What to specialize in?

[jrz126]

Hey gang,
As my college career is coming to a close (kinda, still have a couple more years thanks to my crappy highschool not teaching me enough math, and my decision to go for a comp eng. minor). I've been thinking about what field I want get into afterwards. I'm going to talk to some of my prof's but I figured I'd ask here as well.
here's some of my interests:
I definitly like designing stuff, like the LED's in my roof. That circuit was basically built from scratch, and I keep making improvments to it as well (I've had a breadboard and a larfe mess of wires in my trunk for about 8 months now ).
I'm interested in LEDs too, my mom showed me a job description in the classified ads about a company looking for an LED/lighting specialist. Which sounded exactly like what I want to do, except it involved power supply designing which I dont really like, I'm more of a digital person. Are there alot of jobs like this available?
Oh and one more thing, I'm majoring in EE, but I also like the comp. eng. type stuff, except for heavy amounts of programming.

Anyone have any info on how to choose my career path? Or maybe just share some of your work experience.

Thanks a bunch

 

[bmcculla]

I've been working for the last 3 years as an embedded systems designer at a small medical company. I've had a really good experience - I get to work on so many diferent types of projects it keeps things interesting.

I think you would be happier staying away from things like lighting. It's the sort of thing that's fun the first couple times and then gets old.

Personally I've enjoyed working at the systems level. It's helped to a a fairly broad background. I've done some control stuff (TE Cooler controller), some data aquisition from sensors, some FPGA design, some signal processing, a wireless protocol etc. everything from PCB to firmware to PC programing.

In school I never actually chose a specialization (they never forced me to). I just took classes that I found interesting. Even though my classes ended up being all over the place I find that almost all of them have been useful to some extent. My most useful classes were:

Signals and Systems: Fourier transform, and an understanding of time and frequency domain signals has been useful for almost everything I've done.

Analog IC design: I hated the class but the understanding of IC internals and Transistor circuits has been invaluble.

 

[samcheetah]

an LED/Lightning specialist is not what i would term as a "career" for an EE. think big!!!!

as you have said that you like digital kind of stuff i would recommend you to go for embedded systems. embedded systems is a really hot field these days and the future is also bright. but you have said that you dont like to do heavy programming stuff. so maybe this wont be good for you. but then you say that you like computer stuff. well, what aspect of computers do you like??

and by the way do you still keep that pillow under your head when you go to sleep???? remember :?:

 

[jrz126]

and by the way do you still keep that pillow under your head when you go to sleep???? remember :?:

Yeah I remember :lol: , I'm still using that pillow this semester for microelectronics 2. I'm glad I can get 2 semesters out of the same book, price averages out to about 70 a semester :shock:

They offer embedded systems as a tech elective and I think I can also take it towards my minor as well. But it's pretty tough I guess, involves a lot of writing. But since both of you suggested it, I think Im going to strongly think about it.

I'm interested in the digital control system type stuff, microcontroller type applications. I definitly dont want to design motors or something like that. I wouldnt mind alittle programming, but I also wouldnt want to do that all day long.

Thanks a bunch for the input.

 

[samcheetah]

Yeah I remember , I'm still using that pillow this semester for microelectronics 2. I'm glad I can get 2 semesters out of the same book, price averages out to about 70 a semester

okay good 8)

if you like digital electronics then you cant run away from coding. ill give you an example. lets suppose someone gives you a bubble sort algorithm and someone tells you to implement a hardware version of it. the algorithm is simple; the largest (or the smallest) number out of a group of numbers "bubbles" to the top at each iteration and the end result is that the numbers are arranged in descending (or ascending) order. try to think of the logic that you would use to build this stuff. well if you do get down with this problem im pretty sure you will end up with something that has dozens of 74-series logic ICs and the board is going to be huge. and then sometimes it will work and sometimes it wont work. and then suppose you start mass producing it and at some stage you get a batch of ICs that arent good at all, your design is going to be a mess.

but look at the more easy alternative. welcome to the world of embedded systems. just write the code of the bubble sort algorithm in any high level language and synthesize the code and burn it on an FPGA. thats all!!! all of that mess in one single IC.

now this was nothing as compared to the problems that are solved by embedded systems. you can burn a whole microprocessor in an FPGA and still have room for another!!! embedded systems has alot of applications in the field of signal processing, communications and control to name a few.

as you have said that you are interested in microcontroller stuff so i think that you would find embedded systems quite challenging and appealing. actually these days electronics has become more like software engineering. more time and hard work is spent on designing the algorithms. the implementation is the last stage in the whole process so gone are the days when you had to solder hundereds of ICs on large boards to do a simple task which can now be done with a single IC.

good luck!!!!!!!!!!!!