WHat do I know?

[Dr_Doggy]

I'd just like to take this opportunity to ask all the electronics engineers out there what they know, supposedly i'm grading as one soon, but i feel as if i know nothing. If i am to call myself one, I'd like to know what my capabilities are. (or should be)

and also electronic technicians pls!

So what kind of stuff do EE's & ET's know?? and what s the difference?

and what is the difference between having a certificate and being certified,,,, how do i become certified?

 

[RadioRon]

What a strange question. But let's give it a try. I've been to two different kinds of schools, a technical college(2yr) and a university(4yr) and I think it is fair to say that what you learn in a longer degree program (like University) is only a foundation on which you build your actual design knowledge. So those fresh out of a degree program need to be patient and consider that they need to do the equivalent of a few years of what we will call apprenticeship, or what the docs refer to as an internship followed possibly by residency work. Every profession has its training cycle. Where I live, it takes a few years of experience before the local engineering association graduates you from in-training to full working status. You can take from that they they believe you must have experience before you know something. However, if you studied hard and did ok in school, you probably know some theory and this is a solid foundation to build your experience on. In my case, i did things a bit backwards, as the technical college taught a lot of practical and design practice with a lesser foundation in theory and coming out of that college I actually thought I knew something. In hindsight, i would say that indeed I did. But if I had come out of University only, I don't think I could say the same thing.

 

[Dr_Doggy]

OK,! its the 2 yrs college i want to know about, what did you learn in each year, as in ohms law, transistors, amps, IC's?

.........and what kinda job could you get without the university?

 

[tcmtech]

I had the similar experience as well.
When I came out of high school I did two years at a tech school and came out feeling like I really knew something useful and shortly after that found out I was right! I am thankful for what I learned back then and still use much of that knowledge today which has for the most part been the base of my life foundation.

My four year university experience was about as far from that as it could get. Very little of my EE course related stuff held or holds little practical application or real life bearings on well, being useful really.
For the most part being I already had real life practical and applied work experience I found the 4 year degree a total waist of time money and effort. For me my alternative and elective classes I took, to fill in space during that time, have had far more practical use in my life than what the core EE related stuff ever came close to.

Once I asked my adviser, when am I going to get some real engineering related education and training? He replied, whenever you get hired by a company that needs it that when they will send me to learn it.

Don't be surprised if you wake up one day and find out that you basically spent four years, or more, financing someones sports program and not actually getting an education that is practical for much of anything. But then you might get lucky and end up working with a bunch of other clueless dolts who got the same dismal educations where you could then be fortunate enough to never realize how bad off your education may have really been.

 

[Reloadron]

OK,! its the 2 yrs college i want to know about, what did you learn in each year, as in ohms law, transistors, amps, IC's?

.........and what kinda job could you get without the university?

Doggy that is sort of a loaded or hard to answer question. The jobs available to people here in the US with a 2 or 4 year degree vary from geographical area to area as well as state to state. Radio Ron gave you a good overview of a 2 year technical degree versus a 4 year university degree. That opens another area in that the requirements for any degree vary from country to country and that is not just true of electronics or technical areas. A friend of mine married a girl from Russia where she was a Dr. and here she was qualified as an LPN (2 year nursing degree). So go figure.

<EDIT> and tcmtech covered it nicely as well while I was slowly typing. </EDIT>

Ron

 

[tcmtech]

Yep. Depending on who you are, where you went, and where you end up you could turn out to actually be a well educated somebody or unfortunately anther useless nobody with a expensive piece of paper attached to your name.

Hope for the best and expect considerably less.

 

[cr0sh]

and what kinda job could you get without the university?

Something to keep in mind: Sometimes it isn't what you know, but how you sell yourself.

Remember that as you write you CV/resume, and when you go on interviews. You can't expect to just jump right in and be paid a high salary (unless you have proven yourself with other projects, and sometimes not even then). You need to go through a period of being "low man on totem pole", so to speak; as noted, an apprenticeship period is almost always in the offering at first. Be willing to take less money and work longer hours, for the experience will pay off in the end.

