Electrical Engineering 1

Electrical Engineer Research Paper

Chase Henderson
Harrison STEM Program
Advanced Scientific Research
Curran
April 25, 2022
Electrical Engineering 2

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Career Choice.................................................................................................................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Job Description............................................................................................................................3
A Day In The Life........................................................................................................................5
Pros and Cons...............................................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: From Here to There........................................................................................................6
Profession Profile.........................................................................................................................6
Education.....................................................................................................................................7
Budgeting.....................................................................................................................................8
Chapter 3: Personal Assessment......................................................................................................8
My Skills......................................................................................................................................8
My Personality.............................................................................................................................9
My Motivation...........................................................................................................................10
Chapter 4: Productivity..................................................................................................................12
My Project..................................................................................................................................12
Career Connection......................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13
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Chapter 1: Career Choice

Introduction
My reason for choosing to become an electrical engineer was that I have liked dealing

with electronics even from a young age. I have always been very fascinated by building things

and making whatever you wanted to make with electronics. One of my biggest influences on my

wanting to become an electrical engineer was a YouTuber called Mark Robber. Mark was a

NASA engineer who decided to start a YouTube channel where he made all types of videos

about different engineering projects that he made. He also tested the physics of different things

such as carnival games to see if they were unfair. Mark was a big influence because I saw how

much he enjoyed building these things and the process of engineering the different projects,

which interested me in engineering. I enjoy working with computers and almost everything in

today’s world revolves around some sort of technology. Having a career as an electrical engineer

means one has the freedom and ability to create almost anything that one desires if one has the

necessary supplies and tools. I have always been the type of person to help everyone no matter

what, and I would always try to satisfy as many people as possible. I believe in helping those in

need, and part of my career would be trying to engineer things that would help those in need or

helping people by making something more convenient. Another big reason why I want to go

down this career path is that I think I will be happy. I will not be doing the same thing

repeatedly, which is what I don’t like about most other jobs out there. Instead, I will be working

on progress or a new project or product every day so it will be refreshing and fun.

Job Description
The career I have chosen is electrical engineering. As an electrical engineer, I will be

designing, creating, and testing electrical equipment. I will be helping design electrical

equipment that ranges from the electronics of a phone, the electronics of a GPS, the electronics
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in cars, and even the design and manufacturing of computers and computer parts. I will also be

supervising the manufacturing of electronics in factories.

As an electrical engineer, I expect to earn a salary of around $100,000 a year (U.S.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021). Additionally, this career also has an expected growth rate of

7% from 2020 to 2030 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021), which is about as fast as the

average for all occupations. This pay should be more than enough to live healthily while having

money left to spend on wants.

Some of the helpful characteristic traits that an electrical engineer should have are critical

thinking, the ability to think about something logically about what would happen if this were that

way, and what would happen if it were a different way? As well as having the ability to figure

things out based off the context and what is around it. Another big characteristic of an electrical

engineer is technological knowledge and active learning, I will need to have a lot of technical

knowledge to be able to put designs to use with different coding and different types of

equipment. I will also need to be able to actively learn while I'm on the job and be able to adapt

to changes. I will be working with new and advancing technologies so I will have to be able to

learn about these technologies and be able to work with them as well as know how to use them

efficiently.

Other interesting information about this career is that if you can learn both the software

and hardware skills of electrical engineering you will be able to work on almost any project you

want to or create any device imaginable. An electrical engineer that knows how to code his own

technology and build the hardware for that technology is limited only by the resources they have

at their disposal.
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A Day in The Life

A day in the life of an electrical engineer could be very different from day to day. Most

of the days in the life of an electrical engineer will be spent designing products or manufacturing

them. They will also be spent creating the different designs as well as coding the different pieces

of equipment to fit the needs of the product. All of this would take place in either an office,

factory, or laboratory, depending on the job that needs to be done. If I need to be coding or

designing, I would be working in an office setting with a computer. If I am manufacturing

electrical equipment I will be working in a factory or factory setting. If I am working on the first

design creation or new developments or testing, I will be working in a laboratory setting.

Depending on the location of the different settings I will be working in will determine if I will

need to travel at all during my job or if I will be staying at home. I will be expected to work

efficiently and produce results more than anything about the amount of time I work. I will also

need to be able to work in teams or individually depending on the project I am working on at the

time. If it is a big design project, I will most likely be selected from a team of other specialists

that will help professionally develop different parts of the project and pitch in their part to get the

work finished and produce the best results. I will be held responsible for the safety of the

different products and the quality of the products manufactured. I will also be responsible for any

workers under me and their ability to produce results. I will also be held responsible for the

ability to work with my peers and will have to be organized, on time, and have my schedule

figured out so there are no skipping or missing events with my work.

Pros and Cons

There are a lot of pros and cons that come along with the career of an electrical engineer.

