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<p>A EET degree/certificate typically is 3 years including internships while a EE degree is typically 5 years with internships. At least from what I’ve seen. </p>
<p>The EET’s get sent for overtime-heavy field assignments, while the EE’s are typically 9-5 people in the offices with no overtime (even if they want it). Just seems to be the nature of the work. But each individuals’ experience will vary, of course.</p>
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<p>Is this a Bachelors degree you are talking about, because I have never seen a BS degree (EET or not) that you (an arbitrary, typical you) can get through in 3 years, nor an Associates degree in Technology that either gets you a job with “Engineer” in the job title or pay commensurate with a BSEE. I used to be a technician, and the guys with associates degrees were definitely working with me as technicians, and were seeing pay at about 60-70% of the engineering rate, with substantially reduced career prospects.</p>
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You are really starting to compare apples to oranges, two very different jobs. There are some engineers (EE’s or EET’s) who rack up massive amounts of overtime and can see a big pay increase as a result… but that is a relatively small percentage, and there are significant drawbacks to those jobs as well.</p>
<p>One point I’d elaborate upon.
As pointed out – P.E.s are State Licensed. This will vary from state to state.</p>
<p>To be a Professional Engineer and practice Engineering as a trade – you working for yourself or running an Engineering firm – you would have to be a P.E. In that sense you are not an Engineer w/o having your P.E.</p>
<p>But… you can certainly work as an Engineer and have and Engineering job-title without being a P.E. This is from the company you work for. Depending on the nature of the work that company does it may be the case that one of your bosses must be a P.E.</p>
<p>This is more of a concern with M.E.s and Civ.E.s, since they are working at building things that many people’s lives depend upon. </p>
<p>E.E.s stuff breaks it’s just down-time and not a catastrophic disaster – much of the time. As for Software Engineering – we have YET to get a consolidated view as to what this even <em>means</em>! My personal feeling is that there <em>does</em> need to be more emphasis on Professional Engineering in E.E. and SW.E. <em>and</em> Comp.Sci. These fields are having growing impact (esp. Comp.Sci. and SW.E.) that can have catastrophic consequences.</p>
<p>This discussion is idiotic. EE is always considered to be higher skilled than EET. Done. Final. EE can do math, EET can’t/won’t. I don’t care if there’s one weird Ivy program where this isn’t the case. Everyone else: that’s how it is. EET is taught at community college where there’s open enrollment, EE is tought at universities where there is a cut off. Both jobs are perfectly honorable. But if you’re trying to get career advice: EE is a tougher program and gets you a better job. All else equal, nobody who has an EE degree will ever consider an EET their peer. Sure, maybe there’s one in twenty EET’s who make a name for themselves. Fine. Though, if you’re asking “what degree should I get” , you’re interested in the default perception of having a or b major listed on your resume. The answer to the OP’s question is: absolutely not. EET is virtually never considered equivalent to EE.</p>
<p>Speaking from experience from both fortune 100 private sectors and the public sector, here is what I have to say:</p>
<p>-if you are in the public sector, an EET would give you an edge just because you are in union. You get overtime paid and alot more benefits than non-union people ( like us, the engineers). However, from what I see, there rarely technologist people in the management level, they usually stayed in the technologist level until retirement.</p>
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<li>in private sector, especially if you are in consulting etc, EE gives you an edge and often the company treats them and the technologist quite differently. They usually value ee way more just because their clients would think engineers are more valuable than techmologists.</li>
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<p>Personally, I see alot of very knowledgeable technologists that I learned alot from. They have alot of hands on knowledge and usually are easier to get into their first job.</p>
<p>I never regretted getting a ee degree though.</p>
<p>This is what I think… </p>
<p>First off its BSEET not BSET, lets not change the acronym to try to make a false point. That acronym stands for bachelors’ of Electronic Engineering Technology, NOT TECHNICIAN. </p>
