Electrical engineers are in demand in a variety of industries, but the number of students entering the field falls short of the number needed. Even though more women are opting for EE, the number of males has remained steady, recent figures show.
According to Paul Kostek, vice president of career activities for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA (IEEE-USA, www.ieeeusa.org), EEs can find work in industries ranging from biomedical and automotive to the traditional electronics and power, as well as government agencies and Internet startups.
Mohamed F. Chouikha, chairman of the electrical and computer engineering department at Howard University (Washington, DC), has seen recruitment efforts from Wall Street, biotechnology firms, and even a cosmetics company. “It’s amazing how many nontraditional companies are looking for electrical engineers,” Chouikha says.
Recent EE graduates see average starting salaries of $55,300, says Andrea Koncz, employment information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE, www.naceweb.org). The highest offers typically come from the aerospace industry, she notes.
Power utilities in particular need to attract new recruits to replace retiring baby-boomers. But no matter what the work, Chouikha says, employers want smart, well-educated engineers with good communication skills. All Chouikha’s recent EE grads are gainfully employed, and he expects demand to continue.
Diversity is an advantage
In addition to talent and potential, employers are looking for diversity. Robin Smith, global diversity and inclusion leader at communications equipment maker Nortel, says, “We promise our customers across the globe cutting-edge network solutions and products that will drive their success. The creativity and innovation of our diverse employees will help us drive these solutions and products.”
“Diversity at Nortel is about systematically tapping into the power of our people living and working around the globe,” says Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA, Chattanooga, TN) is actively seeking diversity in its workforce. According to Mary Bach, TVA’s senior manager of staffing and recruiting, “Diversity must extend beyond the traditionally targeted groups, making it inclusive of all employees, regardless of race, color, national origin, ethnicity, gender, abilities/disabilities, religion, age, personality or any other differences. We value everyone’s contribution here, and we understand that utilizing and managing diversity are keys to business success.”
Lauren Carr, director of human resources at Microchip Technology Inc (Chandler, AZ), points out that business success depends on the values and focus of employees as well. “People who are team players and have an eagerness to learn and contribute make the best candidates for engineering positions.”
The diverse EEs interviewed for this story have found career success in a variety of industries.
Prasanna Surakanti: digital design at Microchip
Prasanna Surakanti, a design engineer at Microchip Technology Inc, earned her BSEE and MS in mathematics at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (Pilani, India). She got an MSEE in mixed-signal circuit design from Arizona State University (ASU, Tempe, AZ) in December 2006.
During college in India she took on two internships, first at Sasken Communications Technology (Bangalore, India), where she worked on signal processing tools. The next year she spent six months at ST Microelectronics (Noida, India), where she learned the Specman-e verification language and created a software suite for the company.
After graduation Surakanti started as an associate design engineer at ST, responsible for verification of ASIC designs. “I ensured that the designs could be manufactured,” she explains.
But she had her eye on more training in mixed signal circuit design, so she applied and was accepted into a masters program at ASU. During grad school she did an internship at the Chandler, AZ facility of Intel (Santa Clara, CA) in 2005. There she evaluated standards and checked for consistency and timing of standard cell libraries. “It was very different from my ST internship,” she says, “because I was working with a team going all the way to production. With ST I did my work independently.”
In January 2007 she started as a design engineer at Microchip. The position is similar to her full-time job at ST Microelectronics. But, she says, “With my masters degree I have a better understanding of the technology. And with my training in digital design I am much more experienced.”
AEP’s Joan Mulia protects power systems
Joan Mulia used her school experience to land her new position as a protection and control (P&C) engineer for American Electric Power (AEP, Columbus, OH). As a student at Texas A&M University (College Station, TX) she did a co-op in 2005 at a Tulsa, OK subsidiary of AEP. She spent five months helping with substation designs.
Before she took the co-op, she says, she had no interest in utilities or energy production. She had intended to use her EE in communications, but the co-op changed her mind. “This was not an area I had learned about in school,” she says, “but I realized that there were more opportunities in the utility industry than I ever expected.” When she returned to College Station to complete her last year of college, she shifted her specialization to power and took all the power courses she could.
She also knew she wanted to work for AEP. She interviewed with the company in Columbus before she graduated, and was offered the position of P&C engineer for the station projects division.
