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OctaviusBeaver posted:This is probably a dumb question, but why doesn't current flow through the ferromagnetic core of a transformer? There are eddy currents in the core, but there's no current through the core because the windings are insulated. I'm not particularity knowledgeable about transformers, though.
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Jun 10, 2011 06:09
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How much does GPA factor into getting a job after undergrad? I'm never going to go into graduate school, which I know it requires a certain GPA. I'm sitting at 2.8 or so and am in Canada. I'm worried about it mostly because there was a downward trend in the last two years thanks to being hit hard with depression, and my GPA (and my brain) is only starting to recover in my... last semester.
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Jan 22, 2013 22:45
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movax posted:How much job experience do you have? (Internship/co-op/etc) Two month's worth of relevant job experience, with a good recommendation letter. I'm not sure what I'd call it, it kind of fell into my lap and I had a lot of different tasks over the course of two months. Rest of my job experience is with retail/service stuff.
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Jan 22, 2013 23:00
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Its a regulated title in Canada, or at least in Alberta. APEGA has been fighting Microsoft legally for aaaages because they call all their non-engineer programmers "software engineers" and you're legally not allowed to that in Alberta. 
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Oct 11, 2013 04:24
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I'm not really sure how to phrase this, but here goes. Where I am (Alberta, Canada) most engineers go down the EIT->PEng->Project Manager track, and I recently discovered I probably don't want to go down that path. It might be different/better in something other than an oil and gas sector EPC job working under a PEng that really doesn't know how to mentor. I was wondering, what kind of areas should I start looking at? I'm not expecting exact companies or anything, but just an idea of what search terms I should start using. I'm an EE and I like the electronics side of things much more, but I also like managing information as well as my time spend evaluating bids. So what areas would that be? Electronics manufacturing/design, Information Management, or Procurement/Logistics? I'm sick of the attitudes in the oil/gas industry.
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Nov 6, 2013 20:33
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KetTarma posted:how do learn matlab good Get used to running scripts instead of straight into the console, naming conventions, not overwriting constants (eg. pi). Solving problems with tedious solutions is also a good way to practise. I did a lot of checking my math with MATLAB during my high level circuit analysis courses. Hed posted:I'm kind of Every discipline at my school had a MATLAB/Excel course except for Electrical, Computer and Software. However, all the profs expected everyone to know MATLAB. It wasn't too bad if you were in a group (I was always the MATLAB person after I switched from Mech to Electrical) but sometimes you'd have to make your own scripts and I got so sick of telling people to use the elementwise operators.
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Dec 6, 2013 05:23
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that some of you guys actually get courses in MATLAB, not from a curriculum critique but because drat we just got thrown to the wolves by professors on homework assignments where first you had to figure out WTF you were doing in the software, then solve the homework. I'm really jealous.
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Hip Hoptimus Prime posted:Can someone tell me the pros and cons of a materials engineering degree? My dad did a Materials Engineering degree and the only con I remember that wasn't situational (don't graduate right before the NEP crisis in Alberta) was that you'll always be mad at Mechanical Engineers for choosing mild carbon steel for everything. Also, phase diagrams. Stress fractures. If you like those, it'd be worth looking into.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:20
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Hip Hoptimus Prime posted:Thanks everyone. I've been leaning toward EE, as you know, but I also started looking at MatE because of the manufacturing applications. I'm in a chemistry class this semester, so I'll see how I do with that and go from there. It'll be a couple semesters before I actually start on engineering core since I'm just doing some prereq/refresher stuff, so I have time to decide. I switched from Mech Engineering to Electrical because I'm not very good at chemistry or thermodynamics, but pretty good at calculus*/math in general and low level coding. But with every type you have to consider where the "what am I okay/good at or like?" with the "what will someone pay me to do?" in you location. * I had to teach myself vector calculus for two/three courses, and a lot of mid level pure math stuff because my school decided that Electrical/Computer/Software Engineer didn't need any math courses???
