do i realy need to get into Chemistry ?

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ya man, you are right , rounded knoledge of physics,chemestry & math is fundamently required in electronics.

outher wise later there will be a problum in hanldling real time practical situations.

tks
Sid
 
perhaps sidharth can learn little of chemistry later on in life, if his job needs are chip design or semiconductor fab etc as an add on training. thus, he need not break his head now.
Supposing that he is in India, the education system teaches little of chemistry till intermediate or at least 10th class and that would suffice for now.
as end user, as some one joked, for taking a paracetamol tablet, one need not study the formulation of drug. of course you need to get guided by the side reactions of the drug. likewise precautions of using semiconductors as prescribed by the manufacturers have to be borne in mind.
 
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sidharth said:
ya man, you are right , rounded knoledge of physics,chemestry & math is fundamently required in electronics.
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You might have noticed, that no one (even though advising you to study chemistry) has been able to give any relevant reason for doing so. Maths is a VERY different matter, and good maths skills are essential to electronics - and even more so for chemistry.

My daughter has a big advantage doing a Chemistry degree, because she has excellent maths skills (and was even considering a maths degree, until she decided on Chemistry). As an A-level 'further maths' student she already has the required maths skills for Chemistry, which basically requires a similar standard to the first year of a maths degree.
 

That a good question, but first, can you say with certainty what an engineer in electronics will be doing in 5 to 10 years?
Second, does the OP want to be the leader or independent researcher or a bench person/technician?

I firmly believe that one's time in a university (or equivalent) should be spent getting as broad an education as possible. One is much too young at that stage to limit his prospects. The brain is not limited in its ability to learn. In fact, it appears to be the opposite. The more one learns, the easier new material becomes to learn.

In reality, of course, the only electrical engineering curriculum with which I am familiar was very demanding in terms of course load. Nevertheless, a very good friend was able to complete EE and additional courses (chemistry and biology) needed for medical school. He became an extremely successful radiologist and was one of the early implementers of tele-radiology. Who would have known or predicted in the early 1960's that the combination of medicine and engineering would be so successful?

I suspect that underlying these common questions of the type, "do I need to take..." is a lack of maturity, incentive, and foresight. The student's advisors and mentors may have said, "yes," and the student is looking for support not to do that.

John
 
Nigel Goodwin said:
You might have noticed, that no one (even though advising you to study chemistry) has been able to give any relevant reason for doing so.
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I suppose the answer is more like "why not?" You can not lose anything by taking chemistry--you will only gain. You never know when you may need a basic knowledge of chemistry, and having it will, as previously mentioned, help you to become a well-rounded engineer. I just cannot see any reason why you wouldn't take chemistry. If you HAD to choose between physics, math, and chemistry, I realize that chem is probably at the bottom of the list, but you probably won't come upon that sort of choice. It has helped me very much to have taken all three classes.
Der Strom
 

The point here though, which is what this thread is about, is that for electronics chemistry won't be of any benefit - IF you're still at school, and picking your options - I would (obviously) suggest going for 'real' subjects, of which chemistry is one of the top ones.

I presumed (and may be completely wrong - perhaps he would care to comment?) that the OP was older, and was looking at getting in to electronics, rather than a formal school education.
 
@Nigel, If you are right about the age thing, I would agree completely. When older and changing careers, just get it done.

I might add that my university had a course in electronics for non-engineers, mostly chemistry and biology majors. Normally, students in the School of Arts and Science could not take engineering courses (adjacent, but different campus). I took that cross-discipline course and never regretted it.

John
 
SID, like they say, depends on what you want to know, electronics is essentially the flow of electrons, so if you want to understand that than may i suggest a LEMON clock demo, sounds like you are just hobbying, I think what you are interested in is simple battery reactions and such, so if you want to learn that you will need a gr 10 ish chemistry level, things such as valances and compounds, and "what makes atoms happy(natural flow)"

IF you want to get in to electronics, then get in to electronics(introduction to), you will learn things such as resistances, dielectrics, current flow, learn that first, then after you are familiar with the basic dynamic of it all, you can look deeper in to those things and "what makes em spin",,, such as why copper conducts better than carbon or nitrogen,...
 
