What Are the Best Introductory Textbooks for an Aspiring Electrical Engineer?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion focuses on recommendations for introductory textbooks suitable for aspiring electrical engineers. Participants share their experiences and suggest various texts that may help the original poster gauge their interest in the field of Electrical Engineering.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant recommends "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill, noting it is used in some introductory EE courses.
  • Another suggests "Malvino Electronics Principles," stating it was foundational for their career and remains useful for advanced designs.
  • A different participant mentions "Signals and Systems: Continuous and Discrete" by Ziemer, Tranter, and Fannin, highlighting its mathematical approach and relevance to differential equations.
  • Another recommendation is "Fundamentals of Electric Circuits" by Alexander and Sadiku for a solid introduction to circuits.
  • Some participants express concern that the suggested books may not fully engage someone with a strong background in physics and mathematics, suggesting they explore more advanced materials or projects.
  • One participant critiques the difficulty of Griffiths' "Introduction to Electrodynamics" for engineering students, suggesting it may not be necessary for their studies.
  • Another participant mentions "Field and Wave" by David K Cheng as a strong resource for transmission lines and phasors, although it is noted to be challenging.
  • The original poster acknowledges finding "Malvino" in a library and expresses satisfaction with the recommendation.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the value of "Malvino Electronics Principles" and "The Art of Electronics," but there is no consensus on which textbook is definitively the best for someone with a strong background in physics and mathematics. Some participants suggest that the recommended books may not be sufficiently challenging, indicating a divergence in opinion regarding the appropriateness of the texts for the original poster's level of knowledge.

Contextual Notes

Some participants note that the effectiveness of the textbooks may depend on the reader's prior knowledge and experience, particularly in programming or practical applications. There is also mention of the potential difficulty of certain texts for engineering students compared to physics students.

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Hi!

I'll enter college next year, and I plan to major in Electrical Engineering. I'm looking for introductory EE textbooks to test the waters a little bit and decide if this is really the field I want to go to.

I have a strong background in Physics and Math: I've studied Electricity and Magnetism up to Maxwell's Equations (currently, I'm reading Griffith's book to refresh my memory) and I've studied Calculus up to differential equations.

What textbooks would you recommend?
 
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Acut said:
Hi!

I'll enter college next year, and I plan to major in Electrical Engineering. I'm looking for introductory EE textbooks to test the waters a little bit and decide if this is really the field I want to go to.

I have a strong background in Physics and Math: I've studied Electricity and Magnetism up to Maxwell's Equations (currently, I'm reading Griffith's book to refresh my memory) and I've studied Calculus up to differential equations.

What textbooks would you recommend?

Sounds like you have a great background coming out of high school. Kudos on that.

I like "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521370957/?tag=pfamazon01-20

If you have a university library nearby, you could skim through it to see if you like it. It may be too basic for you, or it may be a good read. It is used in some intro EE courses (or at least it used to be).
 
This is not so introductory, but its core to EE and it sounds like you're ahead of your studies.

Signals and Systems: Continuous and Discrete by Ziemer, Tranter, and Fannin.

It is great if you like differential equations, and want a more mathematical view of circuits and systems in general. It gives detail on Fourier transforms too, which would be useful to you in any engineering/physics program.
 
Malvino is as introductory as it can be. That was my gold book that I studied to get into the electronics field. I didn't even have a background like him at the time. This is used in Heald College trade school at the time. I learn by studied at home, I did not even attended the class. It is that good. I still use a lot of the info from the book for advanced electronic designs.
 
For a good introduction to circuits, I like "Fundamentals of Electric Circuits" by Alexander and Sadiku.
 
If you have done physics up to maxwells already, I'm sure you're familiar with basic circuit theory and a lot of these books might not do the field justice to entice you. If you can download some free textbooks online, you can look at the harder stuff and that should get you excited to get into the subject. Also, do you have experience with programming or microcontrollers? Look at microcontroller projects online and that will give you an idea of the fun stuff you can do.
 
You really study Griffiths Introduction to ElectroDynamics? That is quite a difficult book for engineer. This is a physics major book and even physics student have a hack of a time studying it...that is if you really understand it. I studied it on the third go around. If you understand Griffiths, you are a genus for high school! I don't even think you have to worry about the engineering EM. If so, read the Malvino, that give you introduction into transistors, opamps, modulations, radio etc. You should be able to go through it in less than two months. That is cake walk compare to Griffiths.

One EM book you might want to read is "Field and Wave" by David K Cheng. It is very strong in Transmission lines, phasors that Griffiths don't have. This is not an easy book, but if you can do Griffiths, you should have no problem. All my EM knowledge are from these two books.

If you really finish ODE, you should study PDE, you never have enough math.
 
Thanks for the suggestions!

I found Malvino in a library in my city. It seems to be what I was looking for.

Couldn't find the others.
 
  • #10
Acut said:
Thanks for the suggestions!

I found Malvino in a library in my city. It seems to be what I was looking for.

Couldn't find the others.

Good. Don't think this book is too easy. This book carry me a long way in my engineering career. The transistor and op-amp explanations are second to none. It might look easy, but it really work in real world design.
 

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