A dynamic career

engaging

Our lives have been enriched in countless ways with the techologies that electrical engineers have developed. Their technologies are embedded in various aspects of our life, right from our cars and phones to being installed in patients to regulate biological mechanisms to being integrated into ID cards and passports.

Electrical engineers are at the forefront of transforming technologies into something that is better and faster.They are not just solely engaged in creating the everyday electronics that we use such as creating cell phones. 

Their work makes our lives more effective, safe and increases our productivity and standard of living. These include developing new pacemakers for ailing hearts, ultrasonic diagnostic devices for detection of tumors and NMR machines. They are involved in the design and manufacture of these devices, and often they take part in creating the scripts that control these devices and determine their capabilities.

In reality, it is entirely different. During their course of study they will be taught a variety of techniques that will involved in electrical engineering. By the end of their undergraduate degree, the students will be equipped with the understanding of working and application of electric systems and engineering. If students wish to pursue a postgraduate programme, they can enroll in a variety of MTech and MS courses in India and abroad that offer a variety of specialistions.

Electrical and electronic engineers have played a major role in the development of several technological advances such as fly-by-wire aircraft and robotic space exploration. Now, with the ever-increasing role of computers and electronics in every facet of our lives, electrical and electronic engineers have the opportunity to be involved in developing an extremely wide range of systems.

Career prospects

There are good opportunities for jobs in electrical engineering industry and higher education as well. There is a lot of multidisciplinary research for developing electric vehicles with great funding and scope all over the world. Electrical engineering graduates develop many valuable skillset that are transferrable to a range of careers.

As the electrical engineering curriculum is a blend of fundamentals of electricals, electronics  and computer software engineering, the students have an option to form their career in any of their disiplines. The graduates can find a job in various in many of the public and private sector companies.

Electricity boards, large scale industries, manufacturing plants, power corporations, hydroelectricity sector are continuously in need of Electrical Engineers for their projects. Electrical Engineers also find job prospects in design industries, production plants, natural gas plants, petroleum as well as in steel and chemical plants.

Many premier educational and research institutions regularly absorb electrical engineers as graduate engineer trainees and management trainees to work on research projects.

Electrical Engineers can also get job in major public sectors such as Indian Railways, Armed forces and also in Thermal and Nuclear power Corporation Limited.

Diverse options

Electrical and electronic engineers are highly employable in a wide range of areas beyond engineering. Aerospace and aeronautics communications, transportation, medicine, entertainment, robotics, geosciences and remote sensing are some of the fields that electrical engineers are likely to take up in the future. Related fields like electronics engineering, power engineering, telecommunications engineering also provide varied career opportunities as well.

Thus, electrical engineers will continue to provide technological leadership for developments in all fields, including  computer-aided engineering, telecommunications and automatic control. Electrical engineers are being challenged to supply technical expertise in many other fields such as energy management, transportation systems, health care delivery, and public policymaking.

The field of electrical engineering is more about being self-motivated than having discipline. It develops intellectual curiosity rather than competitive excellence. A career in electrical engineering is not only exciting and challenging but also rich and satisfying.

(the author is professor and head of department of electrical and electronics engineering, Shri Dharmasthala Manjuntheshwara College of Engineering, Dhavalagiri, Dharwad)