Electrical Engineering Specialization

[dsb5092]

I need to choose which area to specialize in by the end of the month and I need some help.

Here's some background:

3rd year BSEE at Penn State

Did an REU with DSP at Utah State (specifically error correction coding) -- I really enjoyed it but academia is not for me.

Did a 9 month co-op at IBM -- really enjoyed it, had nothing to do with EE though

Accepted an offer to start at Microsoft this May for a 12 week internship I was the only EE the rest were Computer Science majors.

Here are the choices:

COMMUNICATIONS
COMPUTER HARDWARE
CONTROL SYSTEMS
ELECTROMAGNETICS
ELECTRONIC DESIGN
OPTICS
POWER SYSTEMS
REMOTE SENSING AND SPACE SYSTEMS
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
SIGNAL & IMAGE PROCESSING

I originally planned on pursuing Signal and Image processing because I knew I liked it, but I think I would like any of these areas.

I was thinking about just taking the easiest path to graduate and the nwork for a computer company, but I would like to learn one of these areas well.

Now for my question (finally):

Which of these areas would be for the "better jobs"? I know that's really vague, but any insight on what the future looks like for some of these choices would be very helpful.
Thanks

 

[story645]

Which of these areas would be for the "better jobs"? I know that's really vague, but any insight on what the future looks like for some of these choices would be very helpful.

You like signal processing, you're good at signal processing, you have experience at signal processing, and people have taken you on to do signal processing. Why are you even thinking about something else? It's a really good/stable/etc. field, with lots of random jobs in it, and your resume sounds really solid. Nobody has a magic eight ball to which fields will suddenly flounder or go really strong, but signal processing isn't that susceptible to market trends.

 

[dsb5092]

So I've been looking for some DSP jobs and all I can find is that there is many of them. The only company I found that are specifically looking for DSP besides Universities is NSA. I've spoken to recruiters from the NSA and it really isn't the kind of work I want to get into.

Any examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[story645]

So I've been looking for some DSP jobs and all I can find is that there is many of them. The only company I found that are specifically looking for DSP besides Universities is NSA.

http://jobs.ieee.org/careers/jobsearch/results?kAndEntire=digital+signal+processing;searchType=resuts;networkView=main shows Broadcom, Raytheon, Motorola (which translates to all the cell phone companies), and various small communications companies hiring for DSP. And they all probably have more jobs/other DSP type jobs too. This is going to take some flexibility on your part: think of all the industries that use DSP (audio, communications, remote sensing, etc.) then broaden out to the companies in those fields, and then go to their websites and look at the job postings.

Similar thread where someone made a map of DSP jobs

 

[dsb5092]

Hey thanks a lot