Need help in choosing a career. Electrical or Electronic Engineer? Please HELP?

[piffdaddy718]

Hello, and thanks for viewing this thread.

I was wondering what would the best field for what it is that I would like to do, regarding engineering.

I love all types of gadgets, and electronic devices. As as a kid I was always fascinated with crazy funny, and advance technologies. Furthermore, I am always coming up with crazy and unique inventions that I wish I could actually create. I'm always visiting websites like metacafe, instrucatables, engadget, gizmodo, hackaday.com and Lifehacker everyday, just to see what cool and new stuff has recently came out. I also love MOD'ing devices to do other interesting things

I would like to give a few examples of things that I like to do.

I would like to create mobile device, home devices that can make a home completely automated, almost anything that could be seen in the Consumer Electronic Expos, and basically anything that could be considered technologically futuristic.

Can you guys please give me your input, because I am in my mid 20's and this is what I would dedicate the rest of my life too. I would like to learn the craft, open up my own business, create and patent my inventions ect ect....

Thank you in advance

Piff

 

[BrownOut]

Be advised that in the US, very often Electrical Engineer refers to both Electrical and Electronic engineering. Just don't get confused by the naming. See of you local university offers a curriculum in VLSI technology. This day and age, one needs a good background on both electrical engineering and computer science. See if you can find such a multi-disciplined curriculum.

 

[DerStrom8]

Hello, and thanks for viewing this thread.

I was wondering what would the best field for what it is that I would like to do, regarding engineering.

I love all types of gadgets, and electronic devices. As as a kid I was always fascinated with crazy funny, and advance technologies. Furthermore, I am always coming up with crazy and unique inventions that I wish I could actually create. I'm always visiting websites like metacafe, instrucatables, engadget, gizmodo, hackaday.com and Lifehacker everyday, just to see what cool and new stuff has recently came out. I also love MOD'ing devices to do other interesting things

I would like to give a few examples of things that I like to do.

I would like to create mobile device, home devices that can make a home completely automated, almost anything that could be seen in the Consumer Electronic Expos, and basically anything that could be considered technologically futuristic.

Can you guys please give me your input, because I am in my mid 20's and this is what I would dedicate the rest of my life too. I would like to learn the craft, open up my own business, create and patent my inventions ect ect....

Thank you in advance

Piff

This is exactly what I do, too! I'm in the U.S., looking into electrical engineering, so, as BrownOut said, I will be learning about both electrical and electronic engineering. As far as I know, electrical engineering focuses on large-scale electrical applications such as power transmission, etc, whereas electronic engineering is rather small-scale, dealing with circuit boards, chips, etc. It sounds like what you are talking about (automated homes, etc) requires both fields. I would recommend doing as BrownOut suggested and looking to see what the course covers.
Good luck, and have fun!
Der Strom

 

[cr0sh]

Something to keep in mind (YMMV):

If you are an engineer (that is, one who can legitimately put "engineer" as a title to their name), you generally don't "get your hands dirty"; that is, you aren't generally involved in actually building "stuff". Sometimes, you aren't even involved in the design work. Generally, you are likely hired as a check on processes, etc - technicians and others do the actually design/building/assembly. That isn't to say in a small company (or your own company) that you couldn't do this, of course - its just that EEs tend to be a very "white collar" office-type job, where your work is done mostly on a computer, and field work isn't so much hands-on as is is "checking up on people to make sure its being done right and to spec".

At least, that's what I've gathered from others in the field and thru various reading; I'm sure there is some hands on (and probably varies based on market, needs, and such), but the days of the engineer who rolls up his sleeves and invents ala Edison are mainly relegated to small (mostly startup) companies and the "home workshop"...

 

[BrownOut]

Your comments remind me of what a college of mine once said. I asked why the designers don't do thier own testing instead of asking the test engineers to do it ( the test engineering department was responsible for production testing, and not suppposed to test new designs) I never forgot his reply:

...because designers are little bespecticled men who are good with computers, but if you put a piece of test equipment in front of them, they either fry it, hurt themselves or burn the building down...

 

[3v0]

I worked for a division of a large company. We did R&D and manufacturing for product lines on site. Each R&D lab was about 100 engineers. We hand maybe a dozen tech level people on staff who mostly designed test setups for manufacturing.

EE's and SE's (software engineers) did design. A dedicated department did layout but the EE's helped with high speed or other critical areas.

The PCB were etched and populated by a 3rd party. The EE was responsible for turning on the prototypes and working with the PCB vendor and our manufacturing to ensure they could build the product.

We had a small test department we called "shake and bake" that would torture production prototypes with extreme temperature and vibration.

Prior to going into production each product was subject to QA or quality assurance testing. Each engineer in the lab had to spend a fixed number of hours each month beating on other engineers products looking for defects, esp software but not limited to it.

I expect that engineering at this level is on the decline.

 

[tytower]

Personally I can recommend you qualify as an Accountant so you can make big money then you can do any playing with electronics you like . You can afford it too then.

 

[arunb]

an inventor does not have to be an engineer, you can always be creative and get your job done by other engineers.

 

[Mosaic]

I am an engineer some 21 years now...I still design and build because I want to.....not because my job calls for it.

If u like to design and build .....engineering helps u do that better. technicians or EETs or Tech/voc hard skills force u into a repetitive type environment. Engineering let's u be more creative.

Note that a graduate engineer without hands on experience can't compete with an experienced technician in the hands-on area. That comes with time...as u work smarter not harder.

 

[cr0sh]

Personally I can recommend you qualify as an Accountant so you can make big money then you can do any playing with electronics you like . You can afford it too then.

That's the truth! Most components and such are fairly cheap, its the tools and a bunch of other stuff that can bankrupt ya, unless you know how to shop secondhand (and even then, it isn't as cheap as I'd like it to be!)...

 

[gabeNC]

I agree with Brownout saying you need/should have a strong computer science background. I have several EE's working in my department that are computer analysts because it pays the bills. Kinda sucks to work on a more difficult degree and get relegated to general IT work.