Plan on going for a degree in electrical engineering

Most engineering schools (probably all) are going to require a minimum score in math to get in (ACT for example). You will need to be able to start at college level calculus if you want to graduate on time. Otherwise you are looking at an extra year or so just to get your math skills up to snuff. In the 80s, WVU required 1.5 years of calculus, .5 years of differential equations, and one senior level math elective. If you are not good in math, you are going to have a difficult time in engineering.

The math requirements in manufacturing and power distribution have nothing to do with it. You have to get the degree, and the degree requires math.

Charles Perry P.E.

I can only agree with what Charles Perry stated.

I am curious, however. Just what did you cover during home schooling? What science did you study? Was home schooling primarily for religious reasons?

Bill

You might want to be aware that there are two different types of electrical/electronics engineering degrees: BSEE and BSEET. If you are going for a BSEE, you better be good at math...in fact, love it. With this degree you will be working more with your mind than your hands. With a BSEET you will not need as much math...generally calculus on an as-needed basis is the most you will encounter. With this degree, you will be regarded as a highly skilled technician. You may be doing field work, you could be working with engineers on new product development, mods, etc...

With the way things are going with corporate amerika and an asleep-at-the-wheel government doing everything else but what it is supposed to be doing--its job, there will be very little use for advanced electrical engineering degrees in the future. Well, at least in the states. By the end of this decade, roughly 95% of this country's R&D will be done offshore throughout Asia. If you get a BSEET you will be in good shape--you will be the guy that "makes" things happen. You should be in pretty good shape with an AASEET. However, once you are out of school, I strongly advise you to keep your nose in your books and stay on top of every new developments in whatever your are specializing in. Also make it a point to continue developing your math and physics skills. Also, become proficient in unix and/or linux and learn to program in Assembly and C as well. Even though windoze might be a popular platform in America, you never know where you job might take you.

Hope this helps

I certainly don't share your view of the future of engineering in the US. I wonder how we will move the entire US power system offshore? If we keep it here we will need engineers to run it, design it, analyze it, etc. R&D? I work in R&D and our company has doubled its revenues in less than 5 years. Pretty odd considering the downturn that you are predicting. Also, most engineers in this country do not work in R&D.

Some EE fields are in trouble. This is particularly true of the computer related ones. The tech bubble burst and its effects are still being felt. Consumer goods is another bad place to be since most of those are produced offshore.

Charles Perry P.E.

Charles Perry wrote:

Nothing wrong with unbridled optimism.

US power system? Moving it offshore??? First you will (physically) need to keep one up and running in order to do ANYTHING with it.

Where do you think this country will be in 2008 and 2012?

The current administration has done all it can to trash our tax base while sucking up to public corporations who outsource jobs, all the while extending them 'criminal' sums of tax credits. Please express this rationale and the accounting model on how this will generate revenues to finance the grid and other vital public projects? Don't bank on power companies raising kw/h rates; too many people are financially strapped as it is. Especially those who refinanced and purchased overpriced homes just recently and have yet to be squeezed with rising interst rates. Trust me, they are going up because there is no way in hell we will be able to attract foreign investors to buy up our debt. Of course, due to energy costs, the effects of cost push inflation are surfacing as well. Won't the nest administration be surprised when the notes come due in 2008 when they take office. The way the federal government as been draining the coffers, where do you think the funding is going to come from? The current administration clearly demonstrated their solvency quite openly when soon after the damage of Katrina was sinking in and they were scrambling trying to find a way to scrape up a mere $200 billion. Uh huh, the media was watching and so was the rest of America. Face it, the government has not planned, nor does it have any contingencies in place whatsoever to address the problems coming up; whether its through finances or human resources.

OK, "IF" being the key word here... see above. Not to mention the markets are perfect and self correcting. We are turning out fewer people with advanced scientific and engineering degrees; and for good reason. A lot of engineers; electrical, software, mechanical, hardware, chemical, etc...virtually any of them whose jobs could be telecommuted got burned. In other words, if your job was modeling, simulation/prototyping, etc... off to Asia it went. That improved their company's bottom line, kept the fat, drooling slobs on Wall Street happy, while American talent got the boot and sent off to the unemployment office. What most people in our age group fail to realize is, the newly unemployed and underemployed eventually ended up losing their homes and ended up broke also had kids who were watching and suffering along with them. This also set a precedent that science and engineering is not the ideal, secure career it once was. So why bother? Getting a business or liberal arts or even a nursing degree offers much better job security and compensation. Notice, I didn't say a word about stock options, 401k s, or the scandles that also contributed to the dot.com disaster.

