Engineering What are some common topics covered in electrical engineering courses?

[JustStudying]

So I am at the point in my electrical engineering degree where I get to choose electives, but because I feel like I'm not fully familiar with the classes I can choose from.. I've got a few questions:

1. what is radio systems about? Google tells me its about FM/AM radio broadcasts

2. do any electrical engineers work in building services? Would you be able to tell me more about what you do? And what areas of electrical engineering is required for this field?

3. What is power systems about? Is there a reason why a course on transmission lines is not included in power systems? (isn't power systems about power grids and transporting the power to households?)

thanks for your time!

 

[caldweab]

The university you attend doesn't put course descriptions up for the courses? It all depends on the faculty and department what material will be covered. Now as far as electives go, choose something that covers a topic you are interested in, I chose extra math courses and a extra course from the mechanical engineering department. Electrical engineers are employed in a lot of industries and a big one is the energy and power industry so perhaps a course that deals with that

 

[paul2211]

I think I can give you some inputs on #1 and #3 in terms of courses.

1. The course I took was Communciation Systems which is quite similar to your class. It is much more of a math class than an EE course.

The basics are of course the Fourier Transforms. Then, you deal with different modulation / demodulation methods for AM and FM signals in mathematical terms. We spent much less time comparatively to see what type of circuits can mod / demod. Then, you deal with the digital versions of AM and FM (ASK, PSK and FSK if you want to google)... Finally, we added noise and probability to see what happens when noise mixes with your signal as it's traveling between the modulator and demodulator.

I would say it's a very interesting course, but it is the most difficult EE course I've taken (yes, even tougher than electromagnetics).

3. The course power systems would be mainly about Load Flows and Fault Analysis. Load flows are basically different numerical methods to determine the voltage and power at each node, and fault analysis essentially shows what happens when "short circuit" conditions happen.

I do believe we have included transmission lines in my power system course. The T-Line course you are talking about may relate to electromagnetics as a T-Line is related to wavelength rather than something specific to power.

Hope this gave you some basic information regarding EE!