Ever thought about being an electrical engineer? Ever wonder just what you would be doing as an electrical engineer? An electrical engineer today has an enormous selection of career paths to choose from. Here are but a few examples:

Large scale projects

o Power generation, transmission and distribution – Design equipment like generators, transformers, high power switches and protection devices that connect to the power grid. This includes the green energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal and tidal.

o Facility/Building power system design – Work with architects and contractors to design the power, lighting and communication distribution systems and networks in buildings. You may even have the opportunity to incorporate green energy generation systems in the design.

Medium scale projects

o Commercial products and appliances – Electronics are found in everything from your blender to your toothbrush, from cell phones to video games. Working in this field will challenge you to be very efficient in your designs from a power, cost and size standpoint. And don’t forget the batteries!

o Scientific instrumentation – Work in this area can take you around the world and beyond. In many cases you will be pushing the envelope of the technology to provide that next bit of information needed to study a particular problem or phenomenon. Your designs will need to be very precise and accurate as well as meet size, power and most likely cost constraints.

o Aviation and Aerospace – From large-scale power and communication systems to very small, precise circuits for control and monitoring the growing complexity of the aviation/aerospace industry.

o Military – Large-scale to micro-scale applications with very rigorous environmental and durability constraints.

Small scale projects

o Semiconductor design – You will be designing the components that other electrical engineers will use to design all of the above. You will be pushing the technology to the limits to create faster processors, larger memories, lower power devices and higher levels of integration to make everything we use smaller, lighter and with more features.

o Nanotechnology – Take it a level smaller and design new components that will work in all areas of industry. From self assembling circuits to nano-machines that will help cure diseases to paper thin solar cells and clothing that won’t get dirty. The opportunities are endless!

This just scratches the surface of opportunities awaiting an electrical engineer.

How to Become an Electrical Engineer

But, how do you get there? First, you must have a curiosity of how and why things work. That curiosity will drive you through the many courses you will need to take to achieve your goal; each one giving you more clues and insights as to how the world works around us. And then…

You will need math in all of its flavors: algebra, trigonometry, geometry, differential equations and calculus—but don’t let that scare you. Math is a subject anyone can master; it just depends on how much effort you want to put into learning it. The more you practice it, the better you will be at it, just like riding a bike or playing the guitar. That great background in math is going to help you with…

The chemistry and physics you will take. These two courses will give you insights into how the universe works and will open up your opportunities for a variety of careers. Do not underestimate how important these will be, especially if you have any interest in working as an engineer in the scientific community. To design a circuit to do a specific task is fine but to understand why and how this task is to be done will allow you to collaborate with the scientists and to design a circuit that meets or exceeds their needs.

One other key requirement is software. Everything today has a microcontroller inside (remember that toothbrush?) and it needs software to run properly. As an electrical engineer you will be designing hardware (integrated circuits, resistors, op-amps, capacitors, etc.) and if you can write the software, create the programs to make that hardware function, you are twice as valuable!

When you are in college don’t limit yourself to the hardcore courses. Allow yourself to explore other areas of interest. Do you like geology? Take a course. How about biology? Take Bio101 and expand your scientific background; you never know when that bit of knowledge will lead you to a wonderful new career path. That’s what’s great about electrical engineering; everything uses electronics, so you may be able to combine your love for electronics with a passion for some other science or technology. Also, don’t shun literature and the arts. You will need to write and present reports and papers. Hone your writing skills while in college. It is very disturbing to read a report by a qualified engineer that is fraught with grammatical and spelling mistakes—it takes away from the engineer’s professionalism and brings into question his/her ability to represent your company. The more well rounded you are the easier it will be for you to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Also, you will be meeting lots of different people all around the world, so the more variety you have in your background the easier it will be to interact professionally as well as socially with your new associates.

So, in a nutshell: If you’re in high school, take as much science and math as you can. Seize any opportunity to work along with a professional, even if it’s to visit his/her place of work for a day. Once you’re off to college keep up with the math and science and broaden your background as much as you can—it will pay for itself time and again once you’re in the real world. Last but not least—have fun! The adventure of getting to become an engineer is only a fraction of the fun you’re going to have once you’re doing it as a profession.

I hope I’ve given you an idea of what electrical engineering can be about and how to get on the right path. In part two I will try to give you a quick look into what one would do on a typical design project.

Applying Theory to the Real World

In part one I tried to give you a glimpse of what one might do as an electrical engineer as well as what’s involved in getting your degree. In this part I will try to give you an idea of what a typical electrical engineer would do on the job by taking you through a complete project.

Once you graduate and head out into the real world you will begin your next and most important phase of education—learning how to apply theory to real world problems with time, cost, size, power, noise, performance, resources and functionality constraints. It is with these challenges that you will polish your skills and learn the more subtle aspects of engineering that most likely were not taught in college. If you are lucky you will have an experienced engineer to help guide you through this journey. Listen well and learn, it will be the most valuable training you will get!

So, what will you do as an electrical engineer, or EE as it’s commonly abbreviated? You may work independently or on a team with other EE’s and/or software and mechanical engineers, technicians and scientists depending on the nature of the project. For this discussion you will be working with a team consisting of an EE (you) to design the electronic hardware; a software engineer to write the programs for the system; a mechanical engineer to design the enclosure and mechanical parts for the project; a technician to help in building the prototypes.

