Do you agree this is how to approach an Electronics Degree in UK? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 12:07:29 am
content: The attached answers the subject of the question.Would you generally agree?

author: Delta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 01:01:47 am
content: I wouldn't advise doing a degree in a country where the mains voltage regularly reaches 292v for periods of several minutes.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 01:21:15 am
content: Looks like a load of old tripe to me.People don't go into electronics to earn the big money, it just doesn't happen, there is more money to be made being a code monkey with Java or the likes.The more you get into electronics and the more you like it the more you will want to "naturally" progress into other areas, particularly designing your own PCB, there are many packages to chose from, completely free, free with constraints and not free at all.I've seen some of the degree work, 5% is practical, 95% theory, and if you're one of the lucky ones, it's not completely half assed theory.Consultancy and offering a design service is the best way with electronics unless you find a really good company that appreciates electronics engineers (let me know if you ever find one!)

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 10:22:09 am
content: Seems written by someone with a bias for power supply design...I don't buy the general assumption that you have to pick one of the nine disciplines, and then will be stuck with it when looking for a job. I think this totally neglects the need for electronics "generalists" in smaller companies, and in not-so-small companies where electronics are but one component of the products they offer.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 11:52:41 am
content: Thanks, but i think of someone came out of an electronics degree havign done a electric motor project, and had never touched a spec analyser or VNA, or any RF hardware, they wouldnt be very lucky finding a job in RF engineering.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 12:31:04 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 10, 2018, 11:52:41 amI fully agree with you on that statement. I don't claim that an EE should (or can?) be cabable of working in each and every field. But your document seems to project a much narrower view, i.e. that you have to choseone single field only, and expect to stick with it:Quote"Highlander - there can be only one."I am not even sure whether that is true for final year projects in the UK. Are they really strictly categorized into these narrow segments? Wouldn't it be natural to do e.g. an FPGA project which includes firmware for an embedded processor? Or a remote-controlled RF device, which therefore comprises digital electronics and firmware?

