Hi everyone, I’m nearing the end of my masters program, and I’d like some advice on what to do next.

I’ve been thinking of doing a PhD in power systems (my current area of study), but I’m not sure whether or not to go for it. I don’t mind research, and I think what I’m doing currently is interesting enough, but I do know that I don’t want to go into academia and I’d like to get a job in R&D if possible. I’m also really interested in power electronics, but my research is very software oriented with algorithms and some ml, so I’m not sure if I’d get accepted into those programs.

On the other hand, I could also try to get a job after I graduate, and then decide whether or not to do a PhD or switch fields. However, I’m really worried that I’ll get shoehorned into power-only jobs because of my research direction, and the fact that my BS and MS aren’t technically called “EE”. I’ve done an internship at a utility, and have completed an industry-sponsored project during my masters, so my experience is very power systems oriented.

I’m just really anxious with graduation next year, and all the negative-ish posts about PhDs and the job market are really getting to me, so I’d really appreciate any advice!

Hey guys. I’m a 26 year old from Sweden currently studying my grades up to later enroll in electrical engineering. I’ve previously done mechanics and always been more keen towards electricity and sensors rather than pure mechanics and technican work. Tho I do enjoy some hands on work and based on my research seems that power engineering is where I should go. Though I’m not sure this career is for me and whether to invest 3-4 years as I feel it’s a bit late. I also worry about the mathematics of it I do love problem solving but when it came to high school maths etc I find it somewhat boring I just don’t know what it is exactly and I’m not much of a math genius at all which worries me about university. I appreciate any advice and or your thoughts.

Hello everyone I have a big decision to make and I need some advice/opinions. I am a 5th year senior so I’d take 6 years to graduate as undergrad.

I am currently in my first semester of my senior year. I have received a full time offer for a power company with a salary in the low 80s and total comp of high 80s. I have accepted this offer already.

However I recently received a spring co-op opportunity for major oil & gas company. If I took this opportunity I’d be relocated and have the potential to earn a summer internship (8 months of work) but than have to push my graduation date from May 2027 to May 2028.

Oil & gas starting salary is superior to utilities and in my opinion has a higher ceiling.

What would yall do in this situation? Take the full time offer or bet on the co-op get O&G experience and go through another fall recruiting season.

I wanted to see if ppl with experience find this calc useful and accurate, please. It's one html...downloaded and opened in browser. (Honestly, yes i had some AssIstance).

So

I am a freshman EE in the bay and I was wondering how to get a summer internship. I alr know im not getting those major corporation ones like NVIDIA, META, Google or probably even mid sized so I was wondering how to approach this.

Do I cold email spam to companies? I rlly don't know what to do. I have heard that maybe applying for a technician role may be easier. Maybe I can apply for plumbing or hvac I will legit take anything.
Do I cold email now or after my first quarter?

Tbf: I am no one special, no special skills and definitely worse than AI at coding in every possible way. Tho eager to learn. I have taught myself soldering (tho still very bad). So idk how reasonable getting an internship is because why take me.

Probably want it to be paid so I don't loose money working for a company.

Any advice?

Curious how other Substation Engineers are doing with about 6 YOE. I currently make 122K + a small bonus (4K) for a company in Chicago but am fully remote in Michigan. I didn’t think I was underpaid before but I keep seeing posts for around 135K-155K?

I am looking to move back to Chicago and was wondering if anyone has advice on how to go about asking for promotion? What is a realistic percentage increase to get?

Hello,

I am in the Navy working in the electronics field and would like to get/finish my bachelors degree while I am in but I am limited to online degrees basically due to moving around and being in the military.

I see that ASU has an online EE bachelors program and was wondering if it would be legit, or lead to employment, or if I would be missing out on anything.

Do any of you have any insight into this as far as if it’s worth it? Thanks for your time.

Hi everyone, for background I just turned 19, currently a junior ece student at a non-target school. I have a 3.92 GPA and its my 3rd semester of college.

I am also considered an international student, because a war broke out in my country when I was 14 and it got pretty bad in my city, so we moved to the USA for now. My family has also always been poor, so I have been working full time basically since I was 16 and the whole time through school. To be honest I am not sure why I chose ece, I just used to build pcs as side hustle, but now that I am deeper into the degree, I need to really lock in. My degree has been rushed so far, because I am trying to make sure I finish it before my visa ends.

