Electrical and computer engineers enable our modern way of life. They produce and distribute power along our electrical grids, develop our mobile devices and electric vehicles, and keep us all globally connected. Our small class sizes and dedicated faculty will provide you with the necessary skills to excel in modern technology-driven world.
Our programs include a bachelor science in electrical and computer engineering as well as a minor in electrical engineering. Electrical and computer engineering courses cover circuit simulation, digital logic, electronics, digital signals and power systems. The program offers hands-on instruction in engineering tools and circuits laboratories, as well as design projects preparing our graduates to be professional and proficient engineers.opens in a new window
More information about how to study electrical and computer engineering at the University of Southern Maine can be found in the academic catalog and on the admissions website. To find the program in the catalog, select the current Undergraduate Catalog and use the left navigation to go to Programs A-Z or Programs in the College of Science, Technology, and Health.
In this video, we’re talking about what electrical engineers.Doand we’re starting right now.1% Nation I’m Jake Voorhees.Welcome back to the channel and episode one Oh two of the 1% engineer show wherewe empower young engineers to rise to the top 1% of their career.So if you want to be the best engineer, you can be,make sure you subscribe electrical engineers, design developed, test research,
What is Electrical Engineering
and may supervise the manufacturing and or installation of electrical equipmentand components or systems for commercial, industrial military,or scientific use. Like most engineering fields,electrical engineering is hugely broad and you could work in multiple differentindustries or sectors.This includes from electrical power generation and distribution to cars andsmartphones,electrical engineers are an integral part of thousands of companies. Later.We’ll discuss the eight subgroups of types of electrical engineering that youmay work on. But for now, I want you to understand the big three,which is electricity,electronics and electricity and magnetism and electrical engineer is aprofessional who applies the physics and mathematics of electricity of thesethree electricity electronics and electromagnetism to design anddevelop new electronic equipment and systems to solve problems and to testequipment.That’s what we’re here as engineers guys to solve problems and develop solutionsfor those problems in the world.The emergence of the modern age is noted by the introduction of electricity,to homes, businesses,and industries of which all of this has technologically made possible byelectrical engineers. But this field hasn’t been around that long. Historically,we see the vacuum tube as the first aspect of electrical engineering.This was the beginning of it.All other early electrical engineers may work on things like the electronicTelegraph or the telephone or basic aspects of power generation in general.Today,modern electrical engineers work in very exciting fields and may work on thingslike robotics or drones or solar power, radar,or other navigation systems connected,personal tech like smartwatches and body implants.They may work on holographic displays, space, exploration, wireless power,solar, electricity, you name it,anything that uses technology today and has a physical counterpart,oftentimes as accompanied by the work of an electrical engineer,what is your dream job, your dream role,which may be possible to do as an electrical engineer comment below now,you know, the definition, and you’ve heard a little bit of history,but what are some of the tasks and the duties that you may perform as an
Electrical Engineer Duties
electrical engineer and E when you begin any engineering career,you begin with the fundamentals of that industry.And these also aligned specifically for the sector where you got your first jobin any of these sectors or any of these industries,an electrical engineer may find themselves doing any of the following in a role.They may prepare technical drawings,specifications of electrical systems or topographical maps to ensure theinstallation and operations conform to standards and customer requirements ease,maybe communicating with other engineers on their projects.And this could include communicating with customers or other individuals todiscuss existing or potential engineering projects or products ease,may design implement, maintain, or improve electrical instruments,equipment facilities, components, products,or systems for commercial industrial, or domestic purposes.They could conduct field surveys or study maps, graphs, diagrams,or other data to identify and correct power system problems.They may direct or coordinate manufacturing, construction, installation,maintenance, support, documentation, or testing, activities codes,or customer requirements.And finally electrical engineers may be compiling data and write reportsregarding existing or potential electrical engineering studies or projects.Now that you understand the task or the duties that may be a part of yourelectrical engineering role, let’s get into it. Eight.That’s going to do the eight sub within electrical engineering.This is not uncommon in engineering guys, civil engineering, which I am,has five core fields. And I think within mechanical engineering,when I did that video,there were as many as 12 different industries where you could work as amechanical engineer because engineers touch everything that is on thisplanet. We are a part of everything.And so the aspects of what you could work are just entirely broad.So let’s kick it right off with subgroup number one, which is power,
Power Engineering
power engineering deals with the general transmission and distribution ofelectricity, as well as the design of other related devices within power.These include transformers, electric generators, electric motors,high voltage engineering, and power electronics. In many regions of the world,governments maintain an electrical network called a power grid that connects avariety of generators together with users of their energy and lots of engineerswork within this power grid. I’m sure you guys have heard lots about it.