One of the pros of being an electrical engineer is that it means you get to help people. As an

electrical engineer, you get to design and construct things that will help people in need or just
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help people with something simple in their life to make it more convenient. However, this also

leads to the first con of being an electrical engineer, there will always be people either

unsatisfied with the product, or the product doesn’t fit their exact needs or help them specifically.

So, they will not enjoy the product and will complain about it. Another big pro of being an

electrical engineer is that it is a fun job. As an engineer you are not going to work on the same

thing every day, you will go from designing to creating, then to manufacturing the product. You

will also change from project to project, making different designs and constructing different

pieces of equipment. However, this also leads to another con, since you are working on different

things from day to day, you will not get extremely good at a specific thing your job is mainly

surrounded by. However, you will be well rounded on every part of your job that you have to

perform. The last pro of being an electrical engineer is that you get to see new technology before

it is produced and sold to the public, you will know about a lot of projects, and you will have an

overall better understanding of how different technologies work.

Chapter 2: From Here to There

Profession Profile
Someone fitting the qualifications to be an electrical engineer would need to be very

committed to their job. In order to be an engineer of any kind, one needs to be extremely

organized. You need to be able to organize your week and set deadlines for when you want to

finish your work. An electrical engineer would also need to know where all their tools are and

where they keep their files for certain codes and designs. Engineers also need to be very

committed to working and staying on task to meet certain deadlines that were set for them. This

career is usually associated with a lot of working by yourself so you would need to be able to

work independently from other people and be able to get your work done. This career also

requires you to be able to work with people if necessary as well as for manufacturing.
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As an electrical engineer, one needs to be able to learn on the go, as well as be a visual

and hands-on learner as there will be a lot of electrical advances in the future. This will cause

you to need to be able to adjust to keep your designs at the top of the market. Engineering

requires a lot of ambition and risk to keep moving forward and to make something that no one

else has made. However, you also risk that it will not do well and will fall through whenever you

decide to take this risk and bring something new to the market.

Education
The basic starting requirement to become an engineer is a bachelor's degree in

engineering or computer sciences. One needs to have done certain things during schooling like

an engineering lab, mathematics and basic sciences, general chemistry 1 with lab, general

physics 1 and 2 with labs, calculus 1, 2, and 3. These are all of the different prerequisites that

you must complete during schooling. After this, you only need to graduate college with a

bachelor's degree before you can begin looking for work in your new career.

After applying to be an electrical engineer it is most recommended that you work for

professional experience for a couple of years, then it is recommended to go back to school and

apply for a master's degree in engineering. This will qualify one for better jobs and higher pay.

This is going to be the path that I will take, however I will try to find a job that will give me the

qualifications and earn myself the trust that they will send me back to school to pay for the rest

of my schooling to obtain a master's degree.

The majors that are recommended most for this career are engineering physics,

engineering mechanics, communications engineering, laser and optical engineering, aerospace

engineering, and materials engineering. If I decide I don’t want to be an electrical engineer my

three top choices would be optical and laser engineering as well as aerospace engineering.
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Budgeting
The cost of going through college to get a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering has

an estimated total tuition cost of $29,000 to $83,000 (McKay, 2019). The average salary of an

electrical engineer ranges from $40,000 to $210,000 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021)

annually depending on the qualifications and the type of job. Taking this into account, I would be

able to pay off tuition quickly if I were to get a higher-end job out of college. However, with

only a bachelor's degree, I would fall around the lower end of the salary scale and the middle of

the tuition scale meaning it would take me a while to pay off my tuition.

Also considering the cost of living in Georgia is around $420 per month not including

rent to live in Georgia. Assuming rent for a single person would be somewhere around $1,000

per month to $2,000 per month, I would only be able to make small payments on my tuition and

it would grow interest over that prolonged period.

However, if I were to get a job that would pay me to go back to school, I would be able to

increase my pay drastically and I would be able to manage a lot more working hour. With this I

would be able to pay off tuition very quickly with high monthly payments to take away interest

fees as well as afford a much higher rent or save up to buy a house and new car.

Chapter 3: Personal Assessment

My Skills
There are many skills that go into any field of engineering, and even more skills for each

of the different types of engineering. I have acquired a few of these skills so far, however I will

need to attain a lot more along my career path. I have general knowledge about how technology

works and about creating and designing small things such as a website. I have a good knowledge

of the creation of electronics such as building a computer as I have done this before. However, I
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do not know how to code or design any of the in-depth processes of creating the parts for

electronics or a computer.

Some of the major strengths that will help me attain these skills and goals is that I am a

very quick learner. I have always been a very quick learner and I learn the best with my hands on

and trying things out for myself.

Another strong strength I have is that I am particularly good at adapting and making

changes to things, as necessary. When something does not go correctly the first time, I am

generally able to tell what is wrong and make a quick adjustment to it whether it is a schedule

change or a build I am making. During my future career, as an electrical engineer, these times

happen a lot which is why it is such a strength to be able to make these adjustments.

