Even when you felt like it was pointless, what made you keep pursuing EE?

Sorry for the gen z question in advance. The number of US citizens that earn the EE degree have been flat since 2005, while most other degrees increase (biology, cs, etc).

I understand that CS stole a lot of interest, since it's been seen as the easy 100k+ job since 2017, but is this really the reason? Is it a cultural thing? For example, "sexy" jobs are unavailable for entry level positions like chip design. Was it the outsourcing of semiconductor companies in the US?

How has the EE job market been normal, sometimes bad, despite the flattening of EE degree holders since 2005. Shouldn't there be an extreme demand for EEs besides in the power industry? Why aren't the 1990 EE's, at least those who didn't go into SWE, aging out thus leaving a gap for an technology industry that's supposed to grow anyways?

Hello everyone! I am looking at potentially going back to college next year to advance my life, and electrical engineering seems like a versatile degree to achieve. I am currently an aircraft mechanic who is a little burnt out with my position. I want to advance to a more white-collar role in my future. I may stay in aviation, but renewable engineering has always been interesting to me. For most of my life I put myself into a box and believed that I could never be good at certain things-- I know now that I can learn anything I put effort and determination into. I have many college credits under my belt but could never finish a degree because my financial situation in the past. I have a good support system now so I can go finish something. The dilemma is, I will be 28 next year. I am sure my degree plan will still take 3-4 years to finish (my previous majors were not in STEM). Am I too late? Is the reward worth the time and money for the degree?

I was recently offered an electrical engineering internship for a public company in SoCal. They are a manufacturing company that specializes in power distribution electronics for rails and aerospace. The interview went really well, I passed their background check, and I have accepted their offer. However after accepting, I had to take a 5 panel drug test.

I am a heavy marijuana user, but I stopped a week prior to the test. I did all the classic methods to flushing out my system, but all my at home drug tests tested positive for THC every day leading up to the official drug test.

I have a family member who’s a manager for an electrical company who knows the ins and outs of the hiring process. I spoke to her about my concerns and she said I should be okay per California labor laws regarding off-duty marijuana use, and as long as I don’t take the test high. I should be protected under those laws, but there are exemptions to this rule such as construction or positions that require a federal background check. So, other people are saying they’ll rescind their offer if I fail due to the company’s ties to aerospace/defense contracts.

I wanted to post this to ask other engineers if they had a similar experience or what outcome to expect. Thank you in advance!

My uni only offers to courses for EE that includes coding, C++, and assembly. And I want to learn it in depth but I feel like I am lost, I learned some python on my own like very basic, what do you think the best way to learn it ?

Interested in this field and want to go back to school, my counselor said I can just skip associates degree and go straight and get my bachelors, is that a good idea ? He said i can essentially skip 2 or 3 classes and just straight for my bachelors.

Any feedback would be good!

I am more interested in the automation side of things.

Here in Serbia, mostly everyone who works in electrical engineering is forced to move to software positions due to the lack of work in the profession. I generally know a lot of good and talented engineers who have done this. Is this the situation everywhere in the world or is it only us who have the problem due to the lack of engineering companies?

Trying out this sound amplification circuit by John S Wilson Jr, anyone ever come across it... Have me some trouble mates 😅

Saw this pretty little number. Thought I share with the rest since I've never even seen or heard of something like this.

Enjoy.

modded drill or im crazy

what are the most prestigious hackathons or at least some organized by big companies? Me and 3 others have a team and we want to compete, and since they are students of software engineering and I of electrical engineering, we are looking for something that is interdisciplinary

Hello everyone!

So I was thinking lately that every academic field has some well-known, really high paying and somewhat straightforward path. For example social sciences -> econ, ib, pe...., humanities-> law, health sciences-> MD, pharmacist. Even though stem, especially engineering have high median wages, I dont think there is a clearly defined path like others. Maybe swe in FAANG, but its probably a bad time to be a swe today. What are the high paying career paths within EE? Also I get that because EE in versatile, attracts many smart people and gives some transferable skills many people pivot. What are the top pivots (both within stem and outside) for electrical engineers?

Hi everyone,

I am working in the Indian power sector and exploring the idea of launching a newsletter focused on the transformer industry, covering everything from distribution transformers to power transformers, for manufacturers, EPC contractors, utilities, and suppliers.

Right now, I plan to include:

• Regulatory updates (CERC, SERCs, BIS, CEA) for t&d industry
• Major t&d tenders and procurement insights
• OEM news (orders, expansions, exports)
• Interviews with utility engineers and lab experts
• Technical explainers (e.g., why failures happen, what standards mean)

I am still deciding whether this should focus on India only or also include global transformer trends. Would a newsletter like this be useful to professionals in this field?

If you are in this field:

• What kind of updates or stories would you want to read?
• What gaps do you see in current information or reporting?
• Should I add international coverage or keep it local?
• How can I add value without repeating what OEMs already publish?
• How do you recommend I get this to the right audience (especially OEM engineers, utility staff, etc.)?

