Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

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Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

As the title suggest, I have finally graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. However, like all people who barely survived three years in university and just passed, I am a bit hesitant (okay, not a bit but maybe a lot) to pursue further studies in electrical engineering fields.

My initial goal was to advance into Robotics Engineering, but I turned out to be very bad with electronics over the months (I have a record of frying IC's within a year). Got discouraged from that after graduation.
Plus, the uni was intentionally focused on power systems and power stations courses, so the electronics portion was rather superficial.

As for my peers, most of them have swapped to power engineering, taking job offers in the power companies. Some of them have opted to just ditch the subject entirely and switch to pursuing an MBA degree. Some went back home to join their family businesses.

I found a passion in coding over the years of staying with this community and I just wanted to know whether swapping to an MSc in CS would be worth while at this point in life (I am 23, FYI)

I am still much of a novice in understanding the different branching CS has to offer and thus, I would be greatly appreciative if some of you would weight in on this topic. I had joined the Wesnoth community back in 2010 and decided that this was the best place to address this.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by GunChleoc »

Sounds like something close to hardware might be your gig?
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by sergey »

As I know, psychologist can help to understand what job suits you.
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 29th, 2019, 8:49 am I found a passion in coding over the years of staying with this community and I just wanted to know whether swapping to an MSc in CS would be worth while at this point in life (I am 23, FYI)
Are you worried if that is too late?
Lord-Knightmare wrote: August 29th, 2019, 8:49 am I am still much of a novice in understanding the different branching CS has to offer
Computerization plays very important role in a modern society and its importance will grow in the future. There is a plenty of job opportunities. There is a lot of different specializations in computer science. The most popular jobs (in my country at least) are related to software development. Websites, mobile apps, desktop apps, server side applications. I think that especially demanded will be mobile apps and server side applications. Computers (in general sense, including smartphones and pane tablets) becomes smaller and people can't imagine their lifes without smartphones. Applications are moving into the so called "cloud", which is basically a server software over an internet that will replace desktop applications. Amount of websites grows, but there are many frameworks and out of the box solutions that ease website development, so I think it will decrease number of webmaster job vacancies. However, I may be wrong here. I am interested to here another opinions.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Ravana »

I became software engineer because of wesnoth. I got the undergraduate degree in 2018 and my work is mainly about web applications (java).

So I would suggest to go for CS.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

GunChleoc wrote:Sounds like something close to hardware might be your gig?
I do admit that despite having just one class on it, I was fascinated by the extensive applications which the Arduino module had to offer. However, the ones that were shown at uni level were rather simplistic such as a temperature and/or humidity sensor or some car type thingy that everyone passed off as a robot (which I find to be absurd). Before the hardware implementation can take place, we are asked to simulate it using Proteus and that gave me the worst headache this year. Sometimes even the code crashed the hardware. Thus, I guess not.
sergey wrote:As I know, psychologist can help to understand what job suits you.
My appointment is on Saturday and yeah, Uni gave me PTSD.
Are you worried if that is too late?
Not really. I mean after my friends and I finished our A Level's most of us landed in really puzzling times. I may have finished my undergraduate studies, but I still have some batch-mates who have just begun undergraduate studies. Some have finished along with me and have entered marketing jobs (with their engineering degrees). While others are still studying their respective fields.
Computerization plays very important role in a modern society and its importance will grow in the future. There is a plenty of job opportunities. There is a lot of different specializations in computer science. The most popular jobs (in my country at least) are related to software development. Websites, mobile apps, desktop apps, server side applications. I think that especially demanded will be mobile apps and server side applications. Computers (in general sense, including smartphones and pane tablets) becomes smaller and people can't imagine their lifes without smartphones. Applications are moving into the so called "cloud", which is basically a server software over an internet that will replace desktop applications. Amount of websites grows, but there are many frameworks and out of the box solutions that ease website development, so I think it will decrease number of webmaster job vacancies. However, I may be wrong here. I am interested to here another opinions.
Yeah, the variety of specialisations of this field is what got me more interested. Electrical Engineers don't really have much job offers in this country and the ones which are available are based towards Power Systems and Electrical Motors. The Electronics job market is sorta dead here. Most of the graduates in electrical engineering swap to MBA or business-related professions such as financing.
Ravana wrote:I became a software engineer because of wesnoth. I got the undergraduate degree in 2018 and my work is mainly about web applications (java).
I wish I started with CS. I was coding in WML since the sixth grade. I barely remember what I even studied these past three years apart from System Verilog and VHDL coding syntax.

Can anyone suggest the CS Master's degree with the least amount of mathematics involved? I am really terrible at maths. :(
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Ravana »

Here at least Software Engineering path does not have much mathematics. There may be statistics and machine learning though.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by GunChleoc »

You should keep in mind that it will take you a few year to finish the course, and job markets can change in the meantime. So, make sure that you pick something that you feel somewhat passionate about, because it will help you become good at it.

Have a look at the detailed curricula of the courses you are interested in - since you have some uni experience under your belt now, you should be able to assess what is doable for you. You will not be able to avoid math entirely, because CS is about machines that compute stuff. Different universities will have varying requirements here.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Tad_Carlucci »

In fact, in many fields of computing science (as opposed to computing technology) you will do better to increase your math concentration.

What I did was stay with my business-school computing tech concentration until I had taken some courses which looked interesting to me but were forbidden if you were in the science-school computing science concentration. For example, while both allow the Logic 201 - course Inductive Reasoning, I took 202 - Deductive Reasoning as part of the School of Business course since I noted it was not allowed to School of Sciences/Computer Science majors.