Designing a New Project

Your project will start with an idea that may come from the marketing and sales group or possibly from a research and development group in the company that has come up with a marketable product. Preliminary discussions will begin to detail the specifications for the project like:

What will the product do? What environmental conditions (temperature, humidity, pressure, dust, moisture, etc.) must it operate in? How big can it be – size and weight? What does it use for power – batteries, solar cells, line voltage? What features will it have and how does the customer interface with it? How big is the market and how much will it cost? What accessories will it have?

During this time you will also begin to work with the software engineer to make sure that the components you want to use will be compatible with the software tools available, otherwise there will be additional cost and time to the project to bring in new development tools. You will also interact with the mechanical engineer as he/she begins to design the enclosure for the product. The package size will dictate how big your circuit boards can be and where they will go. This information is important because it will affect your design on many levels: If the electronics generates heat you will need to cool it, possibly with a fan or maybe just vent holes will suffice. Or, the placement of the circuit board may be too close to another component and electrical noise is an issue. There will be many trade-offs between the electrical and mechanical designs before the final package is complete. Also, you must consider how difficult it will be to repair/replace assemblies, an important consideration for the customer or your product support people. If the customer needs to adjust something on a circuit board then this should be readily accessible and not buried behind some other components.

As you complete your design you may be working with the technician to test the circuits and verify that they perform as you expect them to. You will also test it under various environmental extremes as dictated in the product specifications. This stage will most likely force you to rethink your design if there are problems and several iterations of the design are not uncommon.

All along the design cycle you will find little gems of satisfaction; you may discover a way to accomplish a circuit function that takes fewer parts, saving money and room on the circuit board. Or, perhaps you can add more functionality or lower the power consumption. These are all enhancements to the overall design and something you can feel good about.

Schematic

If everything checks out, then circuit schematics can be finalized and will be used to design the printed circuit board. The completion of the schematic is another point of satisfaction. This document, which may be many pages in length, can be the culmination of many weeks or months of work. If it is constructed well, it will be easy for another engineer or technician to follow and can be considered a work of art in itself. (If you go on to do the actual layout of the printed circuit board you will find that they truly can be works of art! Take a look at the motherboard in your PC!) You will also create another document, known as the "Bill of Materials”. This a list of all the parts used in the design and it will have all the information necessary to buy the correct parts to build (or populate) the circuit boards. This document will be passed on to the purchasing department to procure the parts for the first (or prototype) assembly. At some point you may find that you have to assist the purchasing department if they have difficulty acquiring some parts. You will also need to provide information to the software engineer, as to how the circuitry works and how they need to develop the code to control the hardware.

This completes the design stage of the project. In part three you will see how the project moves from design to manufacturing.

Completing the Design

Now the fun begins! You are at a point in the design cycle that you have the all the prototype components available: the completed circuit boards, the enclosure, the mechanical components and the software. Putting everything together and turning it on can be a very satisfying event…it also can be extremely frustrating if it doesn’t work! This is where you will work very closely with the team to isolate the problems that are causing the system to malfunction. This is also where the real learning comes from! When things don’t work you will be forced to really understand the circuitry in very intimate detail to determine why it is not operating properly—creating a very valuable learning experience. This troubleshooting process may take some time and force several modifications to hardware and software to get all the pieces to work together.

Once everything is up and running (and you’re smiling again!) you will need to test the completed system under the environmental and functional specifications. This will present another opportunity to modify the original design to meet these specifications. The product may also be field-tested for a period of time to get some "real-world” experience with it. The results from this testing may bring up issues that may result in another iteration of the design.

When the bugs have been worked out of the system, you and your team will put together a presentation called a "design review”. You will present the product to a select group in the company including marketing, sales, management, and engineering for their review of the product and your engineering design decisions. There may be changes required if the group doesn’t approve of the design as presented and this could force another iteration in the design of the system, a given subassembly or even the software depending on the magnitude of the problems found.

Manufacturing Stage

Once the product passes the design review it will then move on to the manufacturing stage. Here the EE will provide support as the manufacturing department begins to build and ship the new product. You will help the assemblers and technicians learn how to build the subassemblies and complete and test the new product. You may also help write the operating and service manuals for the product and train the product support group on how the system works—and ways to troubleshoot it when it doesn’t.

As the product makes its way to manufacturing and your involvement starts to diminish you will probably be tasked with the next project in line. You may find yourself on another new project with a new team, or possibly designing some unique circuits for the R&D group, which they need to explore the next big idea. Have fun!

A Satisfying Career

There is so much more involved in the process from concept to product but there is not enough space to go into that detail here. I hope this gives you some insight as to what life might be like as an EE. There will be frustration, as things don’t work as planned because you overlooked something in your design, or the design specifications can’t be met. That’s reality and every engineer goes through it. Engineering, be it electrical, software, mechanical, or civil is filled with trade-offs. You always have to compromise at some level to get the product designed and out to the customer. But don’t despair, there will be times of exhilaration when everything works as planned and you’re on time and on budget and the product is a huge success! They will make up for those frustrating times.

So, are you still thinking about engineering? Go for it! With technology growing at a very rapid rate and the challenges we face today, we need all the engineers, scientists and technicians we can get. The work will be challenging and demanding but it will also be very satisfying to know that you’ve helped create something that will make a difference in someone’s life, somewhere in the world.