I should have loved electrical engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#11

Post by pclmulqdq » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:58 AM UTC

EE encompasses a lot of "engineering that takes hard math" at a professional and research level (similar to "hard CS," just different fields of math), so it is very hard to do as an undergrad, when your background in complex analysis and E&M is weak.

Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models. The abstraction underneath the field of analog circuits is extremely leaky, so you often learn to ignore it unless you absolutely need to pay attention.

Hobbyist and undergrad projects thus usually consist of cargo culting combinations of simple circuit building blocks connected to a microcontroller of some kind. A lot of research (not in EE) needs this kind of work, but it's not necessarily glamorous. This is the same as pulling software libraries off the shelf to do software work ("showing my advisor docker"), but the software work gets more credit in modern academia because the skills are rarer and the building blocks are newer.

Plenty of cutting-edge science needs hobbyist-level EE, it's just not work in EE. Actual CS research is largely the same as EE research: very, very heavy on math and very difficult to do without studying a lot. If you compare hard EE research to basic software engineering, it makes sense that you think there's a "wall," but you're ignoring the easy EE and the hard CS.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#12

Post by Xenoamorphous » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 10:59 AM UTC

kennyloginz wrote: post #4

crinkly wrote: post #3

If you want to learn how to solve problems with hammers, engineering is what you want to do. If you want to know how the hammer works, do mathematics or physics. If you want to get paid, do software. This is why I did an EE degree, didn't get paid much, went into software and used that to pay for a mathematics degree.

This is outdated advice. If you want to get paid, get a hammer.

Develop an AI model that can generate an image of a hammer riding a bycicle.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#13

Post by phendrenad2 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:02 AM UTC

More people should get into EE and see it all the way through. And, rather than getting a masters degree or PhD, go straight into industry. Why? Because just beyond what you learn in your BSEE degree lies one of the most fascinating topics ever: Signal integrity.

I understand why a lot of people bail out of EE, and why a lot go to web dev specifically. EE relies so heavily on simple calculus that there's a distinct moment where you have to go "what the heck am I actually learning?". And seeing that software has this apparent depth (design patterns, OOP principles, Haskell, ORMs, Fieldingian REST, GraphQL, 10,000-word blog posts on vim vs emacs, etc.), they naturally get drawn there.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#14

Post by raverbashing » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:28 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #10

The EE component of my CSE degree felt like a math degree in disguise. Calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, discrete mathematics... It was a long time ago but I remember it as three years of math prerequisites and Maxwell’s equations and then finally we could learn what a MOSFET is. Absolutely terrible. I just want to learn how circuits work and how to build a guitar amp! But noooooo I need to learn how…

100% this

And then circuit analysis is just a big exercise in building "castles in the sky" and worrying your upside down staircase has railings

(Among other several pet peeves about EE that I could go on about)

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#15

Post by 1970-01-01 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:29 AM UTC

TL;DR author discovers there is little overlap between EE and CS.

Hardware and software are called different things for a reason? I do agree that tinkering with the hardware always needs to be in-step with the lesson at hand. You can't just state KVL/KCL and move-on, you need to have the student build a circuit and play with it for a day or two.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#16

Post by 1970-01-01 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:31 AM UTC

kennyloginz wrote: post #4

crinkly wrote: post #3

If you want to learn how to solve problems with hammers, engineering is what you want to do. If you want to know how the hammer works, do mathematics or physics. If you want to get paid, do software. This is why I did an EE degree, didn't get paid much, went into software and used that to pay for a mathematics degree.

This is outdated advice. If you want to get paid, get a hammer.

Get a website that just sells hammers. I'm sure it already exists.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#17

Post by aatd86 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:38 AM UTC

For me, it's a bit of the reverse. I initially wanted to go into CS, but had to start with 2 years of generic fundamentals closer to your regular EE curriculum. Ended up majoring in finance. Have been able to catch up quite nicely on my own on the CS knowledge since it's just software. But I miss the EE parts. I can't build the remotest smallest device with my hands. After high school I thought I would go onto studying supraconductors and stuff.. Go figure, I got lost along the way, smh.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#18

Post by pclmulqdq » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:46 AM UTC

TrackerFF wrote: post #2

When I studied electrical engineering, I'd say that a good half of our class were your typical "DIY" tinkering guys, which had been a hobby for quite some time. For some, like me, it was audio equipment. Guitar amplifiers, effects pedals, and all that. For others it was robotics. Other again enjoyed building their own DIY home automation systems. Or fitting mechanical systems with sensors and such, ham radio, whateve…

Funny. I studied EE in 2012, and by that time, according to professors, there weren't many hardware tinkerers in the group compared to the 1990's. Many more people saw it was a good field that's comparable to CS. At this time, EE was on the way down and CS was on the rise in popularity. The classes were absolutely brutal for most people because they came in with less of an understanding of it.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#19

Post by blopp99 » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:50 AM UTC

The feeling you got when tinkering is the same I got when first studied formal electronics in HS. I didn't do college, but the only one from my graduation year who stayed into electronics until now it's me. It's been 12years and I'm still doing it. I've been blessed enough to have encountered people that paid me to do Industrial Design and Product R&D. I'm now currently in manufacturing and automation.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#20

Post by amelius » Thu, Sep 04, 2025, 11:51 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #11

EE encompasses a lot of "engineering that takes hard math" at a professional and research level (similar to "hard CS," just different fields of math), so it is very hard to do as an undergrad, when your background in complex analysis and E&M is weak. Early classes on circuits in EE will usually take shortcuts using known circuit structures and simplified models. The abstraction underneath the field of analog circuits…

This is especially true because for doing most _hard_ EE work, you really need access to a fab, and so a lot of money. This is not really the case for most hard CS work.