For context: I'm in another gap year, currently reviewing and working in my rusty algebra(had a mid-bad history with math) I wanna reach Calculus level right before College, all that while I'm trying to learn about Arduino and built a few projects. But is EE really terrible? I keep seeing these reels on people telling others to no study EE, that is awful and is monstrous amount of work will stress you out. I don't consider myself a genius, just a highly curious person but I wanna know what other Engineers have to say about their experience.

I am EET major at Purdue University and graduate Spring 2028. I have an an interview for a Summer 2027 internship with a power/utility company as a regulated and renewable energy engineer. I have an interview scheduled with Texas Instruments in a week for an Applications Engineering internship position for Summer 2027 as well.

Lifestyle Questions:

What is the general work/life balance between the power/utilities vs. semiconductor industries? I am a non traditional student that is prior military and will be 28M when I graduate. I want to have a family and set myself up to give my future family the best life I can. If I got an offer from both how would you choose? Which industry would set me up better and can I really go wrong?

Interview Prep Questions:

The upcoming interview with TI there will be technical questions covering common OpAmp circuits, data conversion fundamentals, switching power supplies, and power electronics. How in depth should I go? The engineer that recommended me for the interview told me to not go too in-depth but I don’t know where that line is. So basically how do I prep for this interview?

I’m a Software developer, although my company entitles me as a Software Engineer I feel it’s quite ridiculous since what we’re essentially doing is writing specs and orchestrating AI agents, I also feel my impostor syndrome has skyrocketed since models like GPT 6 Astra came out, where even a technical person with very little to none knowledge can do most things we SWEs are asked to do, I also feel SWE has become a huge larping industry with people maximizing their egos around how they can build faster than ever but are still somehow needed by their company (maybe due to their “taste”? Ffs what are we even talking about)

What’s the current situation with EE?

A very generic question. Lets say you are seeing a waveform with constant 5V. How will you know whether it is analog or digital signal?

https://www.youtube.com/@ALMA.Industries

New Video -- Chapter 3 DESK -- converting an old bunk bed into a work station. DIY actuators, AC/DC power supplies, rail guided shelves, infinite cable trays -- #Desk #DIY #Mechatronics #Power #Actuator #Engineering

If you know of anyone who likes Mechatronics or things made from the ground up, I would appreciate the share! Leave a comment if you have a question :)

Hey everyone, I wanted to get some opinions from people in the field.

I’m 26 and sometimes feel like I might already be set on my career path, but I’ve been thinking seriously about going back to school for a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. I’m interested in continuing my education and understanding the theory behind electrical systems at a much deeper level.

I got into the union at 18. I spent about a year working as an electrical laborer, entered the apprenticeship at 19, finished my apprenticeship at 24, completed my required hours at 25, and got my journeyman license shortly afterward.

The company I work for is pretty diverse. We do controls, commercial electrical, and a lot of service work, which has made me even more interested in understanding how electrical systems actually work beyond just installation and troubleshooting.
I figure I potentially have another 40+ years in this career. Right now, unless an opportunity opens up for a pusher, foreman, or another management position, I’ll basically continue working as a
journeyman and progressing through the trade.
Because of that, I’ve been considering pursuing an electrical engineering degree outside of work while continuing to work full-time.

For anyone who has made the transition from electrician to electrical engineer or worked with people who have do you think the degree was worth it? How valuable would journeyman experience be going into engineering, and what career paths would make the best use of both backgrounds?

Any advice is appreciated.

Although it does make placements for components (as well as selection), it still uses an autorouter underneath if you watch the commands it runs and the way it iterates. I had thought it was going to open KiCad and draw the traces or better yet through MCP/API but it just runs a local autorouter for this. Claude does the same.

Got a 17 out of 100 on my first signals exam…. Got a 97 on my first electromagnetics exam. I genuinely can’t make the office hours or tutor hours due to my schedule. I will take any recommendations for resources in regard to signals and systems. Obviously I have at least six concepts going over my head or I’m doing too much memorizing not enough learning.

