Quick question about the power industry?

Ian_Brooks

I was shocked to learn that any old mechatronic student with one power course can get the same job in the power industry as an EE who did well over 4-5 courses in power. How does that work?

Why aren't EE;s given any extra preference?

mgb_phys

As soon as you hit industry you realise exactly how little those 4-5 courses covered.

And although you can derive the phasor diagram for a three phase supply your task is going to be "look up in the wiring standard which type of wire we use for a circuit of X current and order some" rather than, model the heat loss rate of the cable under these conditions and calculate the optimal diamter.

Ian_Brooks

:(

So with my EE degree - its basicly just a choice of what I want to learn. In the end - the Industry is just looking for any engineering degree and nothing we learned in College is relevant.

...

I think i'm even more shocked now with this realization

mgb_phys

But thats a GOOD thing - if you only needed what you learnt in your degree then;
1, You wouldn't need to learn anything in the next 40 years in your job - doesn't sound that interesting.
2, As new technologies/methods/regulations come out they would fire you and hire a new crop of graduates who had learnt that stuff in their degrees.

Your degree will be more useful than someone who has just done a short course - you learnt how to study, you learnt some useful numercial/statistical techniques but most importantly you learnt the background to understand WHY something behaves the way it does. So when you come accross something that no one has seen before you have the tools to deal with it.

Defennder

Your job description sounds just like that of an electrician, so, what's the difference between an electrician and an electrical engineer in the power industry?

mgb_phys

An electrical engineer engineer reads the wiring standard and tells the electrician which wire to install.