<p>Hi everyone, I've been lurking around the forums a lot, and posting a little. However, this year is going to be my senior year and for the longest time I thought I had decided that I wanted to go into EE. However, more recently I have been thinking about my decision and I realized I wasn't exactly sure what kinds of jobs I would be trained for in school.</p>
<p>I tried to search through the forum, but I wasn't really able to find much that talked about that kinds of jobs that I would be able to get hired for. I'm sorry if this annoys anyone, please feel free not to even bother with this. I really hope that someone could give me some information, though. I really want to be able to design new electronic devices, does anyone have any ideas what I should try to concentrate in if I was majoring in EE? or is there another major that I should be looking at? I realize, I'll probably need a masters if I want to be able to design things, but I really just want to know what would put me in the best position to do that.</p>
<p>I was browsing through that, and correct me if I’m wrong, but it really seemed to focus on more CE and CS than EE. I didn’t really see any mention anywhere about specific jobs or areas that an EE would perform in. I did see that RF technology was mentioned, but that’s not really what interests me.</p>
<p>Do you, or anyone else, know if it would be possible for me to go into R&D for electronics with a major in electrical engineering? or should I look elsewhere? Sorry if I’m just not understanding something.</p>
Concentrations that come to mind include embedded systems (which is probably what most people nowadays are thinking about when they hear “electrical engineering”) and signal processing.</p>
<p>Someone correct this ignorant freshman if he’s wrong.</p>
<p>Sorry to sounds so clueless, but do you think you could describe those for me? I haven’t been able to find a very concrete definition in Layman’s terms.</p>
<p>Copy-pasted right from my school’s EE page:</p>
<p>Embedded Computing Systems: This area emphasizes the design of digital circuits at a somewhat higher level. The design of logic circuits is partially abstracted into various logic families, with considerations of speed, power, and other performance measures. Example applications include digital cameras, portable music players (such as an iPod), electronics in automobiles, home appliances, etc.</p>
<p>Signal Processing: In this area, we develop powerful methods to process both continuous and discrete signals using mathematical techniques to perform transformations and/or extract information. We deal with a variety of signal forms such as music, video, speech, language, images, sonar, seismic vibrations, medical, and biological. It is a vital technology with applications in many areas: communications, information processing, consumer electronics, control systems, radar and sonar, medical imaging, seismology, and scientific instrumentation. Examples of signal processing tasks include removing noise from voice signals, automatic recognition of human speech for voice activated devices, enabling satellite imaging systems to resolve tiny objects on the ground, enhancing internal organs in CAT scans, compressing music signals for portable music players (such as iPods), and compressing video for DVD and videoconferencing. </p>
<p>Well, I guess you have to clarify what you mean by electronic devices. For now, I’ll assume you mean consumer electronics products (iPhones, routers, etc.)</p>
<p>CE is also traditionally a specialization in EE.</p>
<p>For most modern consumer electronics, there are 2 sometimes 3 parts to it: hardware, firmware/operating system, and maybe software.</p>
<p>Hardware is the actual electronic components inside (processor, memory, digital signal processors, touchscreens, WiFi chips, etc.). Most of the time, off the shelf hardware is used simply because designing in-house hardware can be very expensive and is usually not worth the extra effort. Designing hardware is usually done by EE’s who specialize in all sorts of things. CE’s are needed for processors, RF engineers are needed for RF chips (WiFi, radio, GSM, CDMA), and analog engineers are needed for mixed signal chips. Because of the wide range of hardware needed, there is also a wide range of specialties for designing hardware. Companies who are known for hardware include Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Intel, AMD, nVidia, and Qualcomm.</p>
<p>Firmware/operating system is how to make all of the hardware work together in a coherent manner. This is usually done by CE’s with a taste for software or CS’s with a taste for hardware. Companies who are known for firmware/operating system include Apple and Palm.</p>
<p>Software is software. I don’t think it really needs that much explanation.</p>
<p>If you are interested in consumer electronics, go with EE. Most schools’ curriculum will require you to take at least an intro course in each of the specializations in EE. From there, you’ll get a feel of what is what and what you want to do.</p>
<p>Thanks Kyt, that was very enlightening, I really do appreciate all the explanations in simple terms for someone who doesn’t really understand all that much about the subject area yet.</p>
[QUOTE]
I’m pretty sure biomedical engineering is a specialization of EE, so technically, you can work as a “doctor” after an EE degree.QUOTE]</p>
<p>Thats not necessarily true - BME is an independent program, but can be a specialization for EE in some cases where BME is new to the school. But you can’t become a “doctor” since a. you need to go to med school obviously and b. you need to take the pre-med requirements to get into med school. So thats generally chem 1/2 orgo chem 1/2 and maybe a couple of other courses.</p>
<p>Designing devices falls under compE at many schools. When I say “designing devices”, I mean how do you interface between components to make a device work? Designing individual components is more circuit design, which is more low level. Still further down, you get into things like microsystems and VLSI where you’re actually laying out individual transistors. In general, each of these levels will be a different job, so it’s up to you to decide where you want to fit in.</p>
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<p>EE is definitely an important part of BME, but BME draws upon many disciplines. EE is perhaps most relevant if you’re talking about building sensory implants or interpreting EKGs or EEGs, but BME is more than that. An EE would not know very much about how to make an artificial tissue scaffold, for example.</p>
<p>So are you saying that if I wanted to be a part of designing say a new Ipod, I know this is a played out example but it’s the easiest I could think of, I would have to major in Computer engineering as opposed to electrical engineering?</p>