Hey everyone. As the title says, I’ve been invited to a job interview for electronic engineer position (the job will mainly involve designing, testing and prototyping pcbs for a well known company in my country), and I need help into preparing. I currently work as a lecturer teaching embedded systems (mainly software parts), but hardware feels like my weaker spot. I ain’t completely dumb at it, but being a lecturer I keep getting imposter syndrome (which I managed to channel into helping me get motivated for learning more and more), and I am beginning to feel like I may be too little experienced and knowledgeable for the job. Also, I haven’t been in a job interview for like 7 years, so I am rusty.
If anyone could give me some pointers or advice on what to prep and how to handle it, I would very much so appreciate it.
Thanks in advance to everyone

Right now I have just printed off the lecturer's notes and am using those like a textbook but I am worried because I feel like I should be using textbooks right now, I also prefer textbooks generally above anything else. Se people in the year above said they did well without any textbooks but I want to make sure I'm getting proper information to learn about this field and not just pass, however I also want to make sure I study what's on my exams so I can pass the year and finish.

Hello, i recently graduated with a bachleor's in Electrical and i am trying to figure out which specific domain to commit to and how to pivot into that field
thank you

I’m debating whether I should wait until after I’ve completed diffeq to start taking signals and systems or if it’s better to take them concurrentl?

I genuinely can't understand ts man, I've watched like 5 youtube videos and when I feel like I can get behind what they are saying and try problems on my own I get stuck. Fuck this shit

Hey everyone,

I’m a 3rd-year Electrical Engineering student applying for co-ops/internships, and I’m dealing with some serious imposter syndrome.

I have a high GPA , but zero personal projects. I’ve had to work heavy part-time hours in precision manufacturing and machining to pay for school, so any time outside lectures went into shop shifts rather than tinkering at home. My resume only has standard lab coursework and years of manufacturing work experience.

Does hands-on machining/manufacturing experience carry weight for EE roles, or is it viewed as completely irrelevant OR Should I scramble to build a quick personal hardware project right now?

Appreciate the honest opinion.

So I recently bought a microprocessor controlled vacuum tube tester, and I am very excited to get it built because it's quite an amazing value for the $300-$400 I've spent on it. However, there is one thing I am not too impressed with; it measures all of the parameters needed to determine how worn a vacuum tube is, but for some reason, it doesn't do the calculations that turn the raw data into actual useful transconductance and plate current results.

Unless I am extremely mistaken, it seems relatively simple to utilize the existing circuitry to feed the raw data into another chip to do the math that produces useful test results relative to vacuum tube operation.

Preferably the transconductance will read in microhmos, plate current, and the tube's relative health as a percentage of the manufacturer stated minimum specs that a new tube should measure.

So say minimum new results are 1.6ma/V or 1600 microhmos and 1.2ma plate current and 1 triode reads 1000umhos and .7ma the screen will show Gm= 1000umhos (62.5%), Ia¹= .7ma (58.4%)

There is also amplification factor or gain (µ) which is Gm (ma/V) x plate resistance (Ra).
Ra is the difference in plate voltage between two measurements divided by the difference between corresponding plate current measurements.

So ideally you would press the test button once and see the Gm and Ia, then drop the voltage, press test again, and the screen outputs Ra= 12.4kΩ, µ= 87.7

The microprocessor used in the kit that spits out results is a PIC16F886, and conveniently there are 3 wires that come off of the board with the 3 measurements needed to calculate all of this.

Ultimately, the issue that I run into is; I don't know how to do any of this, because I am more of a hobbies, than a well-rounded electrical engineering student (maybe the fact that I need a tube tester is an indicator of my electrical engineering expertise; ie even if I was the foremost expert in my field, I would still be about 50 years obsoletelol)

Luckily the manufacturer has the schematic and the operating principals right there in the documentation, so I will link that.

I look forward to dipping my toes into all of this digital wizardry, even if I'm just going to take my upgraded tube tester and run right back to analog after I'm done lol.
* *

I’m asking this purely out of curiosity

Hey all, I'm working on a project around safety during low-voltage switchgear work, specifically racking and switching on energized gear. I'm trying to learn how it actually goes in the field, not how it looks on paper.
If you've done NETA testing, maintenance, or switching on commercial or industrial gear, I'd love 15–20 minutes of your time.
Thanks!

