What Does An Electrical Engineer Do?

Q: I will be a high school senior next year. Everyone is telling me to start planning my life now. Well, as easy as that sounds, I don't really know what I want to do. I would like to do something in the aerospace/science/engineering field. Anyway, I have noticed that there are some great scholarships/programs with electrical engineering as a major. If I attend a good school and major in EE, what kind of jobs would there be upon exiting college? In short, what do you guys do?

A: -Electrical Engineers are designers of electrical components and systems for all types use. some engineers conduct research and design new products some engineers are involved in fire investigation were electrical item may be defective. electrical engineers are involved in almost every large constrution project as they design and give direction to electricians as to how instll the buildingas electrical system. they also work for utility companys designing power grids etc, it is a very large are of work they cover and the Electrical engineer with the acredited PE behind his name is a highly respected individual becuase of the intense amount of traing they must take and tests they must pass. -I will quote the description of electrical engineering from the Department of Electrical Engineering at a major North American University: 'Electrical Engineering is designed as a foundation for work in the fields of analog and digital electronics, microelectronics, signal processing, communications, power generation, transmission and distribution, electrical machines, computing systems, controls and general electrical engineering applications.' Get all that? Maybe, maybe not? Basically EE encompasses so many different fields that its impossible to exhaustively list them anymore. You might find yourself doing anything from designing computers, developing computer software, designing electrical apparatus, doing calculations with respect to power grids, to managing companies, managing people, and managing billions of dollars worth of assets. Its very unusual for an EE not to have any management responsibilities throughout their career. -Okay, so far people have given you generalities, maybe it will help if I just tell you what I did at work this week. (I am an electrical engineer working for a small-to-medium consulting engineering firm. We provide electrical, mechanical, and structural consultation and design for power, industrial, institutional, and some commercial work.) Today I spent all day at a jobsite reviewing the heat tracing system as installed by someone else at a newly-constructed power plant, where they spent the last winter having to thaw out way too many things. By next week we will have made our report with cost estimate of what it will take to remedy the various defects. Earlier in the week, besides getting ready for this field trip, there was: -several phone calls with the electrical foreman connecting the controls for some large engine-generators at the airport. -finishing up and e-mailing away the record drawings for an air compressor installation at an auto plant that just finished up. -working on the electrical and controls part of a bid we submitted today for a chiller installation at a college. -continued to slog through designing the interconnection wiring diagrams for two European engine-generators connected to Canadian switchgear to be installed Out West -planned a trip to the roof of a hospital where we will provide the power to a cellular (phone) installation, and then finding out the trip is postponed because somebody at the hospital is on vacation. So that should give you an idea. Your results will vary, of course. I am rather on the large-amperage end of the spectrum. There are folks who are also electrical engineers who, instead of branch banks and powerhouses, design stuff like the circuits inside this computer, and the innards of the chips in the circuits in this computer, and I have no idea what their days are like, except that perhaps they don't need to wear steel-toed shoes as often as I do.

What Does An Electrical Engineer Do?

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