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 12:58:25 pm
content: Strongly disagree about most of that.Uni is to learn the theory (And especially the maths) that you can then apply far more widely, getting to play with the toys is a nice bonus.Software is less of a closed shop then it has ever been, perfectly usable toolchains are mostly free for almost any language you care to name, and you can usually arrange to at least audit the interesting looking CS modules. If you are going to do modern electronics learning to program in a couple of languages is worth your time as pretty much everything has a micro in it and being at least able to talk the software teams language is a good thing.Much the same goes for RF, very cheap (but good enough) VNAs, SAs and other tools are available now (Generally PC controlled), not as good as the Agilent or R&S but way better then what is really needed for uni level projects, even in comms engineering, you can generally get by with a smith chart and pencil, the software just makes it faster.There is generally little point in learning specific technologies (Particularly specific Java frameworks! They have a half life of 18 months), but matrix methods, line and surface integrals, Maxwell, S and Z transforms, that stuff never gets old.Regards, Dan.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 01:22:36 pm
content: I agree that some industries are more "closed off" for an outsider. I think most particular this is the case for IC design, arguably a very good reason to go for a graduate degree. However if you have done courses for analog or digital IC design, you can apply similar principles and insights to "large scale" electronics on PCBs, although not everything of course.I'm unsure if "motor controls" is that industry driven, considering there is some research in it (e.g. in robotics). Nonetheless, same can be said for IOT systems though.I don't think software (pt 1 and 2) is a "closed off" branch at all. There are many self taught software engineers working in the industry, from web to Java/C# developers. C/C++ and embedded developers are in there somewhere as well. There is tons of material on the internet to study programming and computer science in general. You can take machine learning courses for free on many of those "DIY degrees" platforms.Learning to program is trivial for most engineers these days (even technical medicine do it). But a CS degree could add value if you want to use/finetune or design the next cryptography or compression algorithm..Ironically, I think power supply design is more "closed off" than software. If you've seen the interview of Keysight on the channel, you'll hear that alot of the special sauce is pushed to the digital domain, where they can do much more interesting things. Well, what things? Probably need to follow some control theory courses to figure out what neat control loops you can implement only digitally..Likewise an example; I am currently facing the choice between taking a course on Functional Programming and A/D converters, can't take both. Functional programming better fits my program, however all material is free online and I've got printed books on my shelf for months already. From that perspective I might as well take a course on A/D converters and read the programming books in my spare time, as I think it's harder to go through the A/D course material without the lectures. In that sense, this choice is completely dependent on what knowledge isharderto acquire outside of a degree program.I think a few branches are missing that could have explicitly be mentioned:Computer Engineering (includes digital design, but also firmware programming)Robotics (includes control, computer vision, machine learning, AI)Formal methods (modeling software for throughput analysis, static checking, etc)Sure the last one may origin from computer science, but it is still relevant to almost all trades of firmware and digital engineering.I think every student should set a clear target what they want to achieve and get out of university. I've toyed around on other fields so confirm that this is what Ido notwant to keep doing. But never ever is taking an "outside" course a waste of time - it's very easy to acquire tunnel vision if you keep occupied with the same subject day in day out. It's also nice to take a different subject that has different approaches, analysis methods and ways of solving problems.Some of my colleague students view their study as a checklist. Pass all the mandatory courses. Then gather enough credits from electives. If they have, graduate and gtfo. They don't see any reason or motivation to dive into subjects if it only lasts 8 weeks. They just want to pass and move on to the next checklist item. I guess everyone their own, but I don't think this is a good rationale (or perhaps personality trait) to have as an engineer..I see that "unless you're brilliant" appears often in your document. Perhaps these trades seem very far fetched from your point of view? I think no one is born with the knowledge how to calculate transmission line properties or advanced machine learning algorithms.Can you self teach these? Certainly! Self-taught people exist like I said. But I also think university is good in achieving 2 things: it can train individuals in acquiring these self-teaching skills at the level of the program, which are otherwise hard (but not exclusive) to acquire by yourself. This is also what is key part of the curriculum, and often how graduation projects are aimed at to test. Additionally, a degree is a solidified proof that you (somewhat) have got a clue.A choice for a particular program means that you're just heavily invested in that subject. It becomes harder to move out of it, but not impossible.Personally I also don't really understand why people would then be interested in double degree programmes (e.g. EE + CS). I think most often these constructions work that you take 1 year of extra courses to satisfy the curriculum for both majors, and then do a 'more challenging' internship and graduation project that covers both fields, so it can count for both degrees. It must surely be all about boasting that you did 2 degrees, very impressive et al.Sure one can do that and I bet it must be fun giving in to all the choice. But it also is somewhat useless if you could also have spent that 1 year extra working andreallyfinding out what shape your career will take, and what knowledge you will be subjected to in order to keep up.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 04:17:22 pm
content: QuoteThanks, well im only being honest about yourself here with respect.....i think that you yourself are of a very high ability level. I dont think most are of your high standard.We in UK cannot find a software engineer in our country...and we have to have a remote one who lives in Italy........this is to do C programs for dimmable lamps.QuoteThanks yes, we have final year projects in only one field.I dont think we handle it as well as you guys do in Germany.And i have worked in 33 different electronics engineering depts in UK.....and i have never ever met a single German Engineer working here in UK despite us being in the EU and German Engineers are more than welcome to just come on over.........that is because your country does Engineering far better than in UK.German Engineers do not want to come to UK. Your education is better aswell.....no German students come to UK to study electronics at university....none....not unless they are on an exchange course for a "with English" degree....we have people from all over the world but never France or Germany.In UK, most of the British Engineers you meet are planning to move to Germany permanently, or they have tried to go to Germany but failed.I used to work for a really good British Electronics Engineer whose wife had got a job as a Medical Doctor in Germany. He got his CV translated to German, got some interviews in Germany, but failed them all….the last one he failed…my goodness, he came to work nearly in tears. He looked like he wanted to commit suicide.We had a German girl on Business degree come to our office on Erasmus......she told us the truth...that you Germans know that in UK, our wine is disgusting, our food tastes bad......and we cannot do Engineering. She told us that Germans laugh at the UK engineering situation....i dont blame youhttps://massey276.wixsite.com/ukdecline..She used to ring up German companies for us and offer them our lighting products...and they used to tell her not to be so stupid as to try and sell British Engineering to Germany. (our lighting products are actually really good, but you get the picture of my meaning)I once mentored an 18 year old German kid who came over because our UK company was being bought by a German company and moved over to Germany. He was the German gaffers son. He told me that Germans think that we British are always squabbling with each other in our Engineering companies. He kept on asking me to give him stories of infighting going on in places where id worked.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 05:42:44 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 10, 2018, 04:17:22 pmAh, I didn't realize that. That seems unnecessarily narrow -- as others have said in this thread, university should lay a (hopefully broad and solid) foundation. While it is important to actually try and translate some of that into practice, a very narrowly defined specialization at this point seems premature.Thank you for the flowers regarding the state of German engineering. Not sure whether the difference is so pronounced. I certainly feel that German graduates these days would benefit from a bit more practical experience. It seems much more common to get engineering graduates without prior experience from a technical hobby, and that shows.Personally, I am a physicist by training -- and we like to believe that we can pick upanyengineering discipline as needed, of course.I assume that attitude is the same for UK physicists...