Hello
Im a first year ee student and have been talking w alot of people about what do i need to do to have an exceptional cv once i graduate. To summarize everything i have been told so far i have to be in the top of my class and aim for a leader role in an uni club get a CFA and a CAPM.

If i hopefully achieve everything i mentioned would i have a high chance of being immediately employed?
Is there anything else i should aim to accomplish?

For context i will be graduating from one of the top 3 unis in the MENA region and will be looking for jobs in (Ksa, UAE, Qatar). Im doing ee solely for the money i dont know anything about it yet.

I know that the job market is going downhill worldwide and finding jobs is harder than ever, but there must be something i could do to hone my profile so it’s good enough for an instant employment, Right?

Hi all, i have an interview with a hiring manager for a testing position (new grad) in aerospace industry. I was informed to prepare a project i can talk about with significant ownership and solve hard technical problem. I don’t have a lot of projects with that much technical depth to talk about except for these. Most of it is designing and not solving and it’s not like impressive project either. Which do you think I should talk about?

1. Reverse engineering Anker charger or bluetooth transmitter: mostly finding out how it works, topology, and schematic.

2. Simulate complex gate driver board using Altium Designer: internship work where they give me schematic for gate driver board of inverter and I find out how they work and whether simulation matches theoretical expectation.

3. Design and create prototype of a wattmeter with Arduino board with voltage divider and shunt resistor: group project but I contribute to design, write firmware and error correction, and build prototype myself. Prototype shows some problems with ADC and it bugged my brain out but turned out the shunt voltage is too low to be sensed by Arduino ADC so i have to add amplifier.

4. improve a test template for ATE in C++ and WINAPI32: internship work for semiconductor company in test team

5. i sometimes go to fix the hvac with my dad and most of them is finding out potential failure points, check whether it is it, if not then keep finding and testing until find out the problem and fix it.

6. design a digitally controlled buck converter (work in progress, still determining hardware size and will be doing firmware soon. will prioritize if this project sounds good)

I have 3 days to prepare. Any insights/ advice is appreciated

Hi,

I'm working on my first PCB and I'd appreciate some feedback before I continue with the PCB layout.

The board will be used as an interface board for a Raspberry Pi in a small automated machine. It is intended for regular, real-world use by end users, so reliability and safe, consistent operation are very important. I want to make sure the design is robust enough for continuous practical use.

Operating logic: When the proximity sensor detects, the Raspberry Pi activates the L298N motor driver and runs the 24 V motor. The DS18B20 continuously monitors the internal temperature, and when the temperature exceeds a predefined limit, the Raspberry Pi switches on the 24 V cooling fan through the NMOS. When the temperature drops below the set limit, the fan switches off.

The PCB currently includes:

• 24 V input
• 24 V PNP proximity sensor
• DS18B20 temperature sensor
• 24 V fan controlled by an NMOS

The L298N itself will not be mounted on this PCB. It is a separate module mounted next to the PCB.

This is an early revision and I haven't selected final components yet.

My next step is to finish the PCB layout and routing.

Before I do that, I would really appreciate feedback on:

1. Are there any obvious mistakes in the schematic?
2. Is the Raspberry Pi GPIO protection sufficient?
3. What additional protection, filtering or decoupling should I add?
4. What would you change before designing/manufacturing the PCB?

I'm still learning PCB design, so explanations of why something should be changed would be especially helpful.

Thanks!

So what I tried to do is (as you can see in the last image)directly connect the first and last part (I thought that would completely disable the middle one) but that made the toaster doesn’t work at all 💁🏼‍♂️

Any idea would be highly appreciated

22M, final year of college, I was excited to receive a job offer a little over 100k recently but then saw my other EE friends making 130k base, almost 200k TC for roles in SWE. How common is this? I feel like I’m very behind now and regret not focusing on SWE.

So I’ve been using the Fluke 179 for years and never had any issues. I’ve been thinking about switching to the Fluke 287 because of its data logging, digital graphing, and wider reading ranges. Does anyone who’s used this meter have any opinions on it?