Just to give an example of my own career path - I came to Phoenix to go to a local tech school fresh outta high school (in retrospect, probably the worst decision of my life - I should've went to college/university); anyhow, it was year long course in electronics. Halfway through the course, I had to find a new job as my original job (cashier) dropped my hours so low I couldn't afford rent. Anyhow, I cold-called a few places, and one place that interviewed me was for a computer operator position (running tapes and reports, that kind of thing). I told them about my coding experience and knowledge, but they said because I didn't have a degree they wouldn't hire me as a developer. But I did get the operator job. They stuck me at a desk inside the computer room (great in the summer - chilly in the winter!), where I learned to run 9-track vacuum column tape drives and large 132 column line printers. Anyhow, they gave me an account on the system, and in my spare time I coded various stupid things. They must've been monitoring my coding, because a couple of months later they hired me as a junior software developer, and upped my hourly wage (and when I look back on it today, they got me cheap).

That's been almost 20 years ago; I'm still a software developer career-wise (currently working for a local web application developer), and have only applied what I learned about electronics from that tech school to me hobby projects. I don't have a degree or anything in software development; everything I know I have learned on my own - either at home, or at my employer's expense.

 

[tcmtech]

and what kinda job could you get without the university?

You could come up here and get a Class A commercial drivers license, for about $35 if your testing goes well, and then pull down $50,000 to $100,000+ driving tanker trucks or other heavy transport trucks in the oil fields.

Its what I added to my work resume and seasonal scheduling now. I did just over 3.5 months in the oil fields last spring driving truck and getting may Class A CDL then did personal stuff all summer followed by fall harvest work and now I have my winter off to travel! I am sort of thinking I may make that into more a regular seasonal work plan now too.

Around here thats what you can get without a university or higher education degree.

 

[RadioRon]

Well, that was a long time ago, but as best I can recall I knew how to:
- bias many different kinds of transistors to form amplifiers, oscillators, switches
- use resistors, capacitors and inductors to create circuits that did useful things with AC current
- understand the resistance, impedance, current flow, voltages and power flow in a circuit
- use vector algebra to analyze complex variables
- apply thevenin and norton theorems and kirchoff's laws to circuit analysis, how to reduce circuits to simpler equivalents
- how meters work
- the affect of series and parallel impedances on a circuit, resonance, coupled ac circuits
- the nature of the relationship between an arbitrary time domain waveform and its frequency domain equivalent
- basic calculus
- programming an 8080 in assembler
- programming in BASIC and Fortran
- how to use a huge variety of simple logic ICs.
- how to use many kinds of linear ICs like op amps, regulators
- design of digital counters, state machines, many other small circuits
- the internal architecture of a microprocessor
- how to make RF measurements
- how transmitters are modulated to send radio signals, the nature of common types of modulation, the nature of noise
- the architecture of a radio receiver, and how to demodulate AM, FM, SSB
- how to use transmission lines, especially coaxial ones
- how radio waves travel in space, how antennas work (basically, not enough to design them)
- how to repair and tune a radio
- how to make a circuit board
- how to understand the value of a resistor from the color bands on it
- how to solder. how factories solder.
- how to write a technical report
- how to understand data sheets for ICs and other parts
- how to draft an engineering drawing for a part or a schematic
- the basic physics of semiconductor devices
Anyway, the list goes on.
As for the kind of work I could get, well, i was called a Technologist which is one up from a Technician. Around here a technologist can find a job in maintenance, in building new systems, in factories. My first job out of college was as a maintenance tech for the local police department, working on installing and maintaining all the telecom and radio stuff around a major city. There were five techs in our little team, and sometimes I would be on call to deal with emergencies like when a repeater failed or something. I got some interesting helicopter rides along the way.

Later on, working in a manufacturing company, i hired many people including technologists for R&D jobs, mostly in a lab. It is fair to say that in that situation there was a kind of class structure where the engineer with the engineering degree had better opportunities and wider variety of work than the technologist. The tech was usually doing assignments for an engineer, whether that was building up circuit board assemblies for testing, or doing testing, for example.

