Ever
thought about being an electrical engineer?
Ever wonder just what you would be doing as an electrical engineer? An electrical engineer today has an enormous
selection of career paths to choose from.
Here are but a few examples:
Large scale projects
o
Power generation, transmission and distribution –
Design equipment like generators, transformers, high power switches and
protection devices that connect to the power grid. This includes the green energy sources like solar, wind,
geothermal and tidal.
o
Facility/Building power system design – Work with
architects and contractors to design the power, lighting and communication
distribution systems and networks in buildings. You may even have the opportunity to incorporate green energy
generation systems in the design.
Medium scale projects
o
Commercial products and appliances – Electronics are
found in everything from your blender to your toothbrush, from cell phones to
video games. Working in this field will
challenge you to be very efficient in your designs from a power, cost and size
standpoint. And don’t forget the
batteries!
o
Scientific instrumentation – Work in this area can take
you around the world and beyond. In
many cases you will be pushing the envelope of the technology to provide that
next bit of information needed to study a particular problem or phenomenon. Your designs will need to be very precise
and accurate as well as meet size, power and most likely cost constraints.
o
Aviation and Aerospace – From large-scale power and
communication systems to very small, precise circuits for control and
monitoring the growing complexity of the aviation/aerospace industry.
o
Military – Large-scale to micro-scale applications with
very rigorous environmental and durability constraints.
Small scale projects
o
Semiconductor design – You will be designing the
components that other electrical engineers will use to design all of the above. You will be pushing the technology to the
limits to create faster processors, larger memories, lower power devices and
higher levels of integration to make everything we use smaller, lighter and
with more features.
o
Nanotechnology – Take it a level smaller and design new
components that will work in all areas of industry. From self assembling circuits to nano-machines that will help
cure diseases to paper thin solar cells and clothing that won’t get dirty. The opportunities are endless!
This just scratches the surface of opportunities
awaiting an electrical engineer.
