to electrical or not to electrical (1 Viewer)

[untouchablecuz]

yesterday i checked the co-op website and happened to find a UNSW co-op conditional offer for electrical engineering BUT i'm still not sure about it.

co-op itself seems pretty good, 75k for 18 months work (~50k p/a which is approximately a graduate engineers salary, right?) + a guaranteed job after uni + "social events" (to current co-op scholars, are these any good? do you actually make "lifelong friends"?) + mentoring and leadership crap confused:). so in general, co op does have its merits with little disadvantage (apart from being locked in to the degree/companies, and the fact that to get to UNSW i need to drive to the station, take a train, then a bus)

now, with electrical engineering. i superficially know what it is (i.e. wikipedia) but i'm not sure about the coursework itself. will i enjoy/suceed in the course (with a required credit average) seeing as i think i did pretty well in MX2 (and i love maths)? what does the actual course work involve? from what i've read, there's alot of programming and computer work, which i think i might like, but i haven't got any solid experience/knowledge in this field. can i survive? i've also read its the heavily maths oriented engineering degree, is it? (if yes, thats a huge positive seeing as i would like to combine engineering with a maths degree but can't due to co-op)

@ those doing electrical engineering, simply, why? why did you pick it? what interests you about it? why electrical over civil, or mining, or environmental etc etc?

i just don't want to take this scholarship and hate myself for doing so

thanks for any help guys

edit: one more question, generally how competitive are the electrical engineering co-op scholarships?

 

[Uncle]

yesterday i checked the co-op website and happened to find a UNSW co-op conditional offer for electrical engineering BUT i'm still not sure about it.

co-op itself seems pretty good, 75k for 18 months work (~50k p/a which is approximately a graduate engineers salary, right?) + a guaranteed job after uni + "social events" (to current co-op scholars, are these any good? do you actually make "lifelong friends"?) + mentoring and leadership crap confused:). so in general, co op does have its merits with little disadvantage (apart from being locked in to the degree/companies, and the fact that to get to UNSW i need to drive to the station, take a train, then a bus)

now, with electrical engineering. i superficially know what it is (i.e. wikipedia) but i'm not sure about the coursework itself. will i enjoy/suceed in the course (with a required credit average) seeing as i think i did pretty well in MX2 (and i love maths)? what does the actual course work involve? from what i've read, there's alot of programming and computer work, which i think i might like, but i haven't got any solid experience/knowledge in this field. can i survive? i've also read its the heavily maths oriented engineering degree, is it? (if yes, thats a huge positive seeing as i would like to combine engineering with a maths degree but can't due to co-op)

@ those doing electrical engineering, simply, why? why did you pick it? what interests you about it? why electrical over civil, or mining, or environmental etc etc?

i just don't want to take this scholarship and hate myself for doing so

thanks for any help guys

edit: one more question, generally how competitive are the electrical engineering co-op scholarships?

At UNSW they will make you do some maths courses offered by the School of Maths in your electrical engineering degrees.
plus complex numbers complex numbers complex numbers and more maths.
maths is electrical engineering.

the impedance of a TV, or whatever electrical appliance you can think of involves complex numbers, rarely do they have only a real component by itself.
you will be talking about solving simultanous equations, find polar form of impedance, that capacitor or inductor's steady state comes when the exponential approaches infinity, etc.
but take it if you dont mind having your mind distorted at the end of the day but when you get a distinction it will be nice.

 

[untouchablecuz]

At UNSW they will make you do some maths courses offered by the School of Maths in your electrical engineering degrees.
plus complex numbers complex numbers complex numbers and more maths.
maths is electrical engineering.

the impedance of a TV, or whatever electrical appliance you can think of involves complex numbers, rarely do they have only a real component by itself.
you will be talking about solving simultanous equations, find polar form of impedance, that capacitor or inductor's steady state comes when the exponential approaches infinity, etc.

sounds good

any idea how complex the computer programming part of the course becomes?

but take it if you dont mind having your mind distorted at the end of the day but when you get a distinction it will be nice

well i am a masochist

 

[cjtk]

if you are not interested in programming, just do the simple courses, not a problem.
Otherwise you can choose the hard ones and you can do some computing electives.

 

[PiGMAN]

Hi,

I hope it's not too late for this, but as a 5th year ee co-op who combined with maths, I can offer you some advice. Firstly, YES you can do ee co-op combined with anything, you just need to work *very* hard (ie. finish the 5 years of full time uni + 18 months of co-op work in 5 years). I strongly recommend this combination, it will set you up in ways you can't imagine. I know of many ee co-ops who move into very different fields: i-banking, management consulting, and even engineering.. If you combine with maths you will have far more options and you'll essentially be able to name your price, believe me. There is alot to be said for networking. It also helps to maintain a HD average.

You can also do eng/commerce under the co-op program in ee. This will take you 5.5 years. It might be worth looking into combined ee and finance (for example). In terms of the money: you need to remember it's tax free. I doubt too many grad engineers would earn 50k after tax (the reality is, most don't earn this before tax). Really though.. the experience you will get is worth much more than this: it has allowed me to figure out what I want to do *before* I graduate. It can take alot of people years to figure this out.

Cheers