It is important to realize that there is a wide range of quality in graduates from any program. Where you fall in this range of quality is usually a reflection of how much work you put into it. The ones that are passionately "into it" to the point where electronics is their hobby as well as their work were the ones who got the best jobs. Its because they learned the most in school. Why? Because they really paid attention, and they did their homework, and ultimately they understood most of what they are taught, and then they practiced what they learned on the weekend by building something and figuring out why it didn't work. The ones who merely passed the exams adequately often did not really absorb 50% of all they were presented with, and so are not capable of doing some of the most interesting work. For example, designing circuits is full of detail and if you didn't pay attention to absolutely everything in school you would struggle with designing circuits. The guys who were only fair in school would be doing well to join a larger company with an in-house training program and stick that out for a few years, and perhaps aspire to being a plant supervisor as an example, after ten years or so. If you are patient, this can pay off, but things go a lot faster later on if you work harder in school to begin with. I have known many engineers that got to senior positions within five years of getting out of university, mainly because they were very sharp guys. I've also known many technologists that got to the same position, but it took them twice as long as the engineer with the degree.

 

[Dr_Doggy]

thats great!! see , i knew my degree was cracker jacks! For my 2 yr program at college i'v learned the first 9 things u listed, for my second year its been all english, writing and junk ,,, they got me in things like science fiction and psychology right now, and this is to get my electronics engineering diploma(is that right?)

I have learned most of that other stuff on my own time, so i may be able to pull off selling myself, like crosh says,

I have no problem being on the bottom, i just fear going in, saying I know things when I don't

........even though theoretically i do!

thnx that list helps alot though, turns out i still need to learn 5 things on the list!

 

[JimB]

for my second year its been all english, writing and junk ,,, they got me in things like science fiction and psychology right now, and this is to get my electronics engineering diploma(is that right?)

So, are you saying that you think that a good grasp of the use of language and the ability to express your thoughts in both spoken and written form is unimportant?

If so, you need to think again.

Just look at some of the posts here on this board, badly worded, don't state the problem clearly, etc... I could go on all day.

Clear communication is vital in the technical world.

JimB

PS, if it is any consolation, I had similar thoughts to yourself 40 years or so ago, since then experience has taught me otherwise!

 

[Dr_Doggy]

ya, i know the importance of proper writing , but my whole second year has been english, If thats the way society in whole, does then thats ok then , , , just seems to me that this is too much fat in my ham.

 

[RadioRon]

So, are you saying that you think that a good grasp of the use of language and the ability to express your thoughts in both spoken and written form is unimportant?

If so, you need to think again.

Just look at some of the posts here on this board, badly worded, don't state the problem clearly, etc... I could go on all day.

Clear communication is vital in the technical world.

JimB

PS, if it is any consolation, I had similar thoughts to yourself 40 years or so ago, since then experience has taught me otherwise!

Yes indeed. I agree wholeheartedly with Jim's comments. It is often said that what is important is not what you know, but who you know. I suggest the "who you know" falls a distant third to "its how well you lead". And the key to leading others is a careful blend of credibility and expression, which means speaking and writing skills. Neither of these comes easily when one's facility with the language is poor.

 

[Reloadron]

Try something interesting. Open Google and type "must possess excellent verbal and written" and no more is needed.

I have seen countless job descriptions well beyond the engineering and technical positions and right up there at the top is "Must possess excellent verbal and written communication skills". Believe me it is important with a very heavy emphasis placed on it.

Funny because at this writing the Northwestern Wisconsin game is on the TV in the background. I just caught this "He is physically limping off the field". So that would be opposed to what? Mentally limping off the field?

Announcers are trained professionals you know.

I was serious about the Google though.

Ron

 

[tcmtech]

What they mean by 'excellent writing and verbal skills' is not using text speak abbreviations but rather using the properly spelled words and running everything though spell check before you submit it to anyone else. When in doubt use more words not less which in many cases can mean getting a dictionary and using it!

