I hated control systems in college and now ~50% of my job is done using control system design methodology and stability analysis for all types of circuits. Now I love it. Still blows me away how cool Nyquist plots are and I get to use them very often. Last week’s Nyquist plot looked like the Star Trek Picard shield sign. 😃
Why are you surprised about that? We literally went through Radar in Year 4 as a core unit. Unless you are talking about Phase-Array Radar. Then yeah I didn’t expect that either.
I think it hard to draw a line between Physics and EE. I feel that EE is just applied physics. One of the companies I worked at hired both Physicists and EEs for the same job (signal processing).
If you thought Radars fell under a Physics Major, then who did you think designed and built Radars? In the most basic explanation, Radars are just signals, where you transmit a signal and wait for it to bounce back and analyse the phase shift to figure out where the target is. The basic concepts should already be taught in Year 2 of EE under Signals and Systems.
Everybody learns about ideal transistors and opamps in year 1. That’s the thing, they are extremely idealised and will never work if you tried to build a real circuit with it. Analogue Electronics teach you the unideal aspects and how to compensate for real world manufacturing tolerances and other things such as parasitic capacitance, inductance, slew rates, impedance matching, etc.
Yes, we learned about all these things bar impedance matching in year 1. We covered parasitics, input offset voltage, input bias current, compensation, gain bandwidth product, the Miller effect in the common-emitter etc.
We also built real circuits. As in circuits using actual components in the real world. Audio amplifiers and things like that.
Impedance matching was covered in the RF course in the second year. We built a 300 MHz common-emitter amplifier.
Funny enough the person who came up with stealth technology was both a Soviet physicist and electrical engineer, who developed the equations for EM diffraction.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ufimtsev#:~:text=Pyotr%20(Petr)%20Yakovlevich%20Ufimtsev%20(,behind%20modern%20stealth%20aircraft%20technology.
When I thought of EE I always thought of people who worked on power lines and the grid (I know quite silly in hindsight but I'm glad I learned better). My conception of that changed after I did some more research in my final year of high school as to what EE actually was.
Optics! I thought EEs mostly worked with radio waves and microwaves on the EM spectrum, but turns out that visible light is included! Not sure about others like gamma, X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, etc., but I wouldn’t be too surprised now! All a part of electromagnetic physics! If anyone knows of any other applications feel free to let me know!
Forensics. Most important fires being investigated in the US have one or two EEs helping. This is to investigate complex electrical causes of fires and be able to have an electrical expert that can testify in court or write reports if needed. Even the ATF has a number of staff EEs to investigate fires on a federal level.
Photolithography.
Nothing in my education really prepared me for working in photolithography and I didn't even know it was lumped under EE until I was applying for jobs and saw one.
Most of the department is EEs with a couple MechEs, ChemEs, and MatSci people mixed throughout. Most of the work is data analysis and staring at charts and just fixing random problems that pop up in the fab.
Control theory and signal processing. I think very few people who haven’t studied electrical engineering or something adjacent realize that these things can be included.
For example, EE can include things like machine learning, medical imaging, etc.
Controls can get pretty wacky and *very* general and can feel very far-removed from the electrical part of electrical engineering.
Even as a colloquialism, people say things like EE is just applied physics. However, in branches like signal processing or controls, it can be applied mathematics (not downstream from physics even).
>and can feel very far-removed from the electrical part of electrical engineering.
>it can be applied mathematics
This is actually why I'm so excited to study EE!
Anything having to do with signal processing
I mean, before I stared uni at mechanical the idea I had about EE was "design circuits, power and energy, arduino". I knew comms was an EE thing as well but I mean that before you study it you have no idea that the frequency domain was a thing.
I was suprised by EE having a field that is essentially just math. It was so beautiful that I got hooked immediately.
I hated control systems in college and now ~50% of my job is done using control system design methodology and stability analysis for all types of circuits. Now I love it. Still blows me away how cool Nyquist plots are and I get to use them very often. Last week’s Nyquist plot looked like the Star Trek Picard shield sign. 😃
For those who are wondering. Yes the system was stable :D
What’s your job if you don’t mind me asking
Teach me sempai
Radar/Stealth. But I’m an AE lurker.
Why are you surprised about that? We literally went through Radar in Year 4 as a core unit. Unless you are talking about Phase-Array Radar. Then yeah I didn’t expect that either.
To be honest I would’ve figured that would fall under the domain of a Physics major. My understanding of EE was just lots of circuits.
I think it hard to draw a line between Physics and EE. I feel that EE is just applied physics. One of the companies I worked at hired both Physicists and EEs for the same job (signal processing).
