Electrical Engineering Essay, Research Paper

Electrical Engineering

Choosing the right career can mean the difference between being satisfied and being disappointed with my life. Many factors can influence the career that I may have for the rest of my life. A decision that I am going to make at the young age of nineteen will have a major impact on the next ten years if not the rest of my life. In order to make the best decision possible for my future I have decided, if not forced, to research a career of interest to me. The two major career choices I have been interested in for the past few years have been engineering and teaching. I have already done researched teaching so I decided to research engineering. There are many different types of engineering so I decided to pick the one most interesting to me. Electrical engineering is the career field I have selected to investigate.

Engineering is something my parents have urged me to consider. Since a young kid I have been interested in building things. I use to tell my parents I wanted to be an inventor and build a time machine. Legos were my favorite toy growing up, and I have always been exceptionally good in math. Since my freshmen year in high school I have been interested in becoming a teacher, but during my freshmen year in college I was becoming more and more aware of the amount of money lower level teachers made. Many people were recommending engineering as a possible career option so I decided to look into it. Since I have always found electricity to be cool I decided to learn more about electrical engineering as a future career field.

The Dictionary of Occupational Titles code for electrical engineering is 003.061-010, while the Guide for Occupational Exploration code is 05.01.01. There is another name for electrical engineers; electronics engineer. The best major to prepare me for this career would be a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. This usually only takes four years, and will get me an entry-level position in this field. There are no licenses or credentials needed for this field, but the engineering school or program attended must be accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. Some government agencies may require an exam to be taken before receiving an electrical engineering position, but most areas of employment have no such exams. There are opportunities for specialization in this field. I could work as a contract or be an electrician on my own. Accredited Board Engineering Technology, Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers, Inc, and the Instrument Society of America are three associations that represent people working in this field.

There are numerous responsibilities and duties performed by electrical engineers. Electrical engineers design, and evaluate the manufacture, testing, installation, operation, and maintenance of electrical and electronic components, equipment and systems. They also plan and supervise their development and construction. Engineers usually specialize in one particular area. Electrical engineers work with power and light systems equipment, and machinery, with electrical motors and generators. On the other hand Electronic engineers work with electronic equipment, and develop applications for these products for different business and industries. Some of the skills necessary for carrying out these duties are good oral comprehension, originality, deductive reasoning, mathematical reasoning, problem identification, operation analysis, judgment and decision-making, and idea generation/evaluation abilities. I do not have any solid experience in this field, but I have installed light bulbs and put up Christmas lights before. Entry pay ranges from $2,163 to $3,810 per month. After gaining some experience pay can increase to anywhere from $2,219 to $4,980 per month. The average top ranges are $3,570 to over $5, 199 per month. Average pay in 1997 was $5,406 per month. To achieve these top salaries a masters is usually required.

The work environment for engineering can differ greatly depending on the type of electrical engineering I decided to go into. Most engineers work on teams and usually work in offices. They must sell their ideas and persuade people to take their coarse of action as opposed to another. The fact the electrical engineers are in competition and must meet deadlines can make electrical engineering a high-stress occupation. Contract electrical engineers will find themselves outdoors at construction sights, but they too must work on teams. Any area of electrical engineering will require me to use critical thinking and problem evaluation and solving techniques. Many of the high paying fields of electrical engineering requires engineers to travel quite frequently to work on projects. Traveling may take away valuable family time, which could be an advantage or disadvantage depending on how you look at it.

There are also many other disadvantages and advantages to engineering. The pay for electrical engineers is pretty good for a person with a bachelor’s of science degree and high for a person with a master. Hours can sometimes be long and keep a person away from home is one of the disadvantages. The level of education required for a degree in electrical engineering tends to attract a bunch of boring people to electrical engineering as a field. An introvert may not like the fact that engineers usually work as a team. Projects may sometimes have to be taken home. There are many government jobs for engineers that have extremely good benefits, but pay tends to be slightly lower. Another important disadvantage or advantage could be depending on whether or not electrical engineering matches up with my Myers-Briggs and Strong Interest codes.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Strong Interest Inventory, and Value Card Sort are all suppose to provide me with valuable information, which would asset me in making a good career choice decision. Did they meet their objective? Lets start from the beginning. My 4 letter Myers Briggs code was ESTP. This means that I am supposed to be an “action-oriented, resourceful, and realistic individuals who prefer to take the most efficient route.” Reading over the portrait of an ESTP I found that it was not as truthful as I had hoped it would be. First, life is not always as exciting around me as the portrait makes it out to be. Next, I don’t see myself as being action oriented as it makes me out to be. I find that any inconsistency that there are between the portrait and myself is due to the fact that I am not clearly and E, S, and/or a T. My scores for these were all very low none reaching above a 7. It is almost clear that I am a Perceiver. I would have to agree with the P because I indeed do enjoy a flexible, spontaneous, way of life better than a planned, decided orderly way. Some of the suggested occupations for my four-letter code are Farmers, Mechanics, Military personnel, Managers, and Administrators. My two most favorite occupations also were among them, which were engineering and teaching.