Mulia works with a team of thirteen that includes engineers, technologists, designers and graphics techs. As a P&C engineer she focuses on the development of protection, control and data acquisition schemes for transmission and distribution stations in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. She prepares relay settings, analyzes the coordination between relays in the substation, reviews electrical schematic drawings and more. “We are basically responsible for providing protection for our power system to ensure reliable service to our customers,” Mulia explains.
She is the only female on the team as well as its junior member. In school, Mulia says, she was often the only female, but at AEP, “Each member of my team is very supportive and treats me with great respect. That makes me feel very comfortable working with them.” She appreciates the experience of her colleagues, many of whom have been in the industry for more than twenty years. “I learn something from them every day,” she says.
Mulia spends about five percent of her time on site visits and the rest in the office. “I would say I have learned more in a year on the job than in my entire time in college,” she comments. “College gave me a good foundation, but since then I have learned so much more.”
She advises college students to “Be an explorer. Go for internships or co-ops. It’s really hard to know if you would enjoy a particular position without getting the real-world experience.”
Rebekah Lam: in tech operations at BPA
Rebekah Lam is finding her own niche in the utilities industry as an engineering trainee at the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA, Portland, OR), a power marketing agency of the U.S. Department of Energy. She will finish her BSEE at the University of Portland in 2008. She is currently both a student and a BPA employee, and will continue to work at the company after graduating.
A flexible schedule at BPA allows Lam to work full time during the summer and school vacations, and concentrate on her studies during the school year. Her internship is part of the government’s Student Career Experience Program (SCEP), which offers paid internships and possible tuition assistance at management’s discretion. Lam has received two years of tuition support and has committed herself to at least two years with BPA after she graduates in 2008.
Lam started her career earlier than most. At sixteen she was living on her own in Vancouver, WA and supporting herself while completing high school. Her first job was at Washington Mutual Bank in Vancouver, as a personal financial representative doing account maintenance for the bank’s customers. That job sparked her interest in business.
During her senior year a BPA representative visited her high school to talk about the kinds of opportunities available at the agency and what kinds of college degrees would be needed for them. “That day, with BPA on my mind, I went to the bank after school for work as usual,” she recalls. “A customer came in and we got into conversation. He asked me what I intended to do after graduation. I told him I was interested in working at BPA, and he pulled out his BPA ID badge.”
He introduced her to BPA’s manager of communications and planning, John Haner, who would become her future boss. Haner encouraged her to get an engineering degree at the University of Portland.
She started there in 2003. The first two years she kept her part-time jobs, including the Washington Mutual position, and interned at the City of Portland Water Bureau, where she helped with GPS work to locate water meters and draw maps for new water mains.
The summer before her junior year she interned at BPA and learned about the fiber optic and microwave systems BPA uses to communicate between substations. She’s now working in technical operations, running studies for outages and determining BPA’s options when a transformer goes out. Lam hopes to return to the communications systems group when she graduates and says her long-term goals include exploring the business side of operations.
Harley-Davidson’s Ben Hodge develops new products
Like Lam, Ben Hodge, an electromechanical project engineer at Harley-Davidson Motor Co (Milwaukee, WI), began his career early. He got an EE degree with a minor in acoustics and business management in 2003 at Kettering University (Flint, MI). When he joined Harley-Davidson after graduation, he already had six years of work experience in the auto industry.
Before Hodge was accepted to Kettering, he took part in the college’s Academically Interested Minority (AIM) program, which allows high-school students to attend Kettering during the summer before senior year. The program requires that each student find a corporate sponsor, so Hodge interviewed with Dura Automotive Systems, Inc (Rochester Hills, MI). The company agreed to sponsor him and offered to keep him on as a co-op after he was accepted at Kettering. Kettering requires all students to alternate semesters on campus and on the job.
At Dura, Hodge initially did product testing for parking brakes and hood latches. “Later I troubleshot, wired and retrofitted vehicles, assisted with obtaining new customer business, and did development testing, including vibration testing and acoustic testing, for the electric parking brake program,” he says.
He met with Harley-Davidson at a NSBE conference during college. After a phone screening and two onsite interviews in Milwaukee, Hodge was hired as an electrical engineer.