Control Engineering
So group number two,control control engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range ofdynamic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems tobehave in the desired manner to implement such controllers.Electrical engineers may use electronic circuits, digital signal processors,and programmable logic controllers or PLCs control engineering has awide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercialairliners to the cruise control present in many modern automobiles.It also plays an important role in industrial automation practices,subgroup number three, electronics,
Electronics
electronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuitsthat use the properties of components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors,diodes, and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tune circuit,for example,is what allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a signal station.And this is just one example of how circuits work sub group number four,
Micro Nano Electronics
micro and nano electronics,micro electronics engineering deals with the design and microfabrication of verysmall electronic circuit components for the use of an integrated circuit orsometimes for other use of their own general electronic components.The most common electronic component is a semiconductor transistor,although all main electronic components,such as resistors and capacitors can be created at a microscopic level.Nano electronics is the further scaling down of micro electronics.And this field, this gets down to the nanometer.Your level modern devices are already in the nano meter gene with below 100nanometre processing. Having been the standard since around 2002.The last time I checked for CPU’s, how small the transistors are.It’s down to single digit nanometer in size subgroup.
Signals
Number five is signals signal processing deals with the analysis andmanipulation of signals for analog signals processing may involve theamplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or themodulation or demodulation of signals for telecommunications.For digital signals,signal processing may involve the compression error detection and errorcorrection of digitally sampled signals. So number six,
Telecommunications
telecommunications telecommunications engineering focuses on the transmission ofinformation across a telecommunication channel.This could be through a co-ax cable optical fiber, or just free space.For example, radio waves and radar can go out into the open air.We send signals out into outer space.It’s totally open air transmissions across pre space require information to beencoded in a carrier signal to shift the information to a carrier frequencysuitable for transmission.This is known as modulation engineers are responsible for this technologypopular and along modulation technique include amplitude modulation andfrequency modulation guys. This is where am and FM radio come from.And as you can see,frequency modulation is much more powerful than amplitude modulation because FMradio waves are stronger and can travel further than am.The choice of modulation affects the cost and performance of a system.And these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engine subgroup,
Instrumentation
number seven,instrumentation instrumentation engineering deals with the design of devices tomeasure physical quantities, such as pressure flow and temperature.The design of such instruments requires a good understanding of physics thatoften extends beyond electromagnetic theory. For example,flight instruments of measure variables such as wind speed and altitude toenable pilots,the control of aircraft analytically pilots barely even fly their own planesanymore. Guys,other applications could be measuring the temperature between two points,the friction between two points,anything that requires instrumentation is something that an electrical engineerhas established. So number eight is computers.Computer engineering is its own field entirely. However,computer intellectual engineering are so similar that I’ve had multiple friendsfrom multiple universities,double major in electrical and computer engineering with only taking oneadditional class or two additional classes,not even a full extra semester because the crossover is so thorough.So we’ll talk about this.When we get into the professional engineering exam for electrical engineerslater in this video,but the two fields are so similar and that’s why computer engineeringactually is a sub field within engineering and vice versa.Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems.This may involve the design of new hardware,the design of PDA and supercomputers for the use of computers to control anindustrial plant. Computer engineers may also work on a system software.However, the design of complex software system is awful.The domain of software engineering programmers, computer science,which is usually considered a separate discipline desktop computers represent atiny fraction of the devices.A computer engineer may work with with as computer like architectures,which may be found in a wide range of devices today. Okay.
Work Environment
Now that you understand the subgroups within electrical engineering and what youmight be working on, what you might be doing in the job,let’s actually talk about the work environment.What is it like to be an electrical engineer,electrical engineers work in a lot of different areas, labs, offices, mines,power plants,there needed to design plan and supervise multiple projects.Onsite work is equally as important,but it won’t be your only work environment in this sector.Areas such as defense need adaptable workers who can work in variousenvironments. If you’re new and young in this industry, it’s an advantage.We need creative thinkers who can look at a problem within these differentenvironments and come up with creative solutions.A lot of electrical engineer have an opportunity to travel. And again,this may be between your office and different project plants or researchlocations or mines or visiting client partnerships, whatever it may be.But I traveled as a civil engineer, mechanical engineers,travel electrical engineers do too.Oftentimes you’re going to be in an office early on.You’re going to be working inside of a software ecosystem.You may be using some sort of design software like CAD.You may be working inside of a coding environment as well.A lot out of electrical engineers need to know a decent bit of coding.And depending on the role that you have,depending on the sector or the type of company that you work for,there’s going to be a balance of, of software ecosystem of coding,environments of testing,and actually going out on site or getting in the lab and actually looking atwhat you do in the design software or what you did in your coding environment.You may be doing one of these three types of workflows or be working with a teamthat’s working with many of these in my experience.Most early engineers work within software ecosystems pretty heavily.If you’re someone who wants to be on site or out on the field all the time,there are electrical engineering roles where you could achieve that.So now that you understand some of the basics of what engineers do day by day,then the work environments they may be in,let’s talk about the channels for your career.And this also heavily links into the professional engineering exam.
