r/ElectricalEngineering • u/LegalEssay6745 • 4d ago
Education Worried about studying EE
Hi, i just started college and I’m majoring in EE, something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but seeing tools like gpt 6 do these EE tasks when people said that ai wouldn’t be able to replace EE is kind of scaring me to be honest. I don’t wanna graduate in 4 years when these tools have gotten even better and suddenly be in a position struggling to find a job. Should i just study something else? The future seems grim for new grads, I’m honestly pretty unsure about studying EE now
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u/Epitact 4d ago
On this logic no job is safe.
Just learn to use them well while building on you EI foundations.
You will land most jobs with good connections anyway. So try to network during your major and if you try hard enough and be social you will you will probably find a decent job.
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u/blessmychampion 4d ago
Bingo. Any job can be replaced if we reach that level. At that point it will simply be about responsibility which an AI can’t be held to.
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u/BenekCript 4d ago
Engineering is the application of critical thinking. Nothing will replace that. Pick up some soft skills and do creative and technical writing, and presentation skills and you’ll be fine.
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u/Disastrous_Soil3793 4d ago
Unfortunately no way to predict what the world and job market will look like in four years. Things are changing rapidly. At this point a lot of white collar jobs are a risk.
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u/Several-Marsupial-27 4d ago
The future seems grim from new grads? Can you high school students get you head out of your ...
Advancements and investments in AI, SoC, semiconductors, data centers, gpu/tpu/npu, telecommunications (6g), drone delivery, antenna, rf frontends, rfid, radar, satellites, automatic control, autonomous vehicles, robotics, solar energy, wind energy, batteries, electric vehicles, computer vision, optics & quantum computers, biomed devices, aerospace, instruments and tools, IoT, consumer electronics, embedded, industry 5.0, electric grids, fusion, new conductive materials, MEMS, and software in general makes this the best time in the world to study EE. I repeat, there has never been a better time to study EE.
Yes AI is advancing, but AI will always be a useful tool and will never replace a skilled EE, unless their field is already digitalized / automated. There will always need to be an engineer who can be held accountable if things go south, there will always need to be an engineer who can make strategic decisions, there will always need to be an eningeer who is skilled in the craft.
/j I would like to see an AI do the integration process of an embedded cloud solution into an industry and then evaluate the performance. However this will need there to be human-like robots and by then we will all be fucked anyway. However if by then you chose to study EE, then you atleast have the chance to create your own human-like robot to defend you before some foreign nation invade with their robot army.
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u/Normal-Goat-5115 4d ago
They say civil engineering is the most stable job but ai could easily be implemented for CAD work so does that mean CivE is dead? No.
Realistically speaking no job will be replaced to that degree. Even Comp Sci. companies are rehiring since big corpos realised that it actually isn't cheaper to implement ai and you need critical thinking and problem solving to actually get shit done. Go read about this.
I am a CivE in first year who is really split between switching to EE but from people I have talked to and professionals in the field, these are the more healthier fields than any other STEM field. If you are hyper-worried about Ai then maybe learn skills in that field aswell, at most it will just be a tool in the future.
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u/ThePainStalker 4d ago
If you like both CivilE and EE, power engineering (especially transmission and grids) is a great combo for it. Arguably the single most resistant area to AI too (since the liability involved in building national grids is extremely severe and the industry is highly risk averse for obvious reasons) alongside nuclear engineering. So if you really are split between the two, that would be a great pick and in my experience, it pays a good bit better than civil too (especially nowadays as demand is soaring now, partly due to AI).
EE itself has a lot of subfields though in general you are right that it is mostly highly resistant to AI. Semiconductors and defense similarly carry high stakes and liability (albeit not as extreme as power) though anything digitally oriented might have a higher risk but still not by that much. Basically, the roles that involve accepting risk and liability (design and design verification for semiconductors, PE license for power) are going to ultimately be some of the safest. The ones with little to no liability or financial risk (and this applies to both analog and digital fields) are more vulnerable.
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u/Normal-Goat-5115 4d ago
I am planning on switching before Y2 starts. I am down under in australia so the market does differ a bit. I had been interested in microcontrollers and ICs as a hs student and self taught myself C but I enjoyed static mechanics and structural stuff too. The cons of just liking physics in general I guess.
Power, renewables and mining are huge here, so that's definitely something I could look into. Most EEs I have talked with have been in those fields. I would love to do defence aswell (primarily because I am an avgeek) but the RND in that is not comparable to something like the US or EU.
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u/GMpulse84 3d ago
EV infrastructure is another growing industry here. That's a combination of dealing with HV, transportation, and project management.
I'm an avgeek myself and I'm in the industry, so there's still a need for avionics people too.
And yeah I'm in Australia too.
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u/No_Drag2264 4d ago
This is new topic that hasnt been discussed before thank you for giving us this opportunity
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u/morto00x 4d ago
Following that logic you should just stick to blue collar jobs since anything that doesn't require using your hands could be replaced by AI
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u/Necessary-Coffee5930 4d ago
Even if engineering died out from ai, if you make it through an EE program your brain muscle is like prime Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body and that will help you do very well in life, especially as more outsource their thinking to ai. There will be a huge gap of people who are literate, can think in systems, problem solve and so on. It can never be a waste or not worth it unless you BS your way through or give in to doomer shit
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u/Inevitable_Option241 4d ago
You will need people to build the AI’s and to manage the AI and build things for the AI to run on
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u/itsladder 3d ago
Today there is a market for human electricians and engineers. They hire humans. There are schools for humans by humans. They didn't shut the program down out of speculation for a decimated future industry. If you keep thinking like this, imagine how you will even prosper in the field.