However, this does also tie into a weakness that applies to me very strongly. Due to the

fact that I am not a highly organized person, someone who needs to make changes a lot will need

to stay highly organized to be able to keep track of everything going on around them and I will

not be able to keep track of things if I stay as unorganized as I am. During my college life I will

need to start planning everything out and get organized, so I do not end up crumbling either

during college or during my career.

My Personality
My personality highly matches the goals of an electrical engineer. Three of the major

personality traits I have is being realistic, meaning I like to set goals, I like to have athletics in

my life, I like to work on machines or with my hands. This matches my future very well, as an

engineer I will be working with machinery a lot and I will be working with my hands a lot. As an

engineer I will have to stay physically fit and will need to set realistic goals for myself in terms

of athletics and my career.

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Another one of the characteristics it describes me as is artistic. This means that I like to

explore off of my creativity and imagination, it also means that I like to think of things

unconventionally and like to work on crafts. This helps me with my career because I will need to

be creative to come up with new ideas to create and I will need to be good at creating and

crafting.

The third of the characteristics it describes me as is social. This means that I like to work

with people, and I inspire, inform, and help others. It also means that I am patient, insightful,

cooperative, responsible, and have the ability to teach others. This will massively help me with

my career for each one of the descriptions. Being patient will help me as I will make lots of

mistakes and will need to fix them along the way without getting frustrated with it and stopping.

It will also help me with as I will need to work with other people and will be able to

communicate with them, to make schedules and times work. Lastly, being responsible is one of

the most important character traits that it describes me as because I am going to need to be

organized and stay responsible about times, places, and plans. I must not go over or miss things

that could make me fall behind.

My Motivation
Research on my career has assured me that this will be a good career to go into; it highly

relates to my flexibility and my creativity, as well as giving me the opportunity to help people. I

have already been accepted into the Kennesaw State University and participate in their excellent

engineering courses that will supply me with the facilities to hone my skills in engineering. With

this choice in schooling, I will not have to move or live on campus, if desired, and I will be able

to still take classes in person as well as use the school facilities. Even if electrical engineering

falls through I will be able to pick up any other type of engineering as well due to the other

engineering programs provided.

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Some of the biggest things that could stop me from becoming an electrical engineer is my

own intuition. I might decide that it is not for me, and I might decide to go into a different type

of engineering or a different career all together, this would be my biggest obstacle from going

down this career path. However, that does not mean that it is the only obstacle, I could be

unorganized and end up not getting through the college education system or I could end up

losing my job because of my own messiness.

Another one of my biggest obstacles will personally be learning to code and coding in general.

Coding takes a lot of patience and people will always have errors in their code. As a person who does not

have an almost inhumane amount of patience it will be hard for me to code as I will have to go back to fix

every error along with every error that the new code causes. Another problem with coding is that it is very

frustrating when someone fixes a problem in the code, it causes more and more errors elsewhere in the

coding. This would cause me to get very frustrated and would cause me to either work less or stop

working on that part of the code entirely for a short period of time.

Chapter 4: Productivity
My Project
For my project, I will be creating a website based on the solar-powered cars education

program that Cobb EMC operates. For this project, I will be creating a website that will teach

high schoolers all the things that you would learn if you went through the solar-powered car

education program. I will be teaching high schoolers how to build the cars and all about how

they work. I will be showing how solar power technology works and how the transfer of

electricity occurs with solar power. My learning project will be applied to high school students. I

will also be using the same solar-powered cars that Cobb EMC uses to show visuals and step by

step on how to build the solar powered cars. After this, I will them take someone that is within
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the age group given a test before and after going through and watching the video and looking at

the website to see what all they learned from my website.

Career Connection
This project is aligned with my internship because it goes in line directly with what my

internship company does. My internship, at cobb EMC, has a program where they will bring in

mini solar powered cars to different schools for the students to build them. This teaches them

how to build them and they explain a little about how solar powered cars work. They do this over

multiple visits because the students will need time to build the solar powered cars and they will

need the right weather for the car to operate. I will be making one of the cars and a website that

will let a student learn about cars and how solar power affects society.
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References
Gagnon, D. (2020, June 23). Southern New Hampshire University. Retrieved from What does an

Electrical Engineer do?: https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/stem/what-do-electrical-

engineers-do

Kots, K. (2021, February 10). North Central College. Retrieved from What do electrical engineers do:

https://www.northcentralcollege.edu/news/2020/12/10/what-do-electrical-engineers-do

McKay, D. R. (2019, August 22). The Balance Careers. Retrieved from Electrical Engineer job

description: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/career-facts-electrical-engineers-4126615

Murphy, A. (2021, April 30). Master Studies. Retrieved from Why study electrical engineering?:

https://www.masterstudies.com/article/why-study-electrical-engineering/

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2021, September 8). Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved from

https://www.bls.gov