Professional Engineering
Any engineer early on needs to decide if they’re going to be a technical expertwithin their field, or if they want to be a company,project manager and go for leaders, both are great choices.It’s more like choosing the one that’s right for you.If you’re better at communication, if you like working in teams,if you don’t mind picking up the phone and calling a client and things likethis, then being a project manager may be a better fit for you.And so a few years into your career,you may end up having one person that you were helping to coordinate an internmight be under you, and then eventually three to five years.And you may become an early project manager where you may have a few juniorengineers with you. Now,technical are going to be the ones who really become true elite users of theirsoftware environments. They become even better with their coding.They may even be doing things outside of their work environment that makes thembetter at this. A lot of technical experts get their master’s degree,where they traveled to technical conferences,where they’re constantly learning about how to be the best practitioner withintheir industry lane that they possibly can.And this is why I want to talk about the professional engineering exam quite abit,because a lot of electrical engineers do not actually get their PE they don’tdesign things in the sense that a civil engineer or a mechanical engineer isconstantly creating a plan to design an actual part or plans todesign an actual bridge.Electrical engineers are not always working on the creation of a new physicalproduct. So after doing a research study,I found that few actually get their PE. Now,if you want to be on course for management and in your career,you’d rather be a more of a communicator and be a team lead.Then getting that PE is very important because you have to stamp your plan,your name, your credibility has to be on the documents that you give a,a project. If there is design involved,it’s going to help you when you’re going for promotions.So if you’re somebody who is an engineer who may be thinking about your MBAinstead of a technical master’s, then getting your PE is pretty important.There’s only three types of PE exams for electrical engineers.And one is actually the computer engineering exam. So really only two,the first one is called electrical and computer focusing on computerengineering. The second one is electronics controls and communications.And the third one is electrical and computer specifically focusing on power.So the body that provides the professional engineering exam believes thatthere’s more jobs and more need for a specific PE exam for power thananything else. I think that’s interesting.I think you guys should note that as well,
Professional Engineering Design
now that you understand the work environment and the lanes of career progressionthat you could have,and the values pros and cons of getting your PE or having someone on yourteam,having their PE let’s talk about what professional engineering design might looklike for electrical engineering.How many engineers will be involved with the design of these products andapplications,but electrical engineers are specifically working on a section of that productthat is for them,the computer tablet or smartphone you purchase recently is a masterpiece ofelectrical engineering design.The way the circuit boards all connect and communicate to each other is aperfect example of what ease can do. Robots are comprised of sensors, actuators,micro compressors,and sophisticated feedback control systems designed by electrical engineers,space projects, deep space communication, robust control systems,extra terrestrial GPS for navigation and positioning power generation andstorage networks, imaging systems,and finally a sophisticated medical technology that you encounter in a modernhospital, including CT MRI and pet imaging machines,ECG, and blood pressure monitors are all based off of the work of electricalengineers.So I felt it was necessary to list off a couple of the applications that couldsee happen.If you end up working for a company that designs products for the electricalengineering industry, I hope that video helped you guys.
Outro
What do electrical engineers do?If you’re an engineer who wants the rise of the top 1% of your career,I make videos for your engineering success.So make sure you subscribe comment below if I miss anything,or if you have another question around electrical engineering,I can make a video about that. If you want the 1% engineer kit,which is five eBooks for your success and access to the Facebook group,which is now 1600 engineers, follow the links in the description,make sure you like this video guys. It really helps us.I’m getting back to YouTube now. Thanks again, guys.Just stay hungry on your quest to become a 1% engineer. Cheers.