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Jan 15, 2014 00:59
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I'd like to know more about embedded systems, too. Is it very location dependent? All the people I know that went that direction went either to a big telecomm company or academia.
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Mar 19, 2014 06:03
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Faded Sloth posted:As an EE student should I be learning Linux? I've seen it mentioned somewhere. Yes. I'm pretty lovely at Linux but it certainly has helped me with a lot of otherwise tedious tasks, even though my school used 5 year old Scientific Linux for everything. Aside from Matlab and some sort of AutoCAD equivalent, I would look into Power System software (SKM Power*Tools, ETAP, etc) if you want to do anything with 3 phase. The funny thing about AutoCAD/Solidwords and MATLAB is that the EE/CE/SE department at my school didn't have a course for it, but everyone expected it out of us. I had half a semester's worth of MATLAB and solidworks because I was initially in Mechanical Engineering and was suddenly a wizard. It depends on what you plan to do, though. I worked with a bunch of Power Engineers for an Oil and Gas EPC and they were still using pen and paper, but that's also just one company. I was apparently an untrustworthy wizard for knowing how to use Excel. At least be able to do some simple command lines, install things, automate tedious tasks and just general installation/etc, though.
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Mar 26, 2014 05:09
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RogueLemming posted:VBA is used in Excel, but can also be used to interface with Autodesk and Bentley products. At the last place I worked, you were not allowed to use VBA even to read a name from a file of anything in the CAD directory. This was a verbal instruction so of course I'd read the file names from all the files I gave a poo poo about in the CAD directory. But this was a place that expected me to do all my calculations manually with pen and paper and thought that Excel was untrustworthy magic.  Anyways, speaking of Excel, the new place I'm working at is still using Office 2003. Is there any sort of guide online about being able to go from 2010 back to 2003 for simple stuff? There's a huge amount of QoL stuff that I don't know if there's an equivalent. So far I don't need to do anything more complex than Index-Match, but I don't know how long until I have to use it for anything more complex than sorting lists.
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Mar 29, 2014 23:45
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I recently got a job as the only electrical engineer in a sea of mechanical engineers so I'm a bit  because of the holes in my knowledge. Though my boss/supervisor are really good at explaining anything that I don't understand, I still don't want to bug them all day long. Is there anything online that goes over stress/strain, tensile strength, or generally what sort of things happen when you beat up a thing at various temperatures? I'm going to be doing destructive testing this summer, so I'd like to know what's going on. Or at least how to find out. Its more Materials, but all the materials stuff I have access to is about metal fatigue and textbooks from the 70s when my Dad went through Materials Eng.
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Apr 30, 2014 03:51
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CCKeane posted:I don't know how it is for MechE stuff, but I've used open course ware for plugging some holes in my knowledge. I poked through the MIT courses, though I was kind of lost on which ones were actually worth going through. I'll definitely look through the Estimation course, looks good from a skimming. Thanks.
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Apr 30, 2014 05:14
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PRADA SLUT posted:What's the best way to teach yourself AutoCAD? AutoCAD, let alone any software was not covered in my EE program. Not even MATLAB/equivalents. They did expect you to know MATLAB and hand-drawn Drafting, somehow. I read through the ASTM standard for drafting at work and there's some good stuff in there, but is a very, very dense read. I read bits and pieces of it partially because its part of my job function to read standards, and partially so I can just declare I'm an idiot right off the bat when it comes to drafting.
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Aug 24, 2014 09:45
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I use Eagle at work, even though I rarely do circuit board design. Its support for tutorials is great and that's why I grabbed it. I think I have some freeware gerber viewer because I'm awful at remembering which rev my files are in, but aside from that I like Eagle.