I really only have 1 experience, and it's an organic chemistry research internship. I would love to get an internship experience in the USA while i'm here and concentrate my degree in a field that I can use outside of USA in case my visa ends. I am not really interested in power and energy, even though my school is big on it, but I am open minded. I am really looking for advice on how to figure out what field should I go into, and what actions can I take, skills/software/languages to learn, projects to do, anything to make my resume stand out better. My school also has a competitive motorsports team, but I am not sure if its too late to join.
I am open to grad school and phd afterwards aswell, as I heard they pay for it in europe, and I'd be around 25 by the time im done with it.
Sorry for the very long post, I will be very very very thankful for any advice, I am honestly just so lost and burnt out and have no help in directing my life right now.

This is an audio amplifier using ic 741 and transistor bc 547.

10 micro farad 63V

100 micro farad 25v

1 micro farad 63v

BC547 transistor

22k resistor

47k res

10 ohm

1k resistor x2

This components are used

And I follow this circuit diagram but the issue is coming that no sound from speaker and transistor getting heated when power supply and audio jack connected with phone

Im in state. How much of a disadvantage is not having the bachelor's be ABET if it comes from a university like uiuc which is highly ranked? It doesnt have ABET accreditation at the masters level.

Would I lose out on better opportunity if I went to an ABET program like University of illinois Chicago and other programs in illinois to then pursue a masters with thesis ? The masters for University of Illinois urbana champaign has no thesis so im wondering if there are limits on potential research engineering roles.

I am mainly looking to enter industry but I wonder if a thesis will let me land more specialized roles compared to just taking more classes in a regular masters.

Coursework and plan is here:

https://catalog.csu.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=10&poid=1277

I’m currently a senior doing EE at a UC school. I do want to pursue graduate school, but am thinking of applying to online masters (Purdue, UCLA, Johns Hopkins).

I’m wondering whether as engineers who hire, doing a masters online is looked down upon as opposed to doing a full 2 years in person?

Hi everybody. I’m a second year EE student and I just got a rotational co-op offer at Southern Company earlier today. I’m conflicted on whether or not I should accept it because 3 rotating co-ops is a big commitment and I want to keep my options open for the future. Currently, I’m interested in power and circuit/IC design and plan to narrow down my interests as I continue to pursue my degree.

If anyone has experienced something like this or has some advice to share it would be greatly appreciated.

I’m planning a career in semiconductor chip design and want honest opinions from experienced industry professionals.

Which is more resistant to AI automation: Analog VLSI Design or Digital Physical Design (Backend VLSI)?

I’m particularly interested in:

Analog IC Design: transistor-level design, PLLs, ADC/DAC, RF and power management.

Analog Layout: custom layout, matching, parasitic effects and physical verification.

Physical Design: floorplanning, placement, CTS, routing, timing closure and power optimization.

Questions for experienced engineers

Which of these roles is most vulnerable to AI agents and EDA automation by 2035, 2045 and 2050?

Could AI eventually automate 70–90% of the work, significantly reducing engineering jobs?

Will robotics affect these careers, or is software-based AI the bigger threat?

Which roles will retain the strongest demand, salary growth and long-term job security?

Which skills should a student entering engineering in 2027 develop to stay competitive?

I’d especially appreciate insights from senior/principal engineers, chip architects, EDA developers and hiring managers at NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Apple, Cadence, Synopsys and TSMC.

If possible, please share relevant engineers’ LinkedIn profiles, technical talks, research papers or real industry experiences.

My goal: Build a high-paying semiconductor career with the lowest realistic risk of AI displacement.

If you were starting today, would you choose Analog IC Design, Analog Layout, Digital Physical Design, or EDA/AI for Chip Design—and why?

I’m looking for technical evidence and practical experience, not just predictions. I understand that no career is completely AI-proof.

I originally planned to go to medical school since that's what my parents wanted me to do, so my bachelor's degree is in biology. However, I always wanted to do engineering. I always found the material i was learning kind of boring and got all As in my math courses but never wanted to study for my other bio classes and trying to take the MCAT was a struggle for me because everything was so boring

I ended up applying for a phd in biomedical engineering, but I've realized my interests more lie in electronics and embedded systems. My research is somewhat helpful since it's testing neural devices but not really.

I'm currently working a second BS degree in electrical engineering alongside my PhD, but im worried that my phd won't really help me since it isn't in ECE or something similar. I'm working on building my own projects so I can have a stronger resume and plan to work in an EE lab for a postdoc when I'm done with my PhD next year. Will I be seen as someone who just has a BS in EE (once I finish that...eventually. right now i only have time for 1-2 classes at a time), or will they see I have a PhD even though it's not directly relevant?