Intro
In this video, we’re talking about what do computer engineers do?And we’re starting.Right now.Hey, 1% nation I’m Jake [inaudible]. And welcome back to the 1% engineer show where we empoweryoung engineers to rise to the top 1% of their career. So if this is you make sure you hit the notification bell and subscribe. There’s plenty of great links in the description below, including a discord server ofours with 1000 engineers, a 1% engineer kitaccess to our Instagram page, and we’re doing remote internships for 2021. If you want to be on the waiting list, you can find the link and apply. What type of engineer do you want to be? Whatvideosshould we be making in 2021 comment below computer engineers work in the intersection of electrical and electronics engineering with computer science, computer engineers are usually educated in electrical and electronics engineering, software design, and especially software hardware integration. Instead of, for example, only software like a computer science major or only electronics and electrical engineering.
What Do Computer Engineers Do
Like the I triple E field hardware and software aspects of the career includedesigning microcontrollers, microprocessors, personal computers,supercomputers, and circuit design,computer engineers focused not only on how the computer systems work themselves,but the integration of their work into the bigger technological landscape in theworld. Now let’s talk about computer engineering tasks.Computer engineers may work on various tasks and this can include writingsoftware and firmware for embedded microcontrollers designing,very large scale integration chips, designing analog sensors,mixed signals, circuit boards, and designing operating systems.Computer engineers are also suited for robotics research.Most of you are interested in this. Get so many questions about robotics,which relies heavily on using digital systems to control and monitor electricalsystems like motors, communications, and sensors.All engineering disciplines are quite broad and you have sub fields andsub-disciplines within the major computer engineering may be more vast thanothers.And so it’s not uncommon to go incredibly in-depth within computer engineeringwith whatever niche that you choose.We’ll talk about the sub fields later in this video.But first I think it’s very important to talk about the history of eachengineering type.We do this in every video and computer engineering’s history is veryinteresting.Understanding the history also helps you understand that really computerengineering is a deep aspect within electrical engineering.I really do believe that in fact,many programs offer electrical and computer engineering together.I’ve had multiple friends at different universities,be able to take only a few extra classes and be able to walk away with a doublemajor in electrical and computer engineering.I’m not suggesting that that’s important, or you should do that,but I’m making an example of how close the fields are.When you look at the history here, it also is revealing of this.
The First Computer
The first computer was developed in 1939 by a physics and math professor at Iowastate college. Now I will state university named John Vincent,a tennis off and his former graduate Clifford Berry,both men were electrical engineering undergraduates and had master’s degrees inmath and physics, respectively, and professor a tennis off,got his PhD in theoretical physics. They call the computer, the ABC,the tennis soft Berry computer,which is very cool that the professor would include his former student in thenaming of that computer and give him credit and authority for the rest of hiscareer. It took five years to complete this computer. And nearly 60 years later,a replica of the ABC was constructed and it took an entire team of engineersfour years and $350,000 to complete this.If you reverse calculate for inflation,that means it would have been $6.4 million of expenses to build this computer in1939.It’s unbelievable that these two were able to do this fast forward into thecomputer engineering industry and transistors were best in 1947 integratedcircuits in 1959.And the larger breakthroughs didn’t emerge until the 1970s when semiconductortechnology was on the rise.And also the single chip microprocessor was developed by Intel in 1971. Okay.
Branches of Computer Engineering
Okay. With that brief history,I want to point out that there’s two distinct roles branches within computerengineering.You have computer hardware engineering and computer software engineering,71,000 computer hardware engineers in America,which shows that it’s a really decent size field. And as you know,our world is moving forward much faster in the software environments than in thehardware environments. And if you go ahead and take a look,software development industry,there’s 1.4 million people in America working within that industry,not all of them are engineers.Not all of them are four year computer scientists or data scientists or softwareengineers,but there are so many more opportunities and positions on the software side thanin the hardware side for computer engineering.This shows you that even if you are in love with the hardware side and you wantto work with circuitry design and microprocessors,you absolutely need to be interested in and want to have a career that’sembedded within software development, or you will get left behind.So make sure you understand that if you’re far more into hardware,mechanical engineering could be the way for you or mechatronics engineering thatuses more of an integration between mechanical and electrical.We have videos and what do mechanical,what do electrical and what do you make a tronics engineers do?Make sure you check those out as well. All right,let’s move on into the various sub fields within computer engineering.So you can understand which niche you should go down and become an expert in oneof these subdisciplines. The first is processor design.
