How Versatile are Electrical Engineers?

[Starfyre]

Hi.

I just wanted to know how well-rounded electrical engineers are, specifically those in power and/or controls, compared to other engineers. I am in electrical primarily bc I would rather solve electrical problems than mechanical ones, but I am still interested in thermodynamics and mechanics (although not to the detail in rigid body mechanics that a ME would cover).

Am I doomed to just doing circuits/signal processing?

Thanks.

PS I am interested in the applied math of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics (along with electromagnetism of course).

 

[johnbbahm]

I can't think of a single EE I have ever met, that I would think of as not smart.
The mind set necessary to create elegant solutions to complex problems, is the same.
Very few EE I know are doing circuits.

 

[Floid]

Depends. I know some EEs who are very specific in areas like power and aren't very good in other areas, some who can do anything circuit or hardware wise but can't program, some who can program but can't do circuits and some who can do it all.

I think overall EE covers more ground than any other engineering discipline considering the broad range of topics and then all the areas one can really focus on. My job involves a lot of circuit card design (more digital than analog based), firmware programming, some regular programming with most of the end items either being control, simple signal processing, or general computing.

I know a little bit about areas like power, antennas, EM, etc but definitely don't have a deep knowledge of them.

 

[carlgrace]

Generally you get a lot of choice in your undergraduate program to either focus on one area or take a lot of classes in different areas. So really, it is up to you to make your own decision on the tradeoff between being versatile and specialized.