Next, my strong interest code is SAC (Social/ Artistic/ Conventional). My personal style scales for work style got a score at 50, which places me, write in-between working alone and working with people. My personal style score for Learning Environment is 49, which means I lean a little bit towards practical learning, but I do not really prefer either one to the other. I have a 44 for Leadership style, which illustrates how I do not always like to take charge if I do not have to. I got a 66 for my Risk Taking Personal Style, which means I like to take risk, and appreciate original ideas. My top 5 occupations that the Strong interest Inventory recommended where Elementary School Teacher, Actuary, Musician, Special Education Teacher, and Computer Programmer. Teaching did appear twice in the top five, Engineering did not appear. However, Architect is the 7th occupation listed which is closely related to Engineering.

My top 5 values are Exercise Competence, Creative Expression, Intellectual Status, Artistic creativity, and Working with Others. Teaching incorporates all of these values. Engineering does not perhaps offer as much artistic creativity and creative expression because certain rules must be followed when doing projects. Teaching also has rules, but a teacher can use more creativity when making a lesson plan as long as the students learn what needs to be learnt, or the teacher teaches what needs to be taught.

The Strong almost did reinforce the Myers-Briggs. My work style, which is 50 on the Strong, is most similar to my E on the Myers-Briggs. I was only slightly and E according to the Myers-Briggs because I got a score of 3 for extroversion. My score of 49 with regards to learning environment shows that I prefer practical learning to learning in an educational environment. I did get an S on the Myers-Briggs, which would almost contradict the Strong, but the score was low on both illustrating that I don’t really prefer one way over the other. My T on the Myers-Briggs also supports my type of learning environment as not really mattering. According to the Strong I am not comfortable taking charge and I like to take risk. I think these were all evident in my score of P on the Myers-Briggs, which meant I like a flexible and spontaneous way of life better. My leadership style also could be what is holding me back form clearly being an Extrovert.

I am currently in the tentative exploration period of my life. I’ve been out of high school for a year and I am been currently narrowing down my ideas. I have learned a lot about the kind of work I am from working at Disneyland, and have begin to learn the kind of work I enjoy. I have been change my clothing “styles” almost monthly, and have began to listen to a bunch of different kinds of music. I have been experiment with new activities, and some new ideas. I have not really started reality testing yet, but I do know I enjoy training people and working with others. I believe I chose to enter this class because I was in the exploration phase, now I feel I am closer to then end, but not quite in the next stage yet.

A college with a good electrical engineering program is Cal Poly Pomona. If I do go into electrical engineering I will probably go to Cal Poly Pomona. If I do not choose electrical engineering I will still go there. As an undergraduate transfer student, my admission requirements will be that I will have a grade point average of 2.0 or better in all transferable units attempted, and must be in good standing at the last college or university attended and meet 1 of 4 standards. The first of four would be if I met their freshmen admission requirements. The next being if I was eligible as a freshmen at the time of high school graduation and have been in continuous attendance in an accredited college since high school graduation. Third would be if I was eligible as a freshmen at the time of high school graduation except for the subject requirements, have made up the missing subject requirements, and have been in continuous attendance in a accredited college since high school graduation. Last, if I have completed 56 transferable semester units (84 quarter units), and have completed 30 semester units, which include all of the general education requirements in communication in English language and at least three semester units required in mathematics. I also would have to finish a bunch of lower division major work for engineering before I could transfer not their school of engineering. I will meet these goals by doing all this general education and pre-major work at Rancho Santiago Community College and Riverside Community College.

If I become an electrical engineer by academic goals are to achieve a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering, go into an internship, get a job, go back to school and get my master degree. I plan on transferring in the fall of 2001 to Cal Poly Pomona. After I get my BS I plan on starting a family. I will achieve my goals by studying hard in school and taking the classes needed to become an electrical engineer. I will not start a family until I have a wife and I have a secure job. On place of employment I will consider is Disney. They use electrical engineers for a bunch of stuff, and I know they are a secure corporation.

I have learned a lot about career and research in this class. Values are an important item to consider when choosing your career. The more values a career will allow me to express the more satisfied I will be with that career. I have also learned a lot about time management. Time management will give me more free time whether is managing my time while in school, or when I have a job someday. Managing my time will allow me to be the best father I can to my children, and the best husband to my wife. Furthermore, I learned that I was an extrovert. At first I thought that “E” was a mistake, but the more I look at myself the more I realize that it is correct. For some reason the “E” on the Myers Briggs has given me a newfound confidence. This confidence will be valuable when I go for interviews, which leads me to my last major lesson learned. Through this class I have learned a lot about affective interviewing. This will be very useful in the long run as well as the short run. I have several interviews for new job at Disneyland, and I believe this class has given me an edge over other people. This will also give me an edge as an electrical engineer or whatever occupation I choose to enter.

I feel very satisfied with the information I obtained. At times I was bored in this class being the only male, and having to listen to a bunch of females whine over stuff I didn’t care about. With regards to electrical engineering I leaned that electrical engineering is boring, and does not seem like an occupation I would enjoy. The people I talked to about engineering were happy with their jobs but were also nerds. I think I should really consider teaching as a possible career choice. Therefore, I am not certain about the career choices I have made. I think I will try to major in math and become a math teacher; I can always change my major if I am not happy with how things are going. I have learned that my happiness will be increased with better career satisfaction versus monetary gain.