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Sep 27, 2014 21:04
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PRADA SLUT posted:What's a good $100ish multimeter for low-voltage, low-amperage electronics? I've used Fluke's in the past, but they seem to be made more for high-amperage electrician work. Are they just as valid for lower amp work? Fluke makes some great stuff, for a lot of voltage ranges. I use the Fluke 175 primarily at work, and I think its about $150 CDN. I'm not sure how much it is off hand because I'm not in charge of equipment, but I love it. There's a couple models with less features under that one, but its pretty easy to get a decent low voltage multimeter. Edit: of course fluke is expensive, I was way off on my guess. The 175 is about $275 CDN and the 113 is about $150. This is through a place that calibrates them, so on top of the "being in Canada" tax, they include calibration. You'll have to check your own catalogues, but both of those a solid. The 175 just comes with more bells and whistles. Jyrraeth fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 5, 2015 07:00
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Does anyone have experience going from Canada to do engineering in Europe? I'm kind of curious about what it would be like to live in Europe (looking at Sweden due to me and my boyfriend learning the language) and possibly work, too. I know there's a few places where the language of business is stated as English, but I don't know what that's like in practice. I'm still not sure what I want to do long term, engineering wise, but my degree is in electrical engineering.
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Jan 28, 2015 21:56
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Thoguh posted:Yeah. gently caress all those people who don't come from the same background and environment. I agree with you, but I also want to add that as a newbie woman in an industry it is really hard to get a feel for what to wear that is also gender appropriate. As an EE in my province, I go to conferences and there's one other woman engineer there and generally she's just as green as I am and has no idea what to do.
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Mar 26, 2015 23:17
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I worked with a summer student that I had to tell him to stop throwing rocks at the other one. Also I had to throw out a bunch of bubble wrap because he wouldn't stop popping it in the other one's ear. They did their work, but man, at what cost?
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Mar 30, 2015 05:02
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I'm applying for a certification job at a company where my old company got testing from. Is there a conflict of interest if I mentioned that I read their reports in my cover letter? Is there any issues with it? I'm not being specific aside from "we had testing done through your USA branch and it was cool to read the reports". I got laid off from that job a while ago, and the testing was at another branch (I'm applying to the Canadian branch). They were in the process of trying to actually do things like NDAs and the like, so I have no idea.
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Dec 18, 2015 05:51
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Thanks, you did understand my post just fine. My old company was such a mess when it came to IP/etc that I just didn't know. Now that I've slept on it, I don't really know why I was freaking out about it.
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Dec 19, 2015 02:04
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While I'm a Canadian EE I can't really give any advice because the current state of my career is a mess... I can say that a lot of provinces have a public Utility. I'm not from Newfoundland but when they were having issues with power generation in early 2014 and you can see a presentation with one line diagrams and the like. So you can see what aging infrastructure on an island where people are moving away from wood heat to electrical does to the power grid. If anything you'll see a nice charred transformer in the pdf. Not sure what its like in other provinces, I'm in Alberta and we have a private utility and I really don't know anything about the other provinces' power except Quebec's in passing.
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Dec 22, 2015 19:48
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Statics is kind of a test of meticulousness. At least that's what I found. Nothing's really hard about it aside from keeping track of everything. It was painful because it was my first semester of university after high school and I had to learn how to not coast on natural talent anymore.
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May 31, 2016 23:08
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How do you find out what sectors are doing good? Is this one of those mysterious benefits of networking or is there a way to glean it from the news?
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Aug 19, 2016 04:21
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I've been out of the engineering sphere for 2 years (ugh, layoffs/mental health/etc  ) and I was thinking of going to take some cont ed courses or something so that I'll be able to build a portfolio/network/etc in a new city and I'm not totally sure what direction I want to go in. I got an EE degree in 2013 and I focused on more circuit-y things but my first jobs were kind of lovely and I don't want to go in that direction anymore (O&G EPC, then cable manufacturer compliance work). But I'm not sure if its because I didn't like the atmosphere, or what. I really did not like working solo, where I would go for almost two weeks without any guidance or teamwork. I was thinking of the kind of test engineering where you actually do write the automated tests and develop compliance procedures, but do those sort of jobs exist? Should I take a couple courses on Python/etc, LabVIEW, and a refresher on analog circuits?? Or is electronic manufacturing (inside Canada) a dying industry? I really have no idea how to network now that I'm not in school anymore, either. Do those ~*~informational interviews~*~ really work? I've been watching a few societies and their meetups, but I live pretty far away from most of the locations they choose.