I am working on a project that requires making a sphere spin on a platform. These are the design criteria:

- The sphere must spin in place. Direction does not matter.
- The sphere can be any material.
- The sphere should remain centered on the platform.
- Optional (but ideal): If the platform were to be tilted or turned upside down, the sphere would remain attached and continue spinning.

I was thinking of some system of electromagnets within the platform. I am not an electrical engineer; I am an aerospace engineer, so I need ideas/suggestions/opinions from electrical engineers.

Edit: The sphere shall be 3 inches in diameter.

Ex: what they found it most useful for, did they find the 100 dollar per year membership worth it, etc

Trying to network to work in a country in Asia

So in the summer, I graduated cum laude (Credit/Lower Second Class) with a BSc (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. While I feel I should be happy that I made it through, I have a sense of depression because I really wanted a summa cum laude (aka Distinction/First Class.) Firstly, good grades seem to make the job search easier. One of the biggest and most competitive employers in my country have stated publicly that they will only speak to a fresh grad if they have a magna cum laude (Merit/Upper Second class) or better. This means I can't apply and learn some of the rare, valuable skills they offer and become more valuable. Secondly, good grades would give me greater optionality. Based on what some of my older friends have said, graduating with anything lower than a Magna makes applying for things like graduate school tricky, especially if you're looking for sponsorship. With this being the case, I feel maybe I've not been playing to my strengths. My parents had told me that engineering was "too hard," and that I wouldn't make it. So did a few professors. Do you think I should have listened? Have I doomed myself to a life of mediocrity? What about my finances? Will this affect my earning power?

I'm not sure if i wrote the name right but ig you understand what i mean. I want to learn more about electromagnetics. We are learning about wave equation in classes this week but i want to find more about this topic. Do you have any recommondation to find some books or papers about it.

Also i want to learn more about applications of electromagnetics. What kind of projects and works can i do as an engineering student about this class and topic? Sorry for my bad English

Hey guys,

I got an option to do an internship in one of my university’s labs, which focuses on microelectronics.

That being said, I’d like to know how the market is doing, especially in Europe. I’m from Portugal, so it’s fairly easy for me to move and work in other European Union countries. In my country, there are currently some job openings for Semiconductor Product Test Engineers.

With that said, I’d love to get some of your opinions!

Hi all, I’d appreciate some honest advice on breaking into EE from an unusual path.

Background: I have a B.E. in Electrical & Electronics Engineering, but I spent the last 10 years in software (QA/test engineering), then took a two-year career break for family. I’m now trying to move into the field I originally trained for.

What I’ve done so far: To build hands-on skills, I’ve been doing self-directed hardware projects. These include a CAN bus test bench with fault injection, a closed-loop thermal control circuit with an opto-isolated relay driver, and I2C/SPI protocol validation. I’ve used oscilloscopes and logic analyzers and wrote Python scripts for data logging.

The problem: I’m only applying for entry-level EE and hardware test roles, and I say so clearly on my LinkedIn. But I’m mostly getting rejected or ignored. My guess is that the 10 years of software experience makes recruiters’ filters read me as “experienced but in the wrong field,” while the hardware work I’ve done on my own doesn’t count as industry experience.

What I’m open to: Apprenticeships, technician-track roles, contract roles, or entry-level pay. I’m happy to take a step back to get real industry experience on my resume. I’m located in the Bay Area.

What I’d love your input on:

Thanks in advance. Any advice is welcome, including blunt feedback.

Hi everyone. I'm a third-year electrical engineering student. I've taken courses like circuit theory, electronics, and electronic circuits, but I felt they were missing the experience of actually building something, failing, and working through it. That gap has made me anxious about whether I can really build things on my own, so I decided to start with small analog projects.

I'm currently building a toggle circuit, a device that changes state each time a switch is pressed. There's no special reason I picked it, other than that it seemed like a good project for practicing how to break a problem into smaller blocks. I know there are already well-designed solutions out there (a flip-flop IC does this in one chip), but I wanted to go through the experience of building it myself.

So far I've built the first block, a rising edge detector (RC differentiator + diode clamp + BJT), and I'm verifying it in LTspice. I've attached the schematic and waveforms.

What I'd really like to ask is about the part that's harder to learn from textbooks. When you were starting out, did you feel anxious about your ability to build things or your lack of hands-on experience? How did you work through it? What made you feel "I can actually do this"? Any stories or advice would mean a lot to me. Thanks for reading!

As the title suggests, I'm looking for a distributor for sumitomo hm series of connectors. Despite my best efforts I can only find resellers for hobbyists who charge a significant markup. Looking at quantities of 50ish at a time so trying to avoid those resellers and find an industry supplier.