<p>This is a pet peeve of mine and is probably why I posted; when this thread is almost 1 year old, but if it helps 1 person contemplating or searching for answers, I’m happy.</p>
<p>BSEE program is the way to go. I’m sorry to the BSEETs’ who have spent all there money and time on a degree that’s going to be discriminated against. I say it’s the way to go because of people that are already in the field who may have a management position may have there BSEE degree will probably discriminate against a BSEET.</p>
<p>Facts are facts, BSEEs’ have more theory than BSEETs’. BSEETs’ have more hands on than BSEEs’. Not to say that BSEETs’ don’t have any theory and not to say BSEEs’ don’t have any hands on. If a BSEET is at the same company and the same position, to say the two are not peers and are not both engineers would be ignorant. </p>
<p>BSEEs’ are more geared for Graduate school. BSEETs’ are more geared to get engineers out into the field (which is why the program was started). </p>
<p>Also posts have been posted declaring one isn’t superior over another but they are just different. This is true, but not in the aspect of one is an engineer and one is not… They’re different in the aspect of how you learn and how it is taught…</p>
<p>I’m not going to list all the classes I’ve taken (which is more then a traditional BSEE student.) I am not going to compare the difficulty level (even though I did all mine while working full time.) Any BSEET student can do the work of a BSEE student. Any BSEE student can do the work of a BSEET student.</p>
<p>College teaches you the most efficient way to learn, and this is the most important skill to have when you enter the work force…</p>
<p>You can’t honestly say who is better… Better at what? There is too much that goes into a question like that…This depends on the industry, company, individual, etc. If you want to feel better about yourself because you took Differential equations (which I did too) go for it but keep in mind all the great engineers in the world past present and future many didn’t even “Engineering” degrees. All you have to do is put in the time, read, challenge yourself and be PERSISTENT. </p>
<p>If you didn’t get anything out of this post get this… Don’t judge one another, don’t compare yourself to the next. Be the best you can be and that’s all that matters. You’re going to have people like ones that posted on this forum that need to have a false entitlement and false perception of themselves and people around them. Anyways this is what I think…</p>
<p>I graduated with a Bachelor’s in EET and to “Bridge the gap” I got a minor in Mathematics. It was 30 extra math credits consisting of Calc. 3, Advanced Calc 1 and 2, Linear algebra 1 and 2 and some graph theory classes. At my college Diffeq was required for our bachelor’s ( as it should be). All in all maybe I should have just gone for an EE Degree but this makes me feel like I got the best of both worlds. I am much more of a hands on kind of person but push come to shove I can compute with the big dogs.</p>
<p>I have a Engineering Technology Degree and I have found it to be a limiting factor in getting considered for a lot of positions since a lot of companies state “Engineering” and I have seen “Not Engineering Technology” also on some job listings but this is becoming rare. Only thing that helps me is my level of experience which I have a ton of. I also currently make $76K/year, made as high as $85K/year prior to the downturn in the economy. I turned down a number of jobs that paid in excess of $80K and as high as $105K. Ended up taking a pay cut to stay where I live but with things turning around, I will soon be leaving for better opportunity and salaries. </p>
<p>The differences between a Engineering Degree and Engineering Technology are primarily in the level of Math Courses on a whole. I had Calculus, but did not have Calculus 1, 2 and 3 or Differential Equations. The Physics courses I took were not Calc based but Trig and Algebra based. A lot more Theory based vs. Hands on Applied Science. </p>
<p>In Engineering programs you spend the first 2 years of your studies taking the core courses and do not hit Engineering courses till year 3. Engineering Technology courses go right into both day 1. We also have a lot of Labs, which lasted 3 hours at a time. Engineering grads have little lab time with more book and theory time. </p>