Processor Design
First is our design involves choosing an instruction set and a certain executionparadigm and results in a micro architecture CPU design is divided intodesign of the following components, data paths, control units,memory components, such as register files, caches clock circuitry,such as clock drivers, and so on coding cryptology and information protection.And these engineers develop new methods.It’s for protecting various information such as digital images, music,fragmentation, copyright infringement, and other copyright orange mint,and other forms of tampering, communications and wireless networks.Are these engineers work on advancements in telecommunication systems andnetworks, especially wireless networks,modular and Eric control coding and information theory,high-speed network interface, suppression, and modulation design,and analysis of fault tolerance systems and storage and transmission schemes arealso a part of this speciality compilers and operating systems engineers in thisfield develop new operating system architecture,program analysis techniques and new techniques to assure quality computationalscience and engineering computational methods are applied to formulate and solvecomplex mathematical problems in engineering in the physical and socialsciences. Examples include aircraft design,the plasma processing of anatomy or features on semiconductor wafers,circuit design, radar detection systems, and more computer networks,mobile computing and distributed systems engineers built integrated garments forcomputing communications and information access.Examples include shared channel wireless networks,adaptive resource management and various systems and improving the quality ofservice in mobile and ATM environments, computer systems,which includes architecture, computer processing, and dependability.This includes research projects that allow for reliable, secure,and high performance computer systems,projects such as designing processors for multithreaded and parallel processingare included in this field.Other examples of work in this field include the development of new theories,algorithms and other tools that add performance to computer systems,computer vision, and robotics. In this speciality computer engineers,
Computer Vision Robotics
focus on developing visual sensing technology to sense an environment,representation of an environment and a manipulation of that environment.The gathered three-dimensional information is then implemented to perform avariety of tasks. These include improve human modeling, image, communication,and human computer interfaces,as well as devices such as special purpose cameras with versatile visionsensors, embedded systems, individuals working in this area,design technology for enhancing the speed,reliability and performance of systems embedded systems are found in manydevices, such as small FM radios to space shuttles,ongoing developments and embedded systems include automated vehicles andequipment to conduct research and rescue automated transportation systems andhuman robot coordination to repair equipment in space, integrated circuits,very large system integration, design testing,and computer-aided drafting engineers working in this area,working on and enhancing the speed,reliability and energy efficiency of next generation.Very large scale integrated systems, systems, circuits, and Microsystems.And example of this speciality is worked on, on reducing the power consumption,a very large system integration algorithms and architecture signal image,and speech processing. These engineers. Yeah,develop improvements in human computer interaction,including speech recognition and synthesis,medical and scientific imaging or communication systems.Other work in this area includes computer vision such as human facialrecognition systems, the last field,and maybe even the one with the most exciting future is quantum computing.Quantum computing involves people working with quantum phenomenon,such as superposition and entanglement to perform computation.Quantum engineers work on quantum computers,which are believed to be able to solve computational problems such as integerfactorization,which includes RSA encryption substantially faster than classiccomputers.The study of quantum computing is a sub field of quantum information science.Oh right now that you understand those 12 sub fields within computerengineering,let’s talk really quickly about the work environment for computer engineers,computer engineers, like most engineering roles.It’s considered a white collar job where you may work in a typical welded officewith comfortable surroundings or in a computer laboratory.If you’re on the hardware side,you may be on more of the testing and implementation of systems. But again,most engineers who get a four-year degree and go into an industry,go into a corporate engineering, will work in an office.And it’s a pretty typical environment. Finally,let’s talk about the professional engineer.
Professional Engineer
Only 34 engineers sat for the computer engineering professional engineeringexam last fall in 2019.And they’re moving the computer engineering exam to now just once a year,because essentially no one takes it.I was doing a review of the website that shows how many people sit for the examevery six months. And unless you’re a civil engineer,unless you’re working in power and unless you’re working in HVAC for mechanicalengineering,basically there’s only a few people in every single engineering discipline whoget the PE.And that’s probably because they just want the letters behind their names sothey can move up in management and be a leader.And it’s more of a credential than giving them some sort of design authority orcareer options.So you can take the FP as a computer engineer and your undergraduate,which is the eight hour fundamentals of engineering exam,but you don’t really have to comment below if you want to be a computerengineer.If you’re having trouble between computer electrical and computer science.I see this dilemma quite a bit online. Thanks for watching the video guys.If you’re a young engineer and you want to rise to the top 1% of your career,make sure you hit the notification bell and subscribe.We have over 130 episodes on this channel for your engineering success.So make sure you see more of those,all the links below for access to the remote internship,our discord server with 1000 engineers, the Instagram page,which we’re trying to get to 500 before the end of the year.Thanks again for watching the 1% engineer show guys.And we’ll see you again in another video. Bye-bye.