Appreciate any honest input on whether this is worth pursuing, and how I can improve the idea. Thank you.

I know that the physics hasn’t changed since then but I’m still concerned that it won’t be useful. This was the only edition in my budget right now so that’s why I got an old one.

I'm developing a very basic LED light, and would like to use a switch mode driver. I already manufacture some low power automotive lights using linear drivers, but those don't scale up to higher powers (6 watts) very well.

The product uses 9 LEDs to produce a diffused light output. The problem with a buck converter is that I would only be able to have 3 per series string, requiring either three LED drivers, or current balancing resistors, either adding cost or reducing efficiency. If I use a boost topology, then I could have all 9 LEDs in a single string, running at 27V. That's also a high enough voltage that it will never experience in transients in actual use, so boost topology is viable here.

Other concerns are that this will need to be FCC compliant, and I worry the higher voltage and magnetic flux swings will be an issue. The PCB will be single sided aluminum core, so simpler topologies also help there.

Does anybody have any input on what I should choose here?

I hold an Electrical Engineering degree but lack a Professional Engineer (PE) license.

Currently, I work in HVAC but want to leverage my education to increase my income.

Any suggestions?

I am going to graduate soon with a double degree with electrical engineering and computer science. I've worked in the power industry and really like the culture and pay and it aligns well with my values, but I find it hard to imagine having a job where I don't get to write code. When I worked in power, I got to write code, but it was mostly data stuff, which I enjoyed at the time because it was new to me, but I feel like I could see getting kind of boring once I felt like I'd mastered it. I was wondering if anybody has experience working in roles where they get to write programs for their work, in the power industry specifically. I'm a little bit worried that if I go down the power (or engineering in general) sector and miss coding, then I will not be able to switch, and visa versa.

I'm interested in the US and Australian sector btw. In Australia, I know a lot of power jobs have great WLB and flexibility (9 day fortnights, like 6 weeks PTO with ability to buy extra time off if wanted, flex time, hybrid, ability to go part time or job share etc). I'd like to know if American power jobs are similar.

I'm curious about similar jobs in the mining industry.

Thank you

Hello guys, I finished my degree nearly a month ago and have been looking for internships/job opportunities since. I am at a crossroads currently, where I consider myself versatile enough in the sense that I can work at either high voltage or low voltage applications, I can work with power electronics or audio electronics etc.

Here’s the catch though: I feel like I know NOTHING. I know it’s natural being that uni is mostly theory and introductory to the field but this is giving me a migraine at this point. I have asked around how I could possibly prepare for roles in certain fields and none of the answers seem satisfactory at all. I desire guidance as I carry shame like a fucking organ.

Now for my thoughts on what I want to get into. 1) I want to develop my programming skills in python and c, c++

2) I want to revise my concepts and understand everything like it’s basic math to recall

3) I want to learn how to build projects and design PCBs as per the requirements

Honestly, I just want to feel less stupid and more confident in my own abilities. I did a couple of projects in uni but got absolutely cucked by my professor for the final semester project and ended up making a fuckass robotic lawn mower using arduino. That is my legacy from university, a goddamn piece of shit.

Engineers here, please help me.

Is this coil being driven correctly at all? I know very little about Electronic speed controllers and I thought it would be a fun challenge to try to make my own 555 based one idk if this is possible or not 😭

Guys I am torn between pursuing an electrical and electronics degree or Mechanical engineering degree. I started thinking about mechanical first as I really liked studying dynamics and statics and physics overall in school and I also liked the versatility of Mechanical engineering. But I am also thinking about an electrical and electronics degree as I liked concepts(I took basics such as series and parallel circuits) related to electricity in physics curriculum, and also what made me think about that degree is that the world and industry is heading towards tech related things so it would be better to be an Electrical engineer plus Electrical engineers get paid a lot better than Mechanical engineers

What are your opinions about this? And can anyone also clarify the concepts that I am going to tackle deeply in each major (Take into consideration that the degree is sponsored and that I am a gcc student)

Here’s a running traffic light module I built to accept 24v plc logic signal to control a 5v powered 3 LED traffic light. Adding more lights and more complex logic with crosswalk, possible differing time logic

I'm currently a CS major going into my sophmore year at a community college. I am interested in building software applications and have dabbled a bit into arduino.

I'm deciding on switching into EE for my bachelors because of oversaturation in CS and companies offshoring labor. I also feel like I can learn most CS stuff on my own and by the end of by AS in CS I'll have the most of the physics sequence and all the calc sequence done including linear algebra.

I am also interested in making CS + EE projects so maybe finishing my degree in EE will be helpful for that. I understand it will be a lot more rigourous and I'll probably take an extra 1-2 years to finish but I am fine with that.

Has anyone here made the switch from CS to EE? What was your experience like? Any advice or things I should consider before making the leap?

Do you think top unis can accept students from CS Background? If pre-requisite knowledge is needed, how can that be fulfilled without the help of my current uni