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Jul 20, 2017 02:33
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CarForumPoster posted:1- Yes, look for jobs titles: Systems Engineer, Systems Test Engineer, Avionics or electronics Engineer / Qualification Engineer / etc. 1. Thanks for the job titles, they'll be handy 3. I've been lurking those threads for a while, I've never really liked using LinkedIn and found it needlessly complicated. I guess I'll ask there if there's any new tips/tricks to using it.
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Jul 24, 2017 22:53
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I've always calculated the commute cost as: (Approx hourly wage * hours worked)/(hours worked + round trip commute) Then I'd compare approximate hourly wages. You could probably do it yearly, too, but I'm someone who is thinking real short term all the time because I'm not established.
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Mar 23, 2018 20:41
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What would Data Engineering for the (Canadian) Department of National Defense be like? I've always been under the impression that it would be kind of dry?
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Apr 10, 2018 20:30
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APEGA and APEGBC both have a huge salary survey pdf each year for market rate salary, but apparently the ontario equivalent needs you to pay for it? (Here) Maybe the summary has some info, but even still you can just look at Alberta's/BC's salaries and extrapolate from there?? (Here's Alberta's for example)
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Jun 15, 2018 00:56
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I never really minded regulatory stuff, because sometimes it gives you context for why all things are done a certain way or use a particular material. "Oh we'd get a fine because this material isn't self extinguishing, even though it's other properties are way better than others"
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Jan 11, 2019 17:26
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You can be an EIT for many, many years without getting your P.Eng if you want to in Canada. Whether it looks good on you or not, is the other thing. The co-workers I have, that have P.Eng's (I'm in robotics) get them mostly so they can ask for a raise, or go to another company that pays better.
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Dec 10, 2019 02:34
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Really wish I could tell my younger self how feast/famine the engineering jobs I've had. Sorta wish I went into utilities, despite how boring I find them. Current place just has the classic problem of management wanting things and thinking they take no time because they just want them to take no time. (Then my boss runs out there and gets really mad that he can't instantly fix something.) Aaah. Egos.
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Aug 16, 2020 19:47
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Is it possible to have a engineering career without constantly feeling like youre being punished for not working 60 hour weeks? Canada/EE if it matters in this capitalist hellscape. Just thinking about an exit plan after having yet another project with impossible deadlines, management wanting their cake and eating it to, and my own hosed up mental health getting in the way. I'm probably being dramatic because I'm in a niche field that will abuse their employees because of that nicheness. Maybe it's better in other industries? Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's just this loving pandemic. Aargh. Just had to vent.