<p>I have been called an “Engineer” since day one, work with Engineering grads (BSME, BSEE) and have the same if not harder level of workload. I also never seen too much hard math or theory being used in my field of Engineering. It’s a big field, not all end up working in a job that requires a PE and hand calculations utilizing Calc and Differential Equations most outside of Research would not even use it on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Worthless? Maybe not as great a door opener as a Engineering degree and limited options to getting a Masters, but salary wise I have not seen much if any difference. All depends on the Hiring Manager some are incredibly anal about having the said degree, even though the work or product they are making is not too technology challenging and in the Consumer Electronics world there is plenty of companies that fit this to a T. Not all Engineering Grads go on to work for a company that even utilizes their theory and high level of Math. I have worked with many who were book smart but lacked practical knowledge in mechanics or being mechanically inclined. Also a few made assumptions on material failure without even researching the said material’s properties first. </p>
<p>If I could do it all over again, I would probably go for a Engineering degree because it’s more accepted in the industry and would open more doors and allow me to pursue a few Masters Degree programs, but to be honest all my class mates are doing just as well as me if not better, some are Engineering Managers managing BSMEs too. So it’s purely subjective. Also at the time I could not afford Engineering school or had the grades to get in, was not even planning on going into anything that required Math, but I said might as well try it. Wasn’t easy, not just for me but for others 30 kids in my class only 7 graduated 4 to 5 years later. Was anything but a walk in the park. </p>
<p>Elitism or not, I have found some Engineering grads who are annoyed with me working next to them and having the same title, like I’m not worthy but I have worked circles around most and seen some levels of jealousy that are excessive. Also fixed plenty Engineering grades design problems and provided detailed reports on the failure mode and the proper corrective action to upper level management. Saved companies hundreds of thousands of dollars and delivered working solutions on time and within budget. At the end of the day, my experience speaks for itself and the degree is not a concern.</p>
I would like to clarify one thing a person with a BSEET is a technician, not an Engineer. If you want to become an Engineer in this are you need to study Electrical Engineering, not Engineering TECHNOLOGY. They are not the same.
Very simple: BSEE = Engineer
BSEET = Technician
No Electrical Engineer will consider an Electronics Engineering Technician their equal.
An Electrical Engineering degree is a much, much challenging degree to obtain.
-Electrical Engineering requires 6 semester of pure high level Math.
-Electronics Engineering Technology requires 2 semesters of math.
-Electrical Engineering requires at least 3 semesters of high level physics
-Electronics Engineering Technology requires 2 lower levels semester of physics
-Electrical Engineering requires AT LEAST 3 computer languages.
-Electronics Engineering Technology require C++ and that’s all.
-Electrical Engineering degree takes about 5 years at a University.
These are just a few of the differences.
So no, they are far from being the same thing.
If you have a BSEET degree and call yourself an engineer, your are just falsely taking credit for all the effort, time and money engineers invest to become one of sociaty’s elite.
Hi ssoulin,
You sound like a very smart person, congrats.
Just a couple of point;
When studying my Electrical Engineering, I used to spend about 10 hours in the lab just for one of the course I was taking , 3-4 days a week, we couln’t spend more time because the lab needed to be close.
I agree, that many times all the Math, Physics and Chemestry taken in a EE degree are not used in some industries, well, it depends on your job; we don’t have a single designer with a EET degree, all have a EE degree.
One of several reasons you need to take these courses is that you need to prove that you can understand complex consepts that EET don’t need to prove because they are studying to be technicians.
If a person has an Engineering degree (not engineering technology) he/she is an Engineer period, even if he/she is working at McDonald or Walmart. On the other hand, an EET will always be a technician, even if they call him/her engineer or if he/she has a business card that says that he/she is an engineer.
See, being an Engineer is a level of academic education, not a job title.
A person with a EET degree is not a peer of an Electrical Engineer.
Just Wanted to Clarify a Few Things.
Honestly, @atinoco1, give it a rest. You are responding to posts that are a year old that were, in turn, responding to posts that are 5 years old. No one is following his thread anymore. Also, frankly, there is no need for the elitism you’ve displayed. Engineering degrees and technology degrees are both useful and both have their place. There’s no need to get snooty about it.