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 05:56:31 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 10, 2018, 04:17:22 pmWhere do you get these strange ideas? Sure, most British engineers want to leave the UK, as prospects are poor, but most don't choose to go to Germany. I've known lots of British engineers go to Germany, but it has generally been for just a couple of years. Mostly just to see a little more of the world. America has been the number one destination for emigrating British engineers since the 1960s. These days there are quite a few in Asia, too.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 06:08:53 pm
content: Quote from: dmills on March 10, 2018, 12:58:25 pmMaxwell's Equations got old before I finished the class! In the era of slide rules, it was a tough program.College is about developing the skills to learn. There is no company that expects to hire somebody out of college who knows everything about everything. Count the number of directly applicable courses (don't count the math classes, they are required for nearly all majors). There simply aren't that many. Practically none in the first two years (DC and AC theory and maybe one more) and that is because the first two years focus on the math required in the last two years.Lab classes may be relevant if they experiments are meaningful and the equipment reasonably current. An EE should know how to use a scope and signal generator.One of my big objections to the curriculum of the '70s (and from what I see, it hasn't changed) is the requirement for World History, US History, California History, Literature, Public Speaking and so on. The number of General Education classes needs to be reconsidered.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 06:20:37 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on March 10, 2018, 06:08:53 pmPublic speaking is a strange one to complain about. Lots of engineers struggle the first few times they need to present something, because they've never had the opportunity to practice during their education. Being able to get something across clearly and efficiently is often what separates successful engineers from the less successful. A mediocre idea well presented gets you farther than a brilliant idea people aren't getting.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 06:38:30 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 10, 2018, 04:17:22 pmSoftware is an in demand skill set so you have to offer proper money and be a bit smart about hiring, but C on small cores is hardly a difficult skill to hire, and dimmable lamps are not generally particularly hardcore from a skills perspective.That said from what I have heard of your boss, I would not work for the guy, life is too short to work for idiots and they tend to drag you down to their level, far better to find a company where everyone up the chain is better then you are, that way you get better by osmosis! Programmers (And reasonably competent engineers) have generally got options they afford to interview the company at least as much as the company interviews them.Re Germany, I like the place, and generally go over about once or twice a year (Culturally far closer to the English then the French are!), usually for the CCC Congress or Fridrichaven, but the place is far from perfect and the politics is sometimes weird.Regards, Dan.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 06:43:53 pm
content: The US always went in for a more mixed curricula then the UK does, probably explains that extra year you guys take.That said, I am not actually against some literature, philosophy and ethics courses, even history is not automatically a waste, there can be useful lessons in all of those.It would be nice of the english (and especially politics) majors were required to take some mathamatics and hard sciences courses... Turnaround being fair game after all, and it might eventually make for less wince inducing journalism and politics.Regards, Dan.

author: doobedoobedo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 09:20:31 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 10, 2018, 04:17:22 pmDon't pretend to be British of any flavour. You're obviously not even a native speaker. Your English is good, so might fool other non-native speakers, but please...

