Advice for young people aspiring to become an electrical engineer - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 12:36:40 am
content: Hi allI am now becoming about the right age that I should get my first job. The money would certainly allow me to buy the parts that I need for my projects. What advice do you have for people in my situation? I have noticed that Dave has started working when he was younger than 18 years of age. He repaired CCTVs I think. ..I want to avoid working in retail at all costs. Pay isn't an issue for me at this point.high school Internships are an option, but in my area (seattle) A: they rarely pay B:they rarely give you any experience whatsoever C: they arent for hardware design.Everything requires a BS... Even though the stuff that employers ask is basic. BullshitI would like to hear about you guys' experiences with first jobs , and what is the best course of action for someone in my situation.Thanks

author: FenderBender
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 01:09:28 am
content: Well getting a job is tough enough. Getting one in an electronics setting might be trickier. I live in the metropolitan NYC area and there are many tech/engineering companies nearby. Whether they'd hire me (I'm 18) to do anything, I'm not sure. I guess if you made some phone calls or something, you could try.My brother has a BSCE, and he's been out of college for 2 years. Even with 4 years of schooling and 2 years of work experience, even his company isn't particularly keen in assigning him too many critical projects etc. Not that they think he's incapable, but I guess he's still learning.With no formal education or work experience, it's going to be tough to do what you want, but you can certainly try. If there's a will, there is a way.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 01:28:39 am
content: Quote from: smashedProton on January 30, 2013, 12:36:40 amYes, I got my first electronics job at 17, although granted, I was qualified at the time. I've never had a non-professional engineering job, unless you count working for myself collecting aluminium cans when I was a kid or something.QuoteYes, get an industry job or bust.QuoteThen forget that!QuoteNope, that's just what you see on the surface.QuoteYou need to do the leg work.Go around your local industrial parks, take down all the names of companies that sound like they have anything to do with any aspect of engineering.I've done this and ended up with a list of 50+ easily.Research every one of them, whittle the list down, and then find contacts on Linked In and/or google. If you know someones name and not their email address, search for the email address formatting that company uses, e.g joe.bloggs@fluke.com and bingo, you have a contact.Then pester them and show them you are keen.Dave.

author: Stiege
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 01:47:12 am
content: Hey mate,I did army for 4 years before starting to study towards a Bachelor of Engineering. I'm in my fourth and final year at the moment. I sometimes wish I'd known how much I'd enjoy electronics before I went to the army, but I'm still pretty happy that I found it so soon.Certainly to get into the good jobs in NZ you need a degree. Unfortunately studying electronics to pass exams doesn't exactly make you good at it, but 4 years is a lot of time to do projects. Ultimately if you use that time and the opportunity that uni provides, you'll come away with some fairly mad skills that you just couldn't get from having to do an actual job for someone else's profit. Anyway, I think it's a good idea to jump into a job first and if you enjoy it, think about taking it to University level. Ultimately that's pretty much how it happened for me.That's the NZ student perspective on it anyway.

author: rbola35618
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 02:37:55 am
content: I started at age 12 helping my uncle load and unload TVs. While not unloading tv, I started to fool around with his scope and learned how to use it. I didn't get paid but did learn how to repair TV. By the time I was 14, I had enough experience and got paid 20 dollars per TV. Could fix 6 TVs per week.When I interview people, I look for people with similar experience. I look to see if they tinkered around with electronics. Do they repair TV and radio and anything having to do with electronics. The experience that one gains is invaluable. Most people that graduate with a BSEE do not know enough or have enough experience to be productive. That is why I look for people that some experience because the learning is much faster and always turn out to be better engineers in the long run.So from that perspective, I would encourage you to study electronics and look for places where you can put what you learn into use. You may have to work for free while you gain experience but I assure you that will not last forever if you show potential and wiliness to work.

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 02:59:51 am
content: Quote from: smashedProton on January 30, 2013, 12:36:40 amYour profile says you are 16. That's definitely the age you could get a first job, but probably a little early to be thinking about a first career job. The jobs that ask for a BS in EE are not in any case going to be open to a high school student, so ignore those.I got my first job at 16 in a local factory on an assembly line producing fluorescent light fittings. My task was to help package the lights up in cardboard boxes and I was not on any account allowed to go near any electrical test equipment. When the shop foreman learned I planned to go to university and become an engineer I was derided as being green and wet behind the ears. It's a tough world out there!So my suggestion is don't try to be too ambitious. However much you think you know now, when you look back in ten years time you will realize it wasn't as much as you thought. Ask around friends, family, friends of parents, friends of friends of parents, try to learn about anything that's going and don't be too picky. A job is a job and money is money.As for career direction, that's a different story. What is your academic background and potential? Could you go to college and get a BS degree? If you could, you should. In terms of job satisfaction and job enjoyment, you should try to realize your full potential. If you go for a tech job when you are EE material you will only be unhappy. If that's in your future, start planning now. But get the education first, don't worry about career jobs until you get there.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 03:24:11 am
content: Quote from: rbola35618 on January 30, 2013, 02:37:55 amDave.

