Where to apply for electrical engineering jobs?

Electrical engineering fields, differnt types of jobs?

• I'm in my second semester of electrical engineering, I guess i'm taking the basics right now. I know i want to major in electrical engineering because I find it interesting and I like technology so i'd like to one day have a job where i can try to make new cool products like the next cool phone. I know there are alot differnt fields where electrical engineers can work..but I'm not sure what they're all about. Can someone please give me a an idea of the differnt field electrical engineers can go into and what they do. Also, which type of minor would be good for that field.

• Answer:

  Your best bet for learning about this is probably to ask your professors or visit career fairs and ask recruiters. Here's a brief run-down of some of the fields: Analog circuits: You've seen the basics of this. It can go from discrete design and circuit boards down to integrated circuits. Jobs include design work on IC's (laying out the circuit in CAD for what it looks like on silicon, or designing it at a system level where you decide what transistors need to connect to other places) and testing (designing a PCB that tests circuits for correct functionality, designing the tests that will catch problems before units go out the door, etc.). Usually there is no minor that complements this very well. Digital circuits: You may have already seen this. It can go from design of digital systems and computer systems at the level of how exactly they function, architecture, or it can go all the way down to transistor level and silicon level design. Architecture also includes programmable digital circuits. Common to minor in CS. Signal processing: this is how information is put onto and extracted from signals. This can include wireless communications, voice recognition, radar, etc. Jobs include analysis of signals (think CIA type stuff), design of signals (how to put information into a signal that nobody else can extract but you), programming to have a computer recognize voices, gestures, etc. and programming computers to be able to talk to each other. This is one of the key genius areas that gives us the cell phone. Minors in CS of math are helpful but unnecessary. Electromagnetics: the physics behind how electronic communications can work -- antennas, microwave circuits (at high frequencies your regular circuit theory doesn't work anymore), fiber optics, and radar are all good examples of applied electromagnetics. Without electromagnetics, there are no cell phones, wifi, or non-dialup internet. Jobs can be in microwave circuit design, antenna design or radiation analysis or modeling (computer simulation of this stuff), or radar systems. Usually people who are good at electromagnetics are also good at circuit design and/or signal processing. No minor necessary, but some choose to minor in physics. Embedded systems: Essentially computer programming, but working at a hardware level where the computer isn't just a black box, and you have to understand how the computer talks to things. Robots, UAV's, the processors in cell phones, etc. all fit in this category. Most of the jobs are mostly programming or testing. Minor in CS is helpful but unnecessary. Solid-state devices: this is where "how the transistor works" comes in. There's a fair amount of quantum mechanics involved, especially if you get into lasers, photodetectors, solar panels, microwave amplifiers, or nanometer-scale devices. Many of the jobs are connected to factories because understanding how the devices are made is necessary to understand how to make tons of them. Minor in physics is common because it is so connected, but a minor in statistics is useful because a lot of manufacturing is statistical process and quality control.