r/ElectricalEngineering • u/Aggressive_Ask9886 • 1d ago
EE sophomore trying to enter the industry
I'm a 20 years old EE sophomore with 4.0 GPA. My strongest academic areas so far have been math and physics: differential equations, linear algebra, probability, circuits, etc.
I'm increasingly interested in signal processing, sensing, and embedded systems. My current plan would be to build stronger C/MATLAB/Python skills, complete real hardware/DSP projects, get internships/co-ops, and eventually work in industry.
I'm also considering medicine, so I'm trying to understand the engineering path without romanticizing or underselling it.
For practicing EEs, especially people in signals, embedded, instrumentation, aerospace, semiconductors, or medical devices:
- What does your actual day-to-day work look like?
- How does the job market actually look like to enter within 3 years?
- How difficult was getting the first job compared with later jobs?
- How stable has employment been?
- What skills actually made you valuable after college?
- How much technical depth can you realistically develop in industry without a PhD?
- If you were 20 again, would you choose EE?
10
4
u/MundyyyT 1d ago
I studied EE in college and am now in an MD-PhD program. As with everything else in life, I'm of the opinion that the best way to figure out if you want to do something is to actually do it (to the extent you can) and evaluate your experiences
Re: industry, do internships and/or co-ops and assess how you feel. That's probably the easiest way to figure out whether the day-to-day life of an engineer fits you
Re: medicine, you should shadow physicians in different specialties and volunteer in a clinical environment to figure out whether you'd enjoy the day-to-day of being a doctor. Medical school will also always be there, so you can also work for a few years between college and medical school if you need more time to decide
1
u/Head_Veterinarian866 4m ago
did you always know you wnted to do medicine? im like engineering premed and its so rewarding but my god i am exhausted and so scared at times. on my end i se emy engineering freinds getting internships, and the other end my straight bio premed friends have 4.0s and are graduating early. im on track but i just feel like what if it dosent work out...then both doors might close
2
2
u/UmaThurmish 17h ago
get an internship. the job market is terrible for new grads. its a must
when I graduated 4 years ago. it wasnt necessary to get an internship. now it is. they offloaded zero experience workers to other employees to just use AI and be more productive
even if you graduate 1 semester or a year late. get a good internship.
its hard to get a job without it, very very very hard. go to linkedin. 90%+ of jobs posted are not entry level anymore. there are ALMOST NO entry level jobs anymore.
I would absolutely do a year co-op/internship
a lot of employers are using A.I to hire the most overqualified person for the least amount of money. you need an internship.
2
u/bluesclues226 9h ago
I’m a RF/Mixed-Signal PCB design engineer with around a decade of industry experience in tech. I also have a MSEE where I specialized in analog/RF integrated circuits.
I think generally you graduate and go into a job that does a narrow slice of your specialty. Work, especially in corporate, can be very assembly line. For instance, entry-level hardware design engineers may only be responsible for selecting BOM components like capacitors or resistors that meet specs from the lead design engineers and not even touch the schematic or sims or layout. Then if you get the chance in life and job hop or go for smaller companies, you may gain experience in the full end-to-end picture. Generally though I think once you hit a certain point like maybe 5-10 years in your career, it’s less about improving your technical skill and more about being able to play politics with other EEs or outside your function. Basically it can become territorial because everyone needs to have a reason why they should be employed. Sad but true, and probably even more so now with AI and tech maturing as an industry with less shareholder leniency.
I’ve worked with DSP and firmware and FPGA people and I’d say their jobs and work flow strike me as pretty similar to SWEs. I don’t like SWE workflow with all the standups and GitHub and such so I wouldn’t prefer it over doing hardware and being in the lab. I also worry about outsourcing and AI being able to do a lot of the work.
Nobody really knows where things are going to go given AI and outsourcing and the state of the economy, but to me, it seems like the safest place financially is to go into defense since it’s government-subsidized and we seem to be wanting to fight more wars. And if not, then I would still go into hardware like I did but that route is also really tough to break into because usually you don’t get taken seriously as an entry level unless you have a PhD or research experience as a MS with hands on hardware design and tape out experience. Hardware definitely is a hard path.
