The ABET accreditation thing is interesting. Last time I looked into it there are even some things that require it for CS (becoming a patent lawyer for example).
Here's. the first job I found when I searched for local MechE jobs.
>This position requires a BSME or MSME from an ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission-approved program with a strong academic background and interest in thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid
When searching for local EE jobs. Out of the first 5 results, 1 required a PE, 3 required a degree from an ABET accredited program, and 1 just required an EE degree without specifying ABET.
>Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering or related degree from an ABET accredited program.
The Computer Engineering degree I have is from an ABET program, it was pretty even on CS/EE. No regrets, except for the times the hardware guys act like I'm just a software guy and the software guys act like I don't know anything about software because I'm a hardware guy. XD
I went through an ABET accredited electrical engineering program, and they said that those of us who didn't want to work in government shouldn't bother with it.
> I hope that when a prospective EE is going through their ABET accredited program that they have some class that breaks it all down for them
That wasn't the case in the 2000s when I got my ECE degree (more-or-less EE, but with many course choices replaced by CS curriculum), from a state university in the US. EE is a very broad field, lots of grads won't need to know names of connectors for instance.
A lot of CE degrees are EE with just the barest veneer of software to meet ABET requirements.
Mine had data structures and software engineering as CE-specific requirements (along with a dash of microarchitecture and HDL/FPGA stuff), the CS algorithms course was an elective that obviously gave priority to CS majors.
Beyond that, we had a department head that really only cared about shoving as many EEs as possible into the PG&E hiring pipeline.
I think there's value in hiring people who have been trained in a standardized process that prioritizes chains of responsibility, detailed analysis and reliability over velocity, flexibility and bug-tolerance.
Plus, these days, the usual electrical engineering curriculum is ~50% programming, which is more than can be said for some CS curricula (which aren't standardized the way ABET does for EE).
this is also wrong, though. You will not have done exactly the same course load! Universities have specializations and areas of research focus that influence and dominate their course material and presentation. You will, however, have been exposed to all the material that ABET thinks is necessary to accredit that program as being an electrical engineering one.
assuming you went to an accredited school, of course.
Which is fine if you are both good at and interested in something wherein you can do this. I have a BSEE and am trying to get back into an EE-oriented position. For EEs, things have gotten to the point where me just having a BS is tolerated; they really want an MS+. Professional licensure is going that route as well now, unfortunately.
The ABET mechanical and electrical engineering curricula combined would give you all the skills a team needed (perhaps with the aid of a physicist and chemist or two) to build this system.
That we have dissolved the word "engineer" to mean "ad salesman at scale" doesn't mean the traditional engineers aren't out there.
Many of the engineers I've worked with in the UK carry EE degrees (I'm unsure how different this is to electronic and computer engineering). It's certainly not seen as a bad thing or a reason to not get interviews compared to a pure CS degree from my experience.
Not so much. Early in my career I worked with plenty of electrical engineers who started out as technicians with two-year degrees who were promoted to engineer after 10+ years of experience working closely with engineers. That used to be a common path for engineers, before all this elitist credentialism started.
I also worked with several systems engineers who did not have engineering degrees. I don't know of any universities who have systems engineering bachelors programs, but masters programs are semi-common.
An EE degree IS awesome. It gives a generalizable mathematical foundation which applies in just about any other field of work. It gives a huge competitive edge. For example:
* Circuits are physical implementations of differential equations, and EE gives a unique way to intuitively think about dynamics, which applies to finance, epidemiology, and just a really diverse range of domains.
* With a rigorous EE background, you can rapidly pick up most domains of engineering (think Elon Musk), since you've got all the mathematical foundations. The reverse isn't true. The way math is taught in EE is broader than e.g. mechanical, civil, or other engineering disciplines, where it tends to be more domain-specific. EE gives you a lot of depth in probability, error analysis, signal processing, controls, calculus, linear algebra, etc. I think the only things missing are statistics and discrete math, and I picked those up elsewhere.
High-performance board-level EE is insanely fun. Incredibly creative. You get to build stuff, design stuff, do math, and it's just a huge diversity of intellectually-fulfilling stuff.
IC design is a bit less fun, due to the many-month turn cycles (develop, wait months and hundreds of thousands dollars, and test/debug), but not bad.
However, the EE industry sucks:
- Pay is not bad, but much worse than other jobs you can get with an EE degree.
- Work culture has all the worst excesses of the eighties -- think of Office Space style cubicle farms, dress codes, conservative management, ISO processes, and paperwork.
- Yet it's somehow adopted some of the worst excesses of the 2010s; it no longer feels like work is a family or a community
- And it's hard to get into. There are virtually no jobs for junior-level EEs (which isn't just BSes -- in the Great Recession, I knew bright newly-minted Stanford/MIT/Caltech/etc. Ph.Ds who couldn't find jobs).
- Even at the senior-level, there's a bit too much of a boom-and-bust cycle, without the booms ever getting that boomy, but the busts being pretty busty.
I spent maybe five years doing EE work after my EE degree, and I think that was enough. I've been out for a long time now. I still do EE as a hobby, and I enjoy it, but the industry culture isn't one I remember with fondness.
I suspect a lot of this stuff will continue to disappear from the US into Asia; that transition is rapidly in progress. US firms maintain specialized knowledge in some areas (e.g. particular types of MEMS devices), but there are plenty of places we've fallen behind. I don't see us on the path to regain leadership. I think some of this is cyclical. Declining industries don't make for good employers, and poor employers don't make for growth industries.
Yeah looks like they are not doing EE actually. For the degree part, I assumed the point of getting a degree is to find a job. Even though there is no formal degree with this school, you won't have any troubles finding a job.
Here's. the first job I found when I searched for local MechE jobs.
>This position requires a BSME or MSME from an ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission-approved program with a strong academic background and interest in thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid
https://www.monster.com/job-openings/-winter-2022-entry-leve...
When searching for local EE jobs. Out of the first 5 results, 1 required a PE, 3 required a degree from an ABET accredited program, and 1 just required an EE degree without specifying ABET.
>Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering or related degree from an ABET accredited program.
https://lensa.com/staff-electrical-engineer-substation-chatt...
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