What Is

    To put it simply electrical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with all things electricity, magnetism, and optics based. Modern electrical engineering officially started out in the 19th century as a means for power and energy transfer across points and then was continued with lighting and from there evolved into what we see today.  Today electrical engineers are innovators not only in power and energy but a much more wide variety of things which will be shown below. It is because of this that electrical engineers have the opportunity to work in virtually any environment be it R&D to research/academia, to manufacturing.

    Like I mentioned before electrical engineers are responsible for dealing with all things electricity, however there are some more common tasks that electrical engineers do.  The most frequent one is probably designing circuits and implementing circuitry that has been designed for various tasks.  Circuits are one of the most fundamental parts of electrical engineering and it is what the whole discipline is built off of. Another main responsibility of electrical engineers is to design and implement ways for systems to use and transfer power.  Power systems are universally in place and they require frequent and reliable processes and systems to operate them and electrical engineers are responsible for designing and operating all of these processes.  Then on a smaller scale, not in terms of responsibility or importance but physical product, electrical engineers are much more involved in a variety of products in consumer electronics such as cell phones, personal computers, cell phones, then also radar and navigation systems.  However, once all of these are in place electrical engineers need to continue to support and direct manufacturing, testing, and installation of electric equipment.

    Electrical engineering and computer engineering are two very similar fields in fact in most schools, such as mine, they are housed in the same department and even the same building.  Moreover there is so much overlap between the two majors that it often requires 20 credits or less to get a double major between the two degrees.  However, there is a difference between the two disciplines. Computer engineering has a much more programming focus than electrical engineering in modern engineering, not to the degree of software engineers and computer science majors but they are more software focused.  Electrical engineers on the other hand are much more focused on hardware.  This being said if one is considering doing the double major I would highly recommend it.

• Power and Energy
  • Power and energy is one of the most traditional fields of electrical engineering. Electrical engineers that focus on power and energy deal with the design and transmission of power systems and the components in these systems. This includes design and production of transformers, generators, and power relay stations and networks.  They are also responsible for optimizing existing power systems. One such example of this is the power delivered to your house.
• Photonics
  • Photonics is one of the newer areas of electrical engineering. Electrical engineers that focus on photonics deal with all things light and optics based from lasers to digital image processing. A great example of this is the sensors on autonomous vehicles.
• Control Systems
  • Controls systems is a much newer area of electrical engineering and came about due to the increasing levels of automation needed to perform commonplace tasks.  Controls engineers deal with designing circuitry to make systems behave a certain way such as the different cycles on a washing machine. They use micro-controllers, programmable logic controllers and digital signal processors to make the systems behave they way that is intended.
• Signal Processing
  • Signal processing is one of the areas in electrical engineering that tends to have a greater presence in academia over traditional industry.  However, it is one of the areas that I see that has the greatest overlap with other disciplines such as the medical field and biomedical engineering. My cousin is actually using his electrical engineering degree in this application to study the neural impulses sent to different limbs in stroke patients.
• Electronics
  • Electronics engineers tend to focus more on electronic circuits and the elements that go into making these circuits. They focus on optimizing all elements required to make new electronics. Often times they are responsible for the consumer electronics people use on a daily basis.
• Telecommunications
  • Telecommunications engineers deal with the transmission of information.
• Electromagnetics
  • Electromagnetics is another area of electrical engineering that tends to be much more prevalent in academia. However it is a great supporter of the photonics area of electrical engineering. These engineers tend to focus on concepts such as electric flux and shielding electric components from random bursts of magnetic pulses.
• Biomedical Applications
  • This is a branch of electrical engineering where electrical engineering and biology meet to form something not like biomedical engineering. It is one of the newest fields and is very up and coming some would say. Where I see this area going is in the design of medical equipment and as an extension of signal processing due to neural impulses.
• Environmental Applications
  • This is an up and coming field of electrical engineering that can go a variety of ways. However, where I see this going is as an extension of power engineering focusing on renewable energy

    As you can see there are a variety of areas for continuing education in electrical engineering. most are continuing the different areas and concentrations that a student could study in undergrad with a much more detail and separation between topics. Personally I find control systems and embedded systems the most interesting graduate school areas.

