What do most Electrical Engineers end up doing? Is this degree right for me?

[pozykepler]

My interests are quite interdisciplinary: Brain Computer Interface, Neural Networks, Physics and Neuroscience. I would like to work on BCI research in the future. Is this the right path for me?

 

[gleem]

I(We) know nothing about you or your background so how can we tell you what if anything is right for you?

 

[phinds]

What do most Electrical Engineers end up doing?​

There is no such things as "what most EEs end up doing".

 

[DaveE]

What do most Electrical Engineers end up doing?

Maybe lots of different things, the field is way too diverse to easily characterize.

The one constant is that you are working for someone that wants to make money based on your creations. You'll very likely end up doing what the people paying you want to get done. Hopefully, that's in alignment with what you like to do. Engineering is a practice where you design things that are "good enough", not perfect. I personally have never finished a design that I didn't know how to improve given more time and money.

 

[Vanadium 50]

what most EEs end up doing

Most end up doing well.

 

[gmax137]

Engineering is a practice where you design things that are "good enough", not perfect. I personally have never finished a design that I didn't know how to improve given more time and money.

So true. This brings two things to my mind:

An engineer can do with one dollar what any idiot can do with ten.

On the half-glass of water.
Optimist "it's half full."
Pessimist "it's half empty."
Engineer "the glass is too big."

On what EEs do: it varies from 345 kV transformers, to chip design, to radio antennas, to middle management, to ...

 

[berkeman]

Welcome to PF.

My interests are quite interdisciplinary: Brain Computer Interface, Neural Networks, Physics and Neuroscience. I would like to work on BCI research in the future. Is this the right path for me?

As you can tell from the responses, the more that you can tell us about yourself and your background in school so far, the more we can offer suggestions and advice.

I'll assume for now that you are in high school, and looking ahead to possible careers in your areas of interest. That is great.

Since your interests involve both EE and Biology, I'd encourage you to take as many related classes as possible right now. Be sure to take Physics and Biology classes in high school, and take as much math as you can.

It would be good to start getting some more experience with circuits, so I'd encourage you to build some electronics kits and spend time understanding why they work. This will give you a head-start on your EE education, since building real circuits early helps you to "ask the right questions" in your university learning. It also helps you build some projects that are useful to you in your daily life, which helps with motivation to keep learning more. I built a digital clock and lab bench power supply from scratch early in my undergrad, and a friend built a small 8-bit computer and an FM radio receiver from scratch (he was an overachiever).

Nowadays, you can also look into Arduino and similar projects based on microcontrollers (uCs), since embedded circuit programming will be something that you will be learning about and probably using in your future work projects.

Enjoy the ride.

https://www.google.com/search?q=ele...gIGEAAYFhgewgIEECEYCogGAQ&sclient=products-cc

https://www.google.com/search?clien...xKsJegQICRAB&ictx=0&biw=1098&bih=508&dpr=1.09

 

[phinds]

On the half-glass of water.
Optimist "it's half full."
Pessimist "it's half empty."
Engineer "the glass is too big."

My version, the Engineer: "Hell, lets go build a damn and get more water"