Doggy, Ofcorse, I have started as being hobbying, but i am getting into electronics for my future in this for my rest of the life, after this i wont change my stream.

basic stuff about ele..., i am experementing/learning day by day.When i studed about BJT npn & pnp Transistors, i realised about chemestry even more.

tks
sid
 
I'm agreeing with Nigel, if electronics is the goal any significant time learning chemistry could be MUCH better utilised as time spent in something other than chemistry, like; advanced elec theory, software, microcontrollers, FPGAs, etc.

Even the higher level math is becoming less useful. With the proliferation of online calculators (a situation which will continue) all the high level math can be handled by a servant, ie google for the right online calculator or design tool and punch in the numbers, and let the servant work it out, and maybe simulate it at the same time.

10 years from now you will be much more capable as a designer with good micro and FPGA skills than the guy that did chem or math instead. Which goes some way towards answering John's question;

jpanhalt said:
That a good question, but first, can you say with certainty what an engineer in electronics will be doing in 5 to 10 years?
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Good point about the maths, I must admit I tend to search on the net for an on-line calculator rather than break the calculator out
 
sidharth said:
i got the one on my desk which solves every thing i want
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Does it instantly calculate complicated equations with a single press? - that's the point of on-line calculators

Long ago (DOS days) I wrote a series of programmes for doing all the calculation I ever required, including optimising for preferred values.
 
Yeah, and it's not just the calculation itself it's the other handy work that is done. Things like a filter calculator that also creates a frequency response chart for you as well as just giving you the results figures.

It's like having your own little a-team of math nerds... "Hey guys if I use these two inductors and these three caps how will it perform?" And in one second you have all the figures and charts presented to you.

To butcher the words of Leonardo; "To create is divine (the work of a god), to do all the calcs is servile (the work of a servant)."

Future engineers will have much better digital servants, and I would not train to be the servant when there are lots of "creating skills" to be mastered.

There was a time in the past when bridge engineers did months of hand calculations with log tables, now they just place some imaginary beams in the CAD program and it shows them all the stresses and forces.
 
I took 4 semesters of chemistry way back when. I forgot 90% of it and of the 10% I remembered I probably used about 1% of that. Find the Cliff's Notes for chemistry, keep it in your desk and you'll be fine.
 
Do i really need to get into Chemistry ?
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My take on the question is pretty simple. When it comes to electronics and electronic theory do you really need Chemistry? No, I don't believe so and agree the time studying and learning it could likely be better spent. However, is a good basic working knowledge of Chemistry a nice to have? Yes, it is. Will it make or break a career in electrical engineering? I don't think so but I would venture a guess it depends on the area(s) of electrical engineering you choose to pursue.

Just My Simple Take.......
Ron
 
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Maybe the obvious has escaped me. I interpreted the question to ask whether having chemistry would aid one's career as an electrical engineer. Obviously, if one wants the bare minimum, and his college/university doesn't require chemistry, then it is not "needed."

However, if one considers more than the bare minimum and measures success, why guess about it?

What are the median current (2010) salaries/AGI and median last 5-year salaries (unemployment - not self employed - counts as $0.00) for graduate engineers (minimum BSEE in US or equivalent) for those who had chemistry as undergraduates and those who didn't?

In other words, why guess at an answer when data can be obtained? Let's do a poll, if it's important.

John
 
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Chemistry is considered one of the top degrees, and is highly sort after by employers (and not just in Chemistry either) - but it still has nothing whatsoever to do with electronics, and doesn't help you in any way with electronics.

You certainly wouldn't be doing both Chemistry and Electronics at any decent Uni, Chemistry is absolutely full time, and Electronics is probably pretty busy as well?.
 
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