Other courses many avoid because they're not in the CS recommended list at the post-grad level, were things like Theory of Computing and Theory of Numbers. You should find these in the post-grad Math curricula.

The advice. just above, to follow your passion, is the best.

Many people take college as a means to a job, simply punching a ticket. This usually is counter-productive. The money you spend getting the ticket generally far overshadows the income loss while getting it, even considering the tiny income gain you might see. And, at least here in the US, the debt service on all that money can be crushing.

Once you're into the post-grad level, if not working on something they love, most either give up or find themselves miserable in their careers.

My cousin, for example, was ABD on her PhD in Applied Chem when she chucked it all to take a job at a stable training horses. It wasn't that she was not good at chemistry (she was) it was that she had job offers from places like Kraft working on Ranch Dressing production and suddenly realised that being good was not the same thing as loving and what she loved was horse training. It's been years and she's now a top traininer at a major Kentucky stable and still loves her life.

I realized that working on accounting and payroll systems after my Business degree would be soul crushing (I still did some while I was post-grad, they were), but my switch to Science got me into projects like working on developing parts of ArpaNet (I started on it soon after the switch to the Internet Protocol), and later doing R&D on systems ranging from manufacturing automation to medical devices, and remote sensing.

My brother, on the other hand, took his PhD in Aerospace because that's what our uncle did, and it got him a job with the Air Force, rather than what he loved (theoretical physics, mainly high energy stuff and cosmology). He's felt himself being crushed with all his work on aerospace (which has been quite good and produced some notable work). The only thing which has kept him sane over the years, though, has been that the Air Force, at least, has allowed him some leeway to publish some work on physics. But, still, he recognizes that he would have done far more had he followed his bliss and stayed with Physics all the way instead of switching to Aerospace for his PhD.

---

eta: ABD - "All But Done" - she'd passed her orals and written her thesis. All she had to do was sign it, and submit it, when she finally realized she really didn't want to spend her life doing Quality Control for pertochemical and food processing companies. Everyone in the family was aghast. Many felt she should have submitted and taken the paper even if she didn't want the job. I think my brother and I were the only ones who actually understood why she just walked away.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Crow_T »

One area to check out is IT/networking, it can be done with certifications as opposed to degrees, has a blend of hardware and software stuff, and has a lot of room for advancement. Check out jobs that ask for CCNA/CCENT or Network+/Security+. There are a lot of resources free online if this seems like an interesting area to you.

There are plenty of resources available if you want to get into robotics as well, why not try a bit on your own first?
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Jastiv »

It sounds like you enjoy software. Stick with the software stuff. Keep your skills current and up to date. I highly advise working on something like Wograld, and putting skills to practical use because the moment you forget about things like git and the latest version of Java.. you will be getting behind on the latest technologies that companies would like you to use.
One side of robotics you might not think about is the mechanical side. How good are you at doing things like putting robot kits together? Have you been able to make a robot that actually, you know, moves around and does stuff? Don't try to pretend you love robotics and the robot does nothing for ten years even though people find that very tempting. Also, no one will steal your non-working robot ideas for a patent.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by max_torch »

It's possible that one of the reasons why there is a lack of jobs for electrical/electronics engineers is that some businesses have no idea that there are technology solutions out there that could actually benefit them. You can be someone who requests an invitation from a business to look into their process with the promise of offering them a solution, prepare a presentation to show how much benefit they get from said solution, and then quote them on how much it will cost to pay you to deliver said solution.
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Re: Career Choices after Undergraduate Studies in Electrical Engineering

Post by Jastiv »

On second thought, the most important thing is to get to know as many people as possible and stay in touch with them after college. Your jobs are going to come from acquaintances in your network. Skills aren't really that important. It doesn't matter if you have ten phds in math, if no one likes you or thinks your are capable of doing it, you won't even be able to get that floor sweeping jobs because they would either do without or replace you with a robot.
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Moving forward in career choices.

Post by DarkHorse »

Hi

You follow a practical technical training path, but have developed a different focus at a early age.

Continue your education. You will need a 2nd degree or a masters, in computer programming.




PROCSTART career

FOR 4 years
DO:

-work in any employment to keep you in income, sufficient to life. Time is more important to use than money.
-make use of your parents house.
-learn programming to a sufficient standard for professional employment.
-take your masters in one year using the money you saved for the previous 3 years.
-become a robotics SOFTWARE PROGRAMMER.
-a welder of solder, to melt chips, is a technician, a ceilinged career.
-you will need to learn only 3 programming language total to achieve your gaol.


OR:

-borrow or steal sufficient funds.
-return for 3-4 years to study.
-achieve your objectives.


THEN:

-it is most likeyhood that self-learning will be twice as time effective and efficient, both in medium and long career models.
-distance learning is better for you than residential education, in all respect.
-you may easily return to the support of social networks and role models most suitable, those who will be most in a position to give to you without
a balance of obligation, a transaction in your favour, for such period of time you are still in education.
-if you in a rural area, the city or largew town within 1 hours driving is the greatest reasonable dostance to maintain your networks.
-Wesnoth and its social and development are part of your learning, and full use should be made of this. You do not regard thius time as work, but as recreation.

UNTIL: engaged in permanent career choise.


END 4 years


Regards
Darkhorse



PROCEND career





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