author: 4CX35000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 10, 2018, 09:53:38 pm
content: Quote from: treez on March 10, 2018, 04:17:22 pmThis has got the markings of labour cost cutting, rather than being unable to find anybody, plenty of embedded development contractors can write code for a dimmable lamp and do the full test cycle if you require one, your problem looking at a few grand if they are working alongside your team for a couple of weeks.Being honest something else is at play here, I have seen it before in various companies I have worked for. Many UK companies are exporting D&D (Design and Development) work to Turkey, India and so on, to cut labour costs. The same is happening in Germany were they are finding labour costs have reach a stage were production is being moved to eastern Europe and D&D will follow. Why do think VAG bought Skoda and heavily invested in the Skoda brand, I suspect the Czech Republic is a much cheap option than Germany. Also R&S have exported some work to eastern Europe.As an example. My employer wanted a software package developing to interface to some industrial equipment the company had recently bought. Myself and the design team have no spare time to do the software development, so the directors went to three software houses for quotes. Two here in the UK and one in India. UK costs were above £20k for the software package whilst India was £3k. Guess who won the contract, they did a excellent job, but talking to India over Skype was hard work due to the accent and language problems. I suspect the same India company will be developing further software for us and other shortly at those prices and there has already been talk of looking at India for some D&D work on PCBs, EMC testing and so on. If successful then that might save the business several tens to hundreds of thousands in software and PCB development.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 12:11:10 am
content: There are a lot of embedded programmers here in the UK, there are a lot of skill sets, but the money has to be right, in Bristol for example, an embedded engineer can get anywhere between £50k and £70k, if you try and offer £30k then you will not get much interest.British engineering is still strong from what I can tell, we still have a lot of good engineering talent among us, some work for large corporations in a different country, but they are still British.I really do not understand if you have a company that produces dimmable lamps, why you would struggle with any aspect of it, or why you need to hire from places like Italy, only exception being, trying to get it done on the cheap, freelancer users will do a complete project for next to nothing.

author: SparkFly
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 12:35:39 am
content: Having gone through a degree recently in the UK, and now embarking on a PhD the text document seems pretty far removed form how (at least from a Russell-Group uni) a degree really unfolds. Really inaccurate actually.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 06:14:00 am
content: I can certainly see the value of math, it's true there is a lot that I have rarely or never used since school, but I do use algebra all the time and calculus is involved dealing with capacitors, inductors, transformer design, etc.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 08:24:45 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on March 11, 2018, 05:34:37 amI fully agree. My opinion is that if you're so inclined, it is best to learn both theory and practice at the places where they are taught best.Considering there is so much material on youtube concerning hobby electronics, it's not hard to get started.QuoteI think it depends on the field. I've a friend who is in telecommunications, RF and microwave engineering. His courses are a grind. He literally get 700 pages of Maxwell equations and other proofs to follow (little to no textual explanations) for a single exam. People are lucky to pass with a 7. An 8 would get you the most prestigious graduation project from the professor straight away.QuoteExactly. In practice focusing on being a "T shape" engineer is good. But added value from a grad degree should come from specialization, although I do think that many similar principles are spread across different fields, and with a degree in hand you have proven that if you can learn 1, so you could also learn the other.QuoteActually funny. I asked one of the PhDs in analog IC design how a typical project may look like. He told that given a CMOS circuit idea, they would ofcourse try to come up with an interesting circuit implementation on paper and in the simulator first, identifying correct biasing and establishing critical area's of the circuit.Then once the schematic is done, about 90% of theworkgrind is in creating a good chip layout for the design. Modern chips have such small feature size that capacitance is a trouble on everything, so they keep simulating parasitics from the layout over and over again.90%Okay perhaps I'm taking his figures a bit to literally, but I tend to believe that "schematic capture and initial simulation" is a minority of the work.Depending on what field you operate in, I think that e.g. analog IC design for radio transceivers is rather interesting. At my university they are certainly experimenting with extremely high linearity transceivers and filters for wireless receivers (e.g. receive multiple radio bands at once with 1 radio frontend, or receive and transmit on the same RF channel at the same time).I've never heard anyone talk about opamps. Only about nullors and gm's.QuoteNot so sure, depends on what you're doing I suppose. Most companies that were pitching their digital design projects, showed how thearchitectureof a large data acquisition system is most important, alongside with achieving the requires computations/second (e.g. multiply-accumulate operations or FFTs per second) given by the algorithm engineers.Academically speaking there is some research going on how tools and designflow can be improved using EDSLs. We don't want to keep mapping and folding discrete algorithms manually onto functional units, explicitly telling how a controller should look like. VHDL and Verilog in many respects are still very medieval tools with standards going to back to the 80s and 90s. Certainly it can't be as "hip and modern" as web languages of today, but there are plenty of tools available today that use a higher order level language and generate VHDL/Verilog as an input to virtually all FPGA and ASIC toolchains out there.QuoteI think that PCB design is a rather practical design art. Knowing your transmission lines helps to implement modern communication standards. Knowing your EMC do's-and-dont's is essential to be doing PCB and product design for a living. Apart from an EMC course (from RF group - so a grind), I don't think uni will give much practice in PCB design at all - but given how cheap China is in fabricating there is basically no excuse not to practice it.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 09:10:41 am
content: QuoteThanks, I would be very grateful if you would read this and say if you still think that.QuoteMost, but not all, of my roots are British, Most of my Grandfathers family , from Manchester, died in World War One.QuoteI believe the maths needed for general switching power supply design, is as in the attached.Blueskull, with respect, you probably regard that as Kindergarten level maths, as your ability i believe is very very high.

