in article snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com, Harry Conover at snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote on 8/1/03 2:56 PM:
When I was in college, only two EE options existed, power or
> electronics.
>
> The electronics option qualify you to work on the development of the
> really whiz-bang, new devices and products. If you're lucky in
> choosing an employer, you may be lucky and not get laid off every time
> the company looses a contract, but likely will. After you reach age
> 40, you'll likely have difficulty finding another job except by taking
> a significant pay decrease.
>
> The power option generally focuses on more mundane things like motors,
> generators, power distrubution systems, etc. Take this option and
> you'll likely end up with life-time job security working for a power
> utility or a major supplier to the power industry, plus one of the
> best pension/retirement packages available anywhere.
>
> I chose the electronics route, and I believe that I chose poorly. >
> The bottom line is essentially this, had I chose power I could have
> always done electronics on the side while having a secure future. By
> contrast, I chose electronics and in electronics it's a 'dog eats dog'
> game, and electronics firms (unless you own one) display absolutely no
> sense of employee loyalty.
>
> This raises the question: "What is your bottom line goal in pursuing > an education?
Do not underestimate the amount of skill and innovation required in power or motor engineering. Just consider the engineering that went into make portable CD players.
Moreover, power engineering employs electronics everywhere. You no longer see huge line frequency transformers driving capacitor charging supplies such as used at LLL to drive their lasers. That has all been replaced with rectifiers driving chopper supplies that can charge capacitors with practically unit power factor.
How man readers know that the same mathematics needed to analyze driven antenna arrays is used to analyze electrical machine windings?
Bill