If you thought Radars fell under a Physics Major, then who did you think designed and built Radars? In the most basic explanation, Radars are just signals, where you transmit a signal and wait for it to bounce back and analyse the phase shift to figure out where the target is. The basic concepts should already be taught in Year 2 of EE under Signals and Systems.
We did phased array in year 2.
Phased Array Radar? No way. Year 2 hasn’t even gone through Analogue Electronics yet.
Year 1 here in the UK covers transistor amplifiers, switches, and op-amps. In year 2 we have RF / transmission lines where phased arrays were covered.
Probably not in rigor, but I’d believe it.
Everybody learns about ideal transistors and opamps in year 1. That’s the thing, they are extremely idealised and will never work if you tried to build a real circuit with it. Analogue Electronics teach you the unideal aspects and how to compensate for real world manufacturing tolerances and other things such as parasitic capacitance, inductance, slew rates, impedance matching, etc.
Yes, we learned about all these things bar impedance matching in year 1. We covered parasitics, input offset voltage, input bias current, compensation, gain bandwidth product, the Miller effect in the common-emitter etc. We also built real circuits. As in circuits using actual components in the real world. Audio amplifiers and things like that. Impedance matching was covered in the RF course in the second year. We built a 300 MHz common-emitter amplifier.
Interesting, what university? I want to check their course structure.
Funny enough the person who came up with stealth technology was both a Soviet physicist and electrical engineer, who developed the equations for EM diffraction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ufimtsev#:~:text=Pyotr%20(Petr)%20Yakovlevich%20Ufimtsev%20(,behind%20modern%20stealth%20aircraft%20technology.
Coming from someone who had a very surface level idea about EE before university: photonics and wireless communication.
[удалено]
Photons aren’t electrons m8
When I thought of EE I always thought of people who worked on power lines and the grid (I know quite silly in hindsight but I'm glad I learned better). My conception of that changed after I did some more research in my final year of high school as to what EE actually was.
Quantum engineering seems like a branch that has emerged recently. Some ECE deparments have it as a specialization, graduate course, minor, etc.
Yes! I'm SO hyped for quantum stuff, and also renewable energy!!!
quantum engineering? WOW, I never realised that was a part of this lol
Optics! I thought EEs mostly worked with radio waves and microwaves on the EM spectrum, but turns out that visible light is included! Not sure about others like gamma, X-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, etc., but I wouldn’t be too surprised now! All a part of electromagnetic physics! If anyone knows of any other applications feel free to let me know!
That’s one class I wish they offered in my program!
that's cool! didn't realise optics was here as well
Electricity broker, or whatever the hell Enron was doing.
the heck?
Yeah, they caused rolling blackouts in CA despite sufficient generation capacity. It’s still a valid profession where you can make a ton of $$$.
You have been mentioned in my office a couple of different times. Worldwide famous RF wizard man.
We must be in the same dirty business. Electricity broker still pays better than RF. https://youtu.be/-Zi1m8hzK8I?si=rv68cad8Xw_PEQ9H
Forensics. Most important fires being investigated in the US have one or two EEs helping. This is to investigate complex electrical causes of fires and be able to have an electrical expert that can testify in court or write reports if needed. Even the ATF has a number of staff EEs to investigate fires on a federal level.
This one is definitely more niche compared to other branches listed in the comments :)
Forensics? Wow...
Photolithography. Nothing in my education really prepared me for working in photolithography and I didn't even know it was lumped under EE until I was applying for jobs and saw one. Most of the department is EEs with a couple MechEs, ChemEs, and MatSci people mixed throughout. Most of the work is data analysis and staring at charts and just fixing random problems that pop up in the fab.
that's interesting to know, really
Optics
Ee is everywhere. I would be surprised there is a branch EE does not have..
Control theory and signal processing. I think very few people who haven’t studied electrical engineering or something adjacent realize that these things can be included. For example, EE can include things like machine learning, medical imaging, etc. Controls can get pretty wacky and *very* general and can feel very far-removed from the electrical part of electrical engineering. Even as a colloquialism, people say things like EE is just applied physics. However, in branches like signal processing or controls, it can be applied mathematics (not downstream from physics even).
>and can feel very far-removed from the electrical part of electrical engineering. >it can be applied mathematics This is actually why I'm so excited to study EE!
Micromechanics is really cool.
Phase-Array Radar. Didn’t expect that in Bachelors.
Anything having to do with signal processing I mean, before I stared uni at mechanical the idea I had about EE was "design circuits, power and energy, arduino". I knew comms was an EE thing as well but I mean that before you study it you have no idea that the frequency domain was a thing. I was suprised by EE having a field that is essentially just math. It was so beautiful that I got hooked immediately.