Count your blessings...but do you honestly think the same is happening to all electrical/electronics engineering companies across the US? You might be prospering while others are going belly up elsewhere. Contrary to popular belief, economics is a zero sum game; always has been, always will be.

Not any more and for obvious reasons.

Actually there are some hardware engineers still making a pretty good living but nothing like the 90s hey day. Many that were axed and didn't find a fairly decent job have left the field all together.

Yep, and in more ways than one. It's not just the tech bubble that popped that is hurting us. (I wish that is all that it was because it would be a snap to fix). During the 90s we let a lot of sensitive technology go offshore...all in the name of giving China most favored nation status in hopes that in the not-too-distant future, we will be exploiting their 2 billion head market. Yea...so much for GATT. What we didn't give them, thet just helped themselves to it or simply stole (pirated) it. In the short term, it was pretty inmaterial to us, but I guess it never dawned on anybody that the Chinese would disect and study and/or reverse engineer our intellectual property which in effect would rapidly close the technology gap between us and what competitive advantages we had.

Soon China will be turning out more scientists and engineers than our TOTAL population. They have A LOT of room to grow: about 2 billion people and we have..........? We are the largest debtor nation in the world's history.

Now, see how all that I have told you impacts upon the circular flow of the economy and discretionary spending. Most of all, the resources, both financial and human, it leaves us to maintain our technological leadership in the future.

What do you think will be left for the federal government to continue providing us their services to us? Defense? Social Security, Medicare? DOT, etc...?

In the coming years, this country will experience, first hand, the cause and effects of unscrupulous greed and why nations that succumbed to it paid a horrific price for it in the end.

That is a given. But I do tend to agree with you that power will be the last electrical engineering bastion in the coming years: provided that we will be able to keep the infrastructure together.

Moral of the story: Careful what you vote for; chances are you will get just that.

Igor the Terrible

Son of Hooper the Fearless Mad Cow Slayer

Greetings,

I think I'm a boob replying to a troll, but, on the chance that I'm wrong or that any of this prattle might be of use to someone, I'll play.

Depending upon the entrance requirements of whatever college you plan on attending, it is unlikely that you will need to do "advanced math" "in your had" on day one. (Some schools or scholarships may have as a prerequisite some level of mathematical dexterity, but I'm sure I can leave it to you to make the necessary enquiries.) It can be stated with certainty, however, that you will need to know some "advanced math" (at least for as long as it takes you to pass the class(es) :-) at some point in your BSEE/BSEET/ASET/etc. education.

There are others who would drone on about the other splendid reasons for knowing "advanced math," but they shall have to do so in their own posts; I shall continence none of that here.

Considering that "advanced math" lies in your path, it would seem to me that you have a dilemma with three obvious solutions:

1) Pick another path. Why not become an MBA and subcontract all your thinking to exploited third world peasants (until, of course, the revolution comes :-).

2) Do nothing but fret about the prospect of math until you eventually find yourself in a college lecture hall with both the look and remaining lifespan of a "dear caught in headlights."

3) Learn math now, while you can do so at your leisure.

With regards to option three, you have several choices available:

a) The book "Engineering Mathematics" (in the USA:

by Stroud (de mortuis nil nisi bonum) not only covers *everything* a non-engineering undergraduate might need to know about math, but, despite the flimsy paper used in the USA edition, it is also probably thick enough to stop a .45 slug fired at short range! It is also unique in that the author tries to maintain a chipper attitude (or as chipper as a Brit gets), but it is suggestive that even he cannot maintain it towards the end of the book. ;-) Then again, dying probably didn't brighten his mood much, either. ;-)

Continuing on to through the sequel, "Advanced Engineering Mathematics"

,will not only allow you to frighten your future classmates and teachers, but will also make you a pariah in your community! (Be careful, though, as I wouldn't trust the book past a .38)

b) Should you care to leave some suspense in your future math classes, Thompson's time tested "Calculus Made Easy" (either the original'ish version or the brutally edited newer version) or "Calculus the Easy Way" would certainly let you get your feet wet, and, possibly, your eyes dry.

c) Then again, why worry about your future math classes when they can be your present math classes? All of the following have economical college and/or high school math classes that you might be allowed to take from your own home. See: Brigham Young University

Ohio University (OU also offers "College Credit by examination": if you get good at your maths, you can skip the math class and just take the final exam for cheap credit) Oklahoma University Louisiana State University Waterproof Paper:

Waterproof Pen:

N.B. Even if you take college level math courses, you may or may not be able to transfer them to the college of your choice.

N.B. Given the choice between an "online" class and a traditional paper class, always choose paper! They have sprays to get the bugs out of paper, but nothing works on computers!

N.B. Of course, the preceding list is NOT all inclusive!

Good luck!

Cordially, Richard Kanarek