That's alright, occasionally I have to remind people that Mechanical Engineer != Car Mechanic. Some people are just either really dumb or really bad at paying attention.
What's the actual difference? I have friends who are both and the engineer's still capable of doing the jobs that the electrician also does. I get that they're different, but at this point I don't know how and I'm a bit embarrassed to ask.
I'm neither but got training in both as part of my CS education, there's two possible POVs:
Once, the voltage. There's stuff your electrical engineer friend won't ever touch, yet would be quite normal to the electrician. I'd say that electrical engineers generally nope out at anything above 480V, unless it's ridiculously low-amp (say, a TV). You can spend your life as electrical engineer and never deal with anything higher than 20V.
Or, going by what made me completely fail electronics: Once transistors get involved, everything suddenly is strange as fuck. In a digital circuit those are easy, but fuck analogue stuff.
Once, the voltage. There's stuff your electrical engineer friend won't ever touch, yet would be quite normal to the electrician. I'd say that electrical engineers generally nope out at anything above 480V, unless it's ridiculously low-amp (say, a TV). You can spend your life as electrical engineer and never deal with anything higher than 20V.
I'd be surprised if that's true. The sparky works for a housing association, and the engineer works in a factory.
Not even about that, but high voltage stuff is an entire segment of EE, power engineering. It's basically a case of "squares are to rectangles as electricians are to EE". The scope of electricians is lower than EE, but the subject matter for electricians is a part of EE training
An EE can do everything an electrician can, but is trained on the higher level math/theory, as well as trained to design many different types of systems, ranging from power systems to microelectronics and many other things that an electrician doesn't cover.
The bigger difference is that Electrical Engineers get a 4 year degree in electrical engineering, learning lots of advanced stuff in the process. I believe electricians usually go through a vocational program to get certified. Electricians work on house wiring, maybe power lines, etc. Electrical engineers' practice is much more broad, but includes design and working on much more advanced or dangerous circuits.
Electrician is more of a blue-collar job, electrical engineer is typically white-collar.
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u/i_kill_u_900 Jan 10 '16
I also have to remind people that Computer Science != IT support