineers take a couple EE classes anyways.

I'm in the electrical field, specifically a running industrial plant. The electrical field is huge and can be very interesting (and intimidating haha). There are tons of things you can do and learn.

One thing I have noticed however, and this is only my experience within running industrial plants is that the other engineers mechanical, chemical, petroleum make more money and have more oportunities to get into manangement.

Alright, EE will blow your mind, and ALL YOUR FREE TIME. Expect to stay at school on the weekends since you need them oscilloscopes and shitty work stations to test your shit. I'm currently in the computer engineering program, and we were coupled with the EEs for the first year (yes, this most likely means you will learn about programming and discrete maths, depending on your program). I won't lie to you, EE is all about maths, I hope you like to use softwares like Matlab and Altium. Most of your time will be spent mathematically translating existing circuits to find filter gains, imaginary poles n shit. The true designing stuff will start to pop up in your second year, but being good at designing won't get you good grades. Find an internship if you want to design and conceptualize, but it requires all of the above anyways.

MACAQUEI'm studying engineering and I'm deciding between Mechanical and Electrical. Mechanical more broadly applicable than Electrical. If you get a bachelors in Mechanical you can go get your masters/PHD in pretty much any discipline of engineering, but with Electrical you don't really have that option. Most mechanical engineers take a couple EE classes anyways.

Idk I'm not that concerned, I hear it's much broader than many other fields of engineering. ME is a bad comparison because that's the broadest! I almost went in to that, but im in Statics right now, and uhh fuck that haha.

PuzzledAlright, EE will blow your mind, and ALL YOUR FREE TIME. Expect to stay at school on the weekends since you need them oscilloscopes and shitty work stations to test your shit. I'm currently in the computer engineering program, and we were coupled with the EEs for the first year (yes, this most likely means you will learn about programming and discrete maths, depending on your program). I won't lie to you, EE is all about maths, I hope you like to use softwares like Matlab and Altium. Most of your time will be spent mathematically translating existing circuits to find filter gains, imaginary poles n shit. The true designing stuff will start to pop up in your second year, but being good at designing won't get you good grades. Find an internship if you want to design and conceptualize, but it requires all of the above anyways.

Googled both, Altium looks EXACTLY what I want to do... Matlab looks like hell. What's the difference between CompE and EE? They're so similar. I know that I'll have to take programming classes either way but i'm just REALLY not trying to obtain a career in programming shit, that's why I chose EE, plus it's broader.

i graduated with my BSEE last spring, and a very excited to start looking for jobs/internships soon!

1) MATLAB is the coolest software on the face of this earth
2) Circuit analysis is nice but all that is done in software...learn to use Pspice for homework and circuit design
3) Prepare to be on campus from 9am-11pm every day of the week
4) Pay attention in Statistics...the numbers don't lie and most companies use these numbers to improve
5) C#/C++ experience will get you any job you want
6) I might have an EE degree, but so do all my classmates...find something that isn't just classroom stuff and do it
7) Learn how to solder...start with simple circuits and go from there
8) GPA is important...my hardest classes were circuits (1&2), calculus (1-4), and physics (1-3)...these are usually sophomore/junior year...focus more on 4 credit courses as those have more weight on GPA than 3 credit courses
9) Get ready for lab write-ups every week...take these seriously because I learned the lab/material as I was doing the writeup, usually the lab is going thru the motion collecting data not really knowing what it pertains too.
10) Learn to be a great Google searcher...there is so much info on the internet, but you need to know what exactly you are looking for.

These are some of my highlights from school as a recent graduate. AMA and Id be glad to answer...hopefully I can start a career in the industry after I get my ACL replaced in the upcoming months

I enjoy the challenge and the art of problem solving so I was extremely happy with my degree choice

best of luck brodie

I graduated EE from UCLA in the early 80s, when all the rest of you were not even a gleam in mom's eye. It was, and still is the cutting edge of all engineering disciplines although chemEng is catching up. The two hot spots on the EE path now are networks(massive inter-networks and management) and micro-circuit design. Networks to interconnect large industrial and commercial sites, and micro-circuitry to speed applications through hardware process vs software process on a generic CPU. That type of circuit is called an ASIC(google it), and they are making new ones all the time for specific tasks that can be done faster in hardware than millions of lines of code running on an Intel proc.

Comp-sci is coding software. There are many types of coding, Java, C+, and many other programming tools and languages. The downside of coding is that it can be done remotely, like in India or Singapore and a much lower price than being done in Denver or San Jose. There are good coders in the country that make good money, but a lot more that are struggling. Really, really good tight coders are in strong need. Most of them write slop, long winding code that is filled with bugs. They wouldn't know a nested algorithm to save their life.

When you declare your major, decide what type of EE work you think you would like. You won't be locked in after graduation, which is when you'll find out how little you actually know about your field of study. When I graduated, I started working for a company that made vibration acoustic analyzers. Of course I took some FFT in advanced math, and I could figure out the outputs from the sensors, but making it all work together took a fair amount of physics. After that I went to IBM to work on large storage systems, and on, and on from then. Now I'm working on advanced fibre channel networks and it's interesting work, but very complex.

Stick with it. You're going to find that in your junior year, shit's gonna get real. The fall semester of your junior year will be killer. It separates the wanna-be from the real engineers. All I can tell you in closing is that the struggle is worth it.