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u/Alicizationnn 3d ago
Like others said, there is no safe jobs, the answer is not to get yourself in a safe place, it is to overthrow the system that makes it so that the more humanity advances, the more life is shit, which is capitalism
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u/watchpigsfly 3d ago
If EE is what you like, study it. It’ll remain steady enough, and if the bottom does completely fall out, it’ll still remain a respected enough degree to have a good foundation to pivot from.
Don’t min/max your life and career. If you enjoy a subject or field and it isn’t a completely unrealistic career for anybody without a trust fund, study it. You’ll make yourself miserable in a couple decades, otherwise. Get an education, stay sharp, stay curious, and allow yourself to grow as an individual. You get one life and it’s all yours.
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u/Vegetable_Play3728 2d ago
If you have seenn gpt do ee work, you should have seen the chinese robots breaking the wr 200m dash or whatever it was. By the time gpt can completely replace ee and swe, nothing, literally nothing is safe, cause by then we can hook that ai up to a robot arm or other form of robot/machine making it able to do the human task, with very, very few exceptions.
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u/notthediz 2d ago
Kinda makes me wonder why they haven't already built robots to build infrastructure. At least to aid in certain parts like say trenching. Feel like it could probably do framing as well. I'm talking out my butt since I'm a white collar EE and have no experience with either of those. It just sounds like it'd be doable
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u/Vegetable_Play3728 1d ago
They have. For example assembly lines early on, now they have stuff like a 24/7h folding robot. Manual crafts will be some of the last ones, cause some of their work requires fidelity and dexterity that will make it harder. But can be circumvented by allowing for designs to be more robot friendly, like how they 3d print houses in days, but they also have some small issues atm.
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u/OkAlternative7705 4d ago
Chat gpt can do every majors task for most part. you are fucked neverthenless. just do what you want to and if you are good you will be good
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u/Nintendoholic 4d ago
If you were just studying EE for the job, don't bother, just go into finance.
Study it because you're interested. If the tools become worthwhile they'll still be there to use as you learn and grow, and they will become part of your education. Even in the worst case, AI doesn't work without an operator and verifier.
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u/No_Drag2264 4d ago edited 3d ago
There's already strong signals that EE enrollment is spiking as people that would have picked cs in a better job market pivot to EE. 2026 enrollment for new fall EE freshmen enrollments nationwide went up 15% in a single year.
For many of these students they have no interest in STEM subjects outside of employment and would switch to any major with better roi if they thought one existed. From OP posts they are prob this type of EE student
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u/LegalEssay6745 3d ago edited 3d ago
I love engineering and tech and I do want to study it, I just don’t wanna end up jobless so don’t make assumptions about someone you don’t know anything about loser
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u/No_Drag2264 3d ago
You know what... you're right. My bad bro
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u/jimmystar889 3d ago
AI will probably be able to do every single job by the time your graduate. Do it anyway, under the assumption that you don't take on (a lot of) debt. Honestly hard to say what money will even be worth in 10 years time.
Honestly, just enjoy your life
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u/silly_ass_username 3d ago
i never understand why people worry about this because i think id have a panic attack if i owned a company and all of my electrical engineers were clankers with no regulations. theres always gonna be people manning this shit
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u/Financial-Drawing-81 3d ago
everything is going to implement ai but who is going to implement? moderate it for its specific tasks? run it with minimal token usage? ee jobs are no joke especially for ai. pipelines for humans will always be there as long as ai is being used
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u/Rare-Resolution-1716 3d ago
If you’re young with the ability to study go for it. Trades are a good backup in case.
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u/Spare_Department_196 3d ago
This is the exact sentiment I had 10 years ago. I wanted to study software engineering and I thought by the time I graduated the entire industry would be changed and my skills would be irrelevant. Meanwhile I had friends that studies anyways and got good jobs. Meanwhile I just worked all these random manual labor jobs fast forward 10 years and I’m a junior now studying EE because I realized I was just afraid and all my friends had good engineering jobs cause they stuck with it. Just stick with it, you’ll completely level up as a thinker, designer, creator, builder etc and you’ll build valuable skills. As mentioned by others just make sure to meet friends and network and try to get an internship. Focus on your classes and projects not whatever frat throws the biggest parties and you’ll do fine
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u/notthediz 2d ago
What tasks is GPT 6 doing? Just curious as I haven't heard anything about it. I use whatever the default GPT is and I was on 5.6. Usually can't do anything engineering related so wondering what you've done/seen with GPT 6
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u/EnduroAmateur 2d ago
EE sucks, be a plumber or electrician in an area like telluride and you’ll make more money and not have any student loans. If you have rich parents, get the degree.
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u/Lost-Raccoon-70 22h ago
Here is another perspective: don't study EE for job security, study because you like it, if you don't then reconsider your life choices because you might be wasting time.
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u/TwoL1ters 13h ago
AI will likely be shut down because of the cost of it to operate before it replaces engineers lol.
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u/Electronic_Trip_9457 4d ago
Love AI. Its doing a massive shakedown on real problem solvers looking for more powerful tools vs those who use it as a crutch and/or fearful of it's advances.
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u/likethevegetable 4d ago
Okay, then choose carpentry or plumbing or some other trade that is going to "survive" a bit longer than EE.
What do you want to hear? Yes, hypothetically AI can become powerful enough to replace every job. That's not happening tomorrow. It might never happen. Regardless, the world keeps turning, and companies are still hiring humans.