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 04:26:24 am
content: I am still in high school, but I am soaking up all of the math science knowledge that I can get. What dave said about the industral park was good advice. There is one nearby, and I will check it out. And about your work in the lightbulb factory, the only industry where I live is boeing and microsoft. The service industry requires certification that I do not have.College is certainly an option that I will use. But I will certainly augment it with MIT opencourseware.One of my goals is to see if EE is something that I would want to dedicate my life to. Radar also interests me. Working for Raytheon would be the coolest

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 04:56:52 am
content: Has anyone ever heard the phrase "fake it until you make it"? Bring it on! %-B

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 05:01:19 am
content: Quote from: smashedProton on January 30, 2013, 04:26:24 amI'm really sure that isn't the case. The place where I worked was a very small, family owned business. They didn't actually make the light bulbs, they did various light engineering design, assembly and test jobs for customers. The various components were bought in like chassis, reflectors, glass and electronics. The light fittings were assembled, tested, boxed, and shipped out. There must be all sorts of small industry like that in any large city, hiding in industrial parks and other places. Once you look, you will be amazed how much you find.Choosing a career of course is hard. How can you know how things will turn out down the road, or if you will enjoy what you are doing when you get there? There's no good answer to this. The best advice I could give is to follow your interests and do what you enjoy. Get the best education you can and see what turns up. Finding a good job is a lot about luck, but it's also about personality, communication skills and attention to detail. You can make job opportunities for yourself by making a good impression on people you meet. Treat every encounter as a job interview, because someone may know someone with a position to fill.

author: ampdoctor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 05:24:24 am
content: As Ian already pointed out, the vast majority of people in your age bracket know virtually nothing and have very few saleable skills to bring to the table. That's why most kids work the shitty jobs nobody else wants. Bitter pill but it's true. Having said that if somebody is willing to offer an internship at little to no pay sweeping floors and other menial tasks I'd jump on it! While it may seem a waste of time at first blush, you'll gain lots of interpersonal and work place skills, and will most likely get a good idea of what you may or may not be required to do once you do graduate down the road.My first REAL job if you even want to call it that was working as a cameraman on high school sports events for a small local UHF tv station. The job was generally boring and often worked in cold miserable cramped conditions. However, I was also able to watch the broadcast engineer running around jerry rigging screwed up equipment, figuring out how to adequately filter dirty power lines and a host of other things to make the whole project work. Turned out to be quite the learning experience in the long run. Never regretted it down the road even though I never made jack for money while doing it.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 06:45:14 am
content: Sounds crazy, but: You have no job? Wrong. If you don't have a job then your job is to find a job.I.e. how serious you work your find-a-job job is part of the whole experience.Another is to compromise. What is more important for you, the money or gaining some experience with electronics in the job? Or something else? Because sometimes you are lucky and you find a job fulfilling all your wishes. Often it isn't. And then you have to choose. And for that it helps to have your priorities sorted upfront. Having one primary goal, trumping all, and a number of secondaries is one way to sort your priorities.Only two companies, Boeing and Microsoft in your area? Boy you must have the tiniest Yellow Pages in the worldYPs aren't what they used to be, but give them a look to get an idea how many companies of all kinds are out there.Oh, and when you check out an industrial park, as Dave suggested, there is no law against directly knocking at the doors of companies and asking about their job openings and whom to talk to about them. Get a haircut, dress nicely (no, that hip-hop, rapper, whatever "style" doesn't cut it), etc. bla bla.Start with the not so interesting companies to get used to it. Of course, first researching a company, and then coming back later is also a good way.

author: Stiege
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 07:02:22 am
content: Quote from: smashedProton on January 30, 2013, 04:26:24 amSounds like you have the right attitude and are on the right track. Go for it!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 09:35:28 am
content: Quote from: Bored@Work on January 30, 2013, 06:45:14 amOr better yet, go away, do your research and then come'a'knocking with a name!For some reason, I was instantly reminded of this:Dave.

author: ignator
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 03:09:40 pm
content: smashedProton: See if you can find an electronics design company in Seattle. I work for a company here in the middle of the US, that makes avionics for Boeing/airbus and many other airframes. We currently hire High school students as interns in the hopes that they will get a BSEE/BSCE/BSME (or associates degree in applied science electronic technician) and come back to work for us. You will not survive without a degree long term unless you are the boss of your own company. And it's not Bull Sh*t as no one cares about any high school math or physics you have, hear me they are useless, and only serve to get you into college. Note that college degree engineers get 3-6 semesters of physics, 3-6 semesters of math, and then many department specific engineering classes. It's all useful knowledge even if after 29 years I have not done any integration/differentiation (as my job was not root analysis). It all teaches you to understand how things work. You can't "make a better mouse trap" without this.At least that was how I interpreted your post.ignator

author: ee851
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2013, 03:41:35 pm
content: Before you can study engineering, it is necessary that you have completed courses in* linear algebra (two courses)* advanced algebra* trigonometry* Euclidean geometry* Cartesian coordinates and introductory calculusWhile a course in classical physics isn't absolutely a prerequisite, I think it would be helpful.

author: smashedProton
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2013, 02:10:07 am
content: Do small companies typically post their bottom of the ladder jobs on Linked in? If so, rate my profile.http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=228836375&trk=tab_pro

author: Stiege
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2013, 02:20:25 am
content: Quote from: ee851 on January 30, 2013, 03:41:35 pmI dunno about that. I think having a introduction to calculus is useful. Trig definitely. Euclidean geometry, yes, but you make it sound complicated by saying euclidean, could just say some geometry. Cartesian co-ordinates are what everyone who hasn't started engineering calls the co-ordinate system, so yeah, know the co-ordinate system.But universities give another introduction to all these topics anyway, so the more you know the easier first year is. It's best to cover concepts such as know what imaginary are and how they're actually used. Know a programming language, even if it's just a simple one like C# and the basics at least you'll know what a variable is and the structure of a computer program.It's the little things that if you're already aware they exist, makes university so much easier.

author: Stiege
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2013, 02:21:02 am
content: Quote from: smashedProton on January 31, 2013, 02:10:07 amYou and this LinkedIn user don’t know anyone in common