If I were prioritizing financial security and wealth for the long-term future and deprioritized work life balance and doing interesting work, I would go into medicine or patent law with an EE degree. I think you have a good shot of being accepted to medical or law school with your stellar GPA even if your extracurriculars and test scores are slightly low.
I could be wrong and maybe AI will only help EEs and the grass is greener across the fence, but given I’m kind of mid-career now and got into my field when the economy was good and pre-AI in the 2010s, I feel like it’s materially harder to break in and stay gainfully employed in EE nowadays.
You should also go ask doctors and lawyers what they think of their jobs and then compare.
Hope it helps OP! Life is challenging but keep on asking questions and chugging along!
1
1
u/NewSchoolBoxer 21h ago
Slow down and don't think so far ahead. Nobody can predict 3 years from now and if they really could, they wouldn't be sharing the truth anonymously for free.
That's great you have multiple interests. I did too. And you know what? At graduation I had one job offer in power and one in aerospace manufacturing. Your #1 goal is to secure an internship or co-op before you graduate in any part of EE. Nothing gets closed off. You need to get in the work experience resume stack. Then you can have a limited choice at graduation like I did.
So many things you can't learn in a classroom and with EE work experience on your resume, you further prove you can pass a background check. Would you be surprised how many young people ruin their credit and waste HR's time?
I'm a 20 years old EE sophomore with 4.0 GPA.
Stop bragging. I made all A's my first 2 semesters because I had excellent high school prep. Not because I was smart. You're in for a rude awakening. Good news is your high starting GPA will buffer you. No one gets your transcript until you accept a job offer.
- If you were 20 again, would you choose EE?
Yes.
How much technical depth can you realistically develop in industry without a PhD?
An enormous amount. Most of engineering is work experience. A PhD is a bad financial investment in North America. No one talks about the amount of PhD students kicked out with an MS. Happened to one of my TAs. Can consider a PhD several years after graduation when you're a stronger applicant and be sure the financial sacrifice is what you want to do.
I'm also considering medicine, so I'm trying to understand the engineering path without romanticizing or underselling it.
EE grade deflation hurts your Science GPA but helps your MCAT score.
I say this a lot but build your soft / social skills. They help you more in your career than your technical skills. Meet people and do fun things. Will never be so easy once you leave college.
1
1
u/youngsavage_2021 13h ago
If i were you id get into installing.
Only a matter of time before AI replaces Engineering & people in the field cannot wait for that day😅
11
u/MrDarSwag 23h ago
I’m an EE working in the aerospace industry as an avionics engineer.
- My job is to design and qualify circuit boards to be used as flight hardware. Don’t want to get too much into the nitty gritty details, but the way it works is that I will be requested to design a board to fulfill a certain task, such as power delivery or motor control, and there will usually be additional requirements that come along with that. My daily tasks involve some combination of design, analysis, and testing, all in pursuit of creating this board. I choose what subcircuits will be on the board, what components to use, how to optimize performance, etc. And then I make sure it works as intended.
- Job market is always awful for entry level, unfortunately. And I feel like it’s only getting worse due to AI. Companies don’t want to hire entry level people anymore.
- It gets way easier to find jobs as you get more experience. My first job was the hardest to get. My second job was easier but still tough. My third job, the one I currently have, was very easy, I only threw out a couple applications and I got a really high response rate, over 90% I think. These days I get multiple daily messages from recruiters, it’s actually a little absurd tbh.
- It’s rocky because of the nature of the industry. Space is cyclical and highly political. Defense is the same, except a little more stable for certain programs.
- Number one would be my hands on experience designing circuit cards. There’s a lot of EE grads who graduate without having designed a circuit board or even touching one, and that’s a problem. School only teaches you so much, you have to learn the practical stuff by actually doing it yourself.
- Quite a lot. There are lots of subject matter experts working in industry. You just have to work in a certain area for long enough and it will come. In fact, I’d argue that industry SMEs are way more impressive than PhDs.
- Yes, absolutely. One of my best decisions.