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Mar 10, 2021 21:52
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dxt posted:I've rarely gone much over 40 in my career so it's definitely possible. 60 is not healthy. EE is very broad and useful, find yourself a new job/industry (easier said than done I know). I think that's going to be something I'll think a lot about in the coming months. Plus last time I was job hunting I was unemployed and desparate to get out of working at a grocery store, so already being employed will at least allow me to be choosy.  I'm 2.5 years deep in subsea robotics, now that I'm not on mobile and grumpy and can elaborate. I knew getting into it it'd be low pay and "do it because its interesting" but y'all probably know that its easy to end up in a poor working environment because of that. Just don't know where to start looking. I don't know how to quantify a lot of my experience because I have terminal 'everything I do sucks' disease. I have a couple more years experience before that but I feel like its stale enough that I barely count it? It'll probably hurt the company if I end up doing what the two last intermediate engineers did and get the P. Eng before immeadiately finding new work. I'm sensing a pattern here.  GordonComstock posted:I had a supervisor tell me once, paraphrasing "Don't let the fear of working extra hours impede your ability to get the job done". This was a month into 60 hour plus weeks. But that company was the only one I've had like it, so they're out there (I'm in water/wastewater in the USA for reference). I want to say smaller firms have less of that type of culture, but it probably varies. Not totally sure I follow? Meaning that the dread of working such long hours can get in the way of doing it in less time potentially? I'm also frustrated because since its a small shop and for whatever reason the upper management don't want to hire anyone who isn't an engineer... You end up with no technicians or drafters at all? So I'm designing as I'm drafting for something with a client that can't make up their mind and did I mention they're a start-up? Client keeps changing their mind, gets blamed on the lowest kid on the totem pole for not keeping up. Oh yeah remember that new SBC you specc'd out a month ago? The seagulls are swooping in and making GBS threads on the design because someone who doesn't like change decided that change wasn't going to happen. Plus I've previously been the one that actually knows how to purchase and make the BOMs happy and since I'm the junior it all gets dumped on me. I need to buy a whole bunch of wire for the build but also design and draft and oh yeah clean up the shop next time you're not WFH, what about those design guideline documents you were supposed to review before we got to this point??? Yeah I think I need a new job.
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Mar 11, 2021 03:04
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Hello Sailor posted:Sounds like you've mostly worked it out already, but the effect of you leaving on your employer should merit exactly zero consideration on your part. They wouldn't hesitate to let you go if whatever metrics they use dictated that they should. Totally. It's hard to internalize less because of the company as a whole and more because of my work friends.  Though someone worth keeping as a friend would cheer me on and keep in touch just like my cheerleader pal who left the sibling company. I should text him, its been a while.
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Mar 11, 2021 07:16
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I did SO MUCH MATLAB during my degree. Ended up getting so mad about excel once I was in industry, and once I learned about Spyder (Python based MATLAB equivalent) I was so stale on all my programmy chops it was just like learning to walk again.
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Apr 4, 2023 21:09
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I think I might need to find a way to gracefully exit Engineering. I'm chronically ill now and while my current employer is reasonably content with having me Work From Home Part Time and update all the documents no one wants to update I don't know how much longer this situation will work out. They've been putting off COLA raises for a while with a "yes, we promised COLA raises, no they're not here yet, yes you'll get back pay". Which doesn't fill me with confidence (but at least I might get back pay). Company had laid of a couple of expensive employees late last year and there's been a couple of retirements but it seem like cash flow is a big problem that they're trying to get technical staff on tight deadlines to give a poo poo about. Regardless I know Engineering isn't going to be a long term thing when I've been part time for the last two years. Previously I had thought software would be the backup plan if I ended up getting laid off but welp. That's not really a good idea considering the layoffs everywhere else. Is there really anything out there for an Electrical Engineer who can't work full time? I'm Canadian which seems to remove a lot of options. My current plan for if I get laid off is go back to school, but I haven't decided for what yet. I can't say for certain if I'll ever be able to work full time again but I don't want to have any of my plans contingent on it.