author: 4CX35000
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 09:53:35 am
content: Quote from: treez on March 11, 2018, 09:10:41 amI have read similar before and the answer as to why the UK has sold most of its manufacturing base is a complex answer which many people seem unable or unwilling to accept. Our labour costs are way too high compared to other countries.A good tip might be to read up on the present arguments in the USA regarding the NAFTA agreement (North American Free Trade Agreement). The UK version of that was the various EEC/EU agreements. It might help you understand why exporting of labour and businesses moving abroad as is happening to the UK.One major reason for exporting manufacturing has been the labour costs of producing in the UK compared to exporting the labour and importing the cheaper goods from abroad. In the end UK minimum wage is £7.50 for a non-skilled job, whilst in India the same job pays £2.50.That £7.50 UK minimum wage you also need to add other overheads and that has many businesses finding it more attractive, easier and cheaper to export most of not all of the business to eastern Europe, India and China.So for example - if you business has a wage bill of £1million per year for production staff, then exporting to India will save them two thirds of the wage bill for production costs which can be either invested back into the business or cut product costs down further and reduce the price of the product. Also countries like China and India are now starting to gain a reasonable access to technical staff who are University level and well educated people who can do PCB design, EMC testing and so on for a fraction of the price a UK employee can do the work.It will not be long before these countries start to produce which are as good and possibly better than what any company in the EU can do.

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 09:56:35 am
content: QuoteThanks, but my real point, is that Germany is a very similar country to UK, and in 2014, Germany was the world's biggest exporter by capital value......Therefore why can't UK get at least a little bit like this too?The dismantlement of UK industry will kill UK. Unless it is reversed. Import tariffs and protectionism must be brought in to UK so as to nurture basic British Industry such as lighting, basic domestic goods, basic industrial machinery , etc etc.If this is not done, the UK will be a Third World country within a decade.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 10:09:01 am
content: Quote from: 4CX35000 on March 11, 2018, 09:53:35 amYou say that the answer is complex -- and two sentences further down, argue that the EU agreements are the (single) cause? Hmm...Well, it seems that we are bound to run that experiment soon and find out what happens without the UK/EU agreements. Which I very much regret. [This is the "general chat" forum, right? Checking... yes. Ok, I feel better now about posting this off-topic contribution...]

author: doobedoobedo
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 11, 2018, 10:46:55 am
content: Quote from: treez on March 11, 2018, 09:56:35 amI worked with Germans and for a German company for 10 years. There is a huge difference in attitudes and culture between the UK and German people. Protectionism is one of them. If we do put tariffs on things it will be in in retaliation to the EU.

author: Wilksey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2018, 12:20:19 am
content: You don't have to keep posting links to your website stating that the UK is declining, or letters to people etc etc!

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2018, 11:20:45 am
content: Indeed, power is not my thing, but much the same goes for every field, the only question is how far down the rabbit hole do you wish to go.Seems to me Treez that your notes basically apply to penny ante flybacks and the like, and why would anyone bother rolling their own? The things are a commodity product and I would have to shift a huge number of units to get back the NRE, doubly so when you consider the certification costs. Jellybean power supplies are like opamps, sure I can design one from discrete parts, but most of the time I have better things to do and I just buy in the boring bits.At the end of the day, what most of us do is in some sense systems engineering, we take a power supply module and add a processor module and some IO, maybe a few amplifiers, maybe a screen, it is a rare pleasure to have to actually get the math on, most of the time the value is in knowing how to combine almost black box subsystems, and in knowing where those assumptions break down.Regards, Dan.