As far as good verbal skills that is similar to writing skills in the sense of say it correctly and don't speak ghetto rapper or hillbilly hick/ redneck. Speak like you are part of a diplomatic delegation not a street posse or one O' da cousins from teh clan down yonder.

Basically just show some manors and respect for others when you communicate. You don't have to like or respect those people you communicate with but at least show you are capable of more effective and intelligent levels of communication than them.

 

[JimB]

Be aware of spell checkers, they can do some funny things:

TCM, do you mean "manners" rather than "manors" ?

Some years ago I received an e-mail from a work colleague, in the e-mail was the expression "at cameras site in signatory".
The automatic spellchecker had totally garbled the message, I had to speak to him to find what was the really meaning.

So, lets have a bit of a competition, anyone who can work out the correct meaning will win a bacon sandwich*.

JimB

* The prizewinner must collect their prize from my house in snowy north east Scotland.

 

[crutschow]

thats great!! see , i knew my degree was cracker jacks! For my 2 yr program at college i'v learned the first 9 things u listed, for my second year its been all english, writing and junk ,,, !

If you have studied English, writing and junk (did that include the rules of grammar?) for a whole year, you've managed to hide it well in your communications in this thread.

Having good ideas is of limited use if you can't convey them clearly and concisely. The end result of most engineering work is a report the details the design and test results. If those aren't clear then those trying to use or follow your design may not be able to do it correctly. That English "junk" can be just as important as the design.

If you just want to learn basic electronic design then go to a 2 year school. If you want a complete engineering education so that you know the difference between precision and accuracy, or between Laplace transforms and Fourier analysis, and learn some basic electric and magnetic fields, semiconductor theory, programming, chemistry, physics, feedback control systems, mechanics, literature, history, economics, psychology, math, etc. to give you well rounded knowledge, then you should take a 4+ year course.

 

[mdanh2002]

I have encountered a few fresh computing graduates who did really well in their exams, got mostly A, but don't know what XML is. Similarly I have seen some other electrical engineering graduates, who again did really well in their studies, but could not handle what was a fairly simple micro controller assignment. Here in Singapore, another friend of mine, a PhD student, had been using M1 (a local mobile operator) for 2 years and never knew what M1 really stands for. One day after unsuccessfully trying to activate Google Calendar SMS notification on his phone, he looked up Google help page and concluded that Google does not support his mobile operator. FYI, on its website, Google lists "MobileOne" (the full name of M1) in the list of supported operators for Singapore. (It later turns out that the required settings were switched off in his Google account)

I wonder how these people could have passed all their exams and just forgotten everything once the exams were over...

 

[#12]

Referring to post #17, crutschow,

I always shorthanded it as "leave a trail, leave a GOOD trail". You have to be able to go back to your research, in a day or a week and track down mistakes. You have to be able to go back to your research years later, and understand it, preferrably quickly. Other people have to look at your research, having never done the work, and understand it!

That is the level of skill required in this job.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I have encountered a few fresh computing graduates who did really well in their exams, got mostly A, but don't know what XML is. Similarly I have seen some other electrical engineering graduates, who again did really well in their studies, but could not handle what was a fairly simple micro controller assignment. Here in Singapore, another friend of mine, a PhD student, had been using M1 (a local mobile operator) for 2 years and never knew what M1 really stands for. One day after unsuccessfully trying to activate Google Calendar SMS notification on his phone, he looked up Google help page and concluded that Google does not support his mobile operator. FYI, on its website, Google lists "MobileOne" (the full name of M1) in the list of supported operators for Singapore. (It later turns out that the required settings were switched off in his Google account)

I wonder how these people could have passed all their exams and just forgotten everything once the exams were over...

I suspect a lot of these people are given the qualifications without knowing much about it - certainly the number of people asking for extremely simple final year projects shows how little some of these qualifications are worth.

I do occasionally have input on job interviews, I would ignore any claimed qualifications and ask them fairly simple technical questions - simple enough that any competent applicant should be able to answer instantly.