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Mar 6, 2024 19:23
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Anti-Hero posted:Not sure how it works in Canada, or what discipline of EE you are, but here in the States I don't think layoffs are on anyone's horizon for the foreseeable future. Current employer is in subsea robotics and isn't a particularly stable field even when things are good. Higher ups keep over-promising and deadlines have been so compressed that I think we're being set up for failure. Less so a problem with the field and more that my employer might implode. I do like being an Engineer. Just seems like it would be more of a barrier to be part time than a lot of other fields. quote:Bunch of Utilities comments. I had it in my mind that getting into Electrical Utilities was suuuuper-competitive but maybe that's just at the junior level? Either that or its competitive because its one of the better employers in the province for being union*. I'm not too fussed about pay but I don't think private vs goverment salaries are as dramatic in Canada? Anyone who wants to make $$$$ moves to the states anyways. * I don't know if all the engineers are unionized BUT that would drive engineering compensation up regardless. As far as I know Utilities in Canada is in a similar state as the US but just less bad. Everything is deteriorating and since Canada Big there's a lot of maintenance to keep remote equipment up and running. Regardless I went to go look at the job postings at the provincial utility (BC Hydro) and it does look like there's a lot of demand there. I didn't dig very far but it does have the classic case of having manymany postings for senior engineers. It does mean that I need to get my P. Eng done which I've been severely dragging my feet on for E/N reasons. (P. Eng is generally required for all disciplines in Canada, and would be super required for governmenty stuff like this. You can get away with being an EIT for some fields but they're starting to get strict about the rules here.) I haven't done any high voltage, or hell, even AC work in ages though. I've been all low voltage electronics for the most part and I've very much stagnated for the last two years for a variety of reasons. I know the general advice is doing learning/projects on one's own time but that's going to be a struggle unless I do get laid off. It is at least a plan for that bridge. It does give me some hope knowing that non-EE folks are getting poached. Even if I never can work full time ever again I'm not necessarily going to be sent to the audio transcription mines.
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Mar 6, 2024 23:32
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Oodles posted:Piggybacking on this, as I assume you’re in an oil related company. I used to work for a Canadian major, who was doubling down on oil sands. I think offshore Canada is very challenged, and a huge focus and push will be on getting the oil sands to be less CO2 intensive. Kind of oil-adjacent but there is 0 interest from Canadian clients about oil anythings and we only get interest from startups in Texas. Before I started here they were trying to get some Canadian offshore stuff but 2014 killed it. I have so little interest in being a PM but I don't know how much of that is because the PMs here seem to spend most of there time trying to fight fires even before the contracts are signed. Sounds excruciating making GANTT charts to just constantly be stuck in the middle between sales people giving unrealistic deadlines and technical staff that can only work so many hours in a day. I imagine its much more chill in larger institutions. What its like? Pander posted:Being an EE right now is like being Smithers in the Scorpio episode, "can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job?" Someone will take a chance on a weak and feeble EE like me, one day. I'm sure there's a simpsons reference someone could dig up for that one, too. Oodles posted:Your boy here graduated as an Electrical engineer, but trained as an Instrument engineer. Anything more than 24v DC scares me. Managed to get sick just in time to avoid having to handle 264VDC batteries while having absolutely no safety infrastructure to handle them. I still kind of hate dealing with 48VDC, 24VDC is such a good friend. wemgo posted:That high voltage stuff is all controlled by microelectronics. Your skills may be more valuable to utilities and their vendors than you assume. SEL has some Canadian offices, I am semi-aware of them but I think they only do field service here. Thanks for the point of reference at least. I do love me some communications, though I don't really know my wireless very well. Does give me some hope that I can find someone to let me dig into protocol specifics because I love digging into stuff like that. Been meaning to get more familiar with PLCs, too. The junk collector posted:Working as an EE in a role that consults with a lot of other EE positions at different companies, every company right now is laying people off. Every company is also hiring and desperately understaffed. Raises and bonuses aren't coming in but it's also really easy to job hop. It's the weirdest market I've ever been in. This is the basis of my worry, at least after posting here. Things are weird and I am also weird. I know as a chronically ill intermediate part timer I'm competing against folks who are willing to work 50+ hours including ones from other countries. I'm hoping the AI thing falls apart quickly, but all I can do is wish. Thanks all, I feel a lot better about things. Even tho the world is on fire, I'm feeble as all heck, and AI dipshits are taking over but I don't necessarily have to worry about having to completely switch careers or even have to remember my power engineering courses from 10+ years ago.
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Mar 7, 2024 21:10
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