• Applied Electromagnetics & RF Circuits
• Communications
• Computer Vision
• Control Systems
• Embedded Systems
• Integrated Circuits & VLSI
• MEMS & Microsystems
• Optics & Photonics
• Power/Energy
• Robotics
• Signal & Image Processing and Machine Learning
• Solid State & Nanotechnology

    With all the different areas of study as an electrical engineer there are just as many if not more areas that one could pursue as full time employment. These range from much more widely visible and traditional areas of engineering such as automotive to much more niche specialties in an area like consumer electronics. However some of the most popular career paths belong to areas like aerospace, automotive, marine, rail, power, consumer electronics, defense, transportation, and the field of telecommunication.

    It is well known that engineers tend to make a very good salary and will be able to live a good life. In fact that is what draws many people into engineering.  This being said electrical engineering tends to be one of the more highly compensated areas of engineering. Obviously salary is greatly dependent on the company, the area of electrical engineering you are in, and experience. That being said listed below are some common expectations in terms of salary one could have as an electrical engineer.

• Median Salary: $72920
• Low Salary: $55000
• .High Salary: $113000
• Average Salary: $83088
• Base/Starting Salary: $69000

   These companies are consistently rated as some of the best companies to work for as an electrical engineer. Each has a different area of focus and engineers would do various different things at each company.

• Boeing
  • aircraft, communications, radar, autopilot, controls
• Lockheed Martin
  • aircraft, radar, surveillance, communications
• IBM
  • electronic systems
• Google
  • consumer electronics, hardware engineering, embedded systems, controls
• Apple
  • consumer electronics, hardware engineering, embedded systems, controls
• General Electric
  • power engineering
• Shell Oil
  • power engineering
• BMW
  • hardware engineering, embedded systems, controls and image processing
• Siemens
  • All areas of Electrical engineering
• Texas Instruments
  • consumer electronics, hardware engineering, embedded systems, and controls
• Intel
  • consumer electronics, hardware engineering, embedded systems, and controls

    Personally for me because I am an electrical and computer engineering double major I would like to make the most out of both of them and learn and grown in my career.  There are really only three areas of electrical engineering that interest me for that reason controls engineering, hardware engineering, and embedded systems engineering.  I feel like these tree areas suit me the best and I would like to get to learn more about them through use and internships. It also helps that these have the most room for growth in scope, as more and more things are dependent on these areas, and are often compensated very well.

    The future of electrical engineering looks very strong as it is an expanding field that is predicted to increase by 9% from 2016 to 2026. On top of this it is one of the fields least likely to get automated should automation reach a point where it is automating many industries.  However what I am most excited about is the increases in electronics and technology advancements that will be brought about by electrical engineering. I may be slightly biased but I feel all new innovations such as autonomous vehicles, space exploration, and other monumental achievements like that will not be possible without a majority of the work being done by electrical engineers primarily in the areas of controls, embedded systems, and hardware engineering. The future of electrical engineering is strong and I look to see what electrical engineers will bring.

I got much of my information from outside sources and mixed this information with my own personal opinions. It is this fact that made it hard for me to source material throughout my post so all places I got information are listed and linked below.

• http://www.mtu.edu/ece/undergraduate/electrical/index.html
  
• http://www.mtu.edu/ece/undergraduate/advising/electrical/pdfs/focus-areas-page.pdf
  
• https://collegegrad.com/careers/electrical-and-electronics-engineers
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering
  
• https://www.livescience.com/47571-electrical-engineering.html
  
• https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/10-best-electrical-engineering-companies-to-work-for-588042/?singlepage=1
  
• https://engineeringmanagementinstitute.org/top-electrical-engineering-companies-work/
  
• https://www.sokanu.com/careers/electrical-engineer/
  
• https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/electrical-engineer-salary-SRCH_KO0,19.htm