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I should have loved electrical engineering

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Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#61

Post by morpheuskafka »

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…

> Plenty of cutting-edge science needs hobbyist-level EE, it's just not work in EE

But aren't there a lot of actual hardware products that are "simple circuit blocks connected to a microcontroller"? Like a toaster, shaver, keyboard, etc. If that's not "work in EE" then what is it classified under? It's not CS either.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#62

Post by whstl »

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…

I also just wanted to build a guitar amp.

I worked with EE for a while and it was very boring building stuff.

It basically took me changing careers to SWE and working for a games company to finally use the math part of my EE degree.

I ended up building my guitar amp years after.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#63

Post by yardie »

I had the background for EE. Grew up around a bunch of HAMs and Motorola engineers, competed in FIRST, CS Olympiads, etc. Went to a great engineering school and then had my ass handed to me end of sophomore year. So I did the reasonable thing any 20yo would do and listened to my academic advisor. Who told me that "maybe EE, just isn't for you." Seeing the economic bottom fall out for engineers and CS graduates didn't help. So, in a state of panic I transferred to the CS program. I had to extend my graduation another year.

Career wise and financially, its worked out great. Even most of my EE friends didn't do much in EE after the first 5 years. Everyone just migrated to where the jobs were: Software development, IT, and Cybersecurity.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#64

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

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…

There are people who think engineering is basically Lego but bigger, and people who think engineering is applied physics.

They're different jobs.

The Lego level is more like being a technician. You can slap a few ready-made building blocks together, maybe tweak them a little using basic algebra, and you've got your design.

That's fine for guitar amps and simple synth circuits and such.

But if you use that approach while designing the control circuitry for a power plant or a rocket motor, in the best case failure will be very expensive, worst case people will die.

That's where the real engineering happens. You're modelling systems from first principles and you know enough to be fairly confident that the equations you create to characterise a complex design with multiple inputs and outputs accurately predict its behaviour.

If you start with hobby electronics you have zero experience or insight into that level. So when you begin your course you're completely blindsided by how much math there is, and have no idea what it's for.

And some domains, like robotics, have even more math. You can use plain old EE control theory, but you can extend it into modelling systems using Lie groups and Lie algebras - which are more often used in quantum physics.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#65

Post by fuzzfactor »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #64
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…

There are people who think engineering is basically Lego but bigger, and people who think engineering is applied physics. They're different jobs. The Lego level is more like being a technician. You can slap a few ready-made building blocks together, maybe tweak them a little using basic algebra, and you've got your design. That's fine for guitar amps and simple synth circuits and such. But if you use that approach wh…

>If you start with hobby electronics you have zero experience or insight into that level.

Sounds like if you start with the math before you're old enough to pick up a soldering iron it might be a little different.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#66

Post by throwup238 »

nudgeee wrote: post #23
amelius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By fab you mean lab, then agree. Fabs are specific to the manufacturing of integrated circuits. EE encompasses more than just manufacturing of ICs, for example research and applications in radio propagation and EM/wireless, signal integrity, antenna design, coexistence/desense, advanced power electronics, control systems, simulation/solvers, etc.

> Fabs are specific to the manufacturing of integrated circuits.

In EE the factories that produce PCBs are also called fabs.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#67

Post by buckle8017 »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #61
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…

> Plenty of cutting-edge science needs hobbyist-level EE, it's just not work in EE But aren't there a lot of actual hardware products that are "simple circuit blocks connected to a microcontroller"? Like a toaster, shaver, keyboard, etc. If that's not "work in EE" then what is it classified under? It's not CS either.

Computer engineering is the degree for that.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#68

Post by Eextra953 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #53
1970-01-01 wrote: post #15

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.

In all of my EE or computer hardware classes at uni, we had weekly labs that required hands on building circuits. Often the labs were the most challenging part of the class. Is that not common?

I had the same experience, every EE class had a lab component even the intro ones. At my school, the labs for junior and senior classes were all scheduled 6PM to 10PM and almost all of them took that long or longer to complete.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#69

Post by alnwlsn »

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…

I'm sure part of it is that EE claims probably the widest range out there. You can have kilovolts or microvolts, but mostly the same rules apply. Or you can learn how to power a small sensor for years off one small battery, or how to power a country. I don't know many other disciplines that can lay claim to 10-15 orders of magnitude.

At most levels, software will be in there somewhere, even those fake flickering candle LEDs have RAM, ROM, and a processor these days.

Re: I should have loved electrical engineering

#70

Post by Eextra953 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #18
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.

I think the drop in tinkering is due to the high skill/cost barrier to entry particularly SMT, and lab equipment. If you want to do anything interesting beyond a breadboard and arduino/rpi you are going to need to invest in a custom pcb and lab equipment. With SMT, I got into EE/HW by taking things apart and studying them, back then (late 90's) most consumer stuff still had a good mix of thru-hole and SMT so tinkering was easy. Now almost nothing is thru-hole so if you want to fix or modify anything you are going to need more than a cheap harbor freight soldering iron.
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