He’s responsible for new product development and sustaining current electromechanical component designs for handlebar controls, horns, oil pressure and brake switches, as well as neutral switches, rocker switches and Hall Effect sensors for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. “I specify electromechanical functional and testing requirements,” he explains.
He works with other system groups: power train, styled surfaces, styling, parts, accessories and assembly plants, to ensure his components are integrated into the motorcycle successfully. He works with many different U.S.-based suppliers, and also travels extensively to countries like India, Italy and Mexico to visit current electromechanical suppliers and help evaluate potential new ones.
Hodge draws heavily on his leadership and problem-solving skills. He has found that people skills and being a team player are also essential to his work. Community involvement is important too.
“Kettering University prepared me well for corporate America. I’ve seen how to handle meetings, succeed in a fast-paced environment, work with customers at plants, and more.” However, he adds, “I wish I had focused more on foreign languages now that I understand how vital communication is in the global technical marketplace.”
Hodge urges college students to ask questions and identify and seek the advice of a mentor, and “Remember to help those coming behind you.
“Improve your networking skills and learn from your mistakes. Mistakes allow you to grow as an individual and will also enhance your problem-solving skills as an engineer.”
Tequilla Hurt supports the TVA power system
Tequilla Hurt is an EE in power system operations at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA, Chattanooga, TN). She earned her BSEE at Christian Brothers University (Memphis, TN) in May 2004.
“I wanted a career in the power industry because of two classes that I really enjoyed in college: energy conversions and introduction to power systems. After those classes I looked for an internship with an electric utility to see what area I wanted to concentrate on.”
She wound up interning with three Memphis companies. At Cummins Diesel Recon Co she helped implement the quality assurance system ISO/TS 16949. At Memphis Light, Gas and Water she evaluated network protector monitoring systems. Then at Cummins, Inc she did ISO internal audits and management reviews for the entire facility and worked in quality improvement.
After graduation she accepted her position at TVA. Hurt is part of the market participant scheduling group of the transmission and reliability organization, which develops and maintains products and services that support operation of TVA’s power system and programs. “Some of our responsibilities include near-term load forecasting, asset availability management, generation scheduling, and maintaining the customer loads and pricing for real-time interruptible products,” says Hurt.
Outside work Hurt mentors elementary-school students and volunteers her skills at United Way agencies.
To college students she says, “Make sure you intern in different areas within your field to become familiar with that industry. Theory is good, but it’s nothing like getting your hands dirty and really learning how something works.”
Chase North of TVA: early experience is important
Chase North is an electrical engineer in facilities at TVA. North provides support for design, installation, operation and maintenance of TVA’s security and electronic access control systems. “I also evaluate and design closed circuit TV systems used to enhance process improvement and process automation at facilities throughout the Tennessee Valley,” he says. He develops sketches, drawings and contract documents for engineering design and systems installation services.
He got his EE degree at Alabama A&M University (Normal, AL) in May 2006. When he started school he had his eye on a job in communications technology, but he soon broadened his perspective. “After taking more classes I realized there were several other fields that were interesting to me, so I decided to keep my options open,” says North.
It’s never too early to start applying for internships, co-ops and other college programs, North says. “Most students wait until their junior year or later, but they should start applying in their freshman year of college.”
Before graduation North worked as a technical support representative for DirectTV and as a designer/installer for a security systems company, which helped when he applied for a job at TVA. “Having a few interviews under my belt made me more confident and prepared for the interview process, which led to the job I have today,” he says.
“My experience in college as a tutor, dorm president and a cadet in ROTC helped me learn to work as part of a team, listen to my colleagues, and respect other people’s ideas and opinions. Those skills are important in creating healthy work relationships,” he says.
North also says college students should try to start each semester strong, stay on top of their studies, and finish strong. “Too many students begin to slack off in the middle of the semester and then try to make up for it at the end. It is much easier to stay out front than to come from behind.”
Lisette Zounon develops software applications for Nortel
Lisette Zounon is using her EE skills at Nortel (Richardson, TX) in a very different industry: communications. She’s a media gateway design engineer.
Zounon earned her BS in computer science engineering at the University of Texas-Arlington in December 2004. She then went to the University of North Texas (Denton, TX), where she is pursuing a masters in computer engineering with a specialization in embedded systems and VLSI design.
While earning her bachelors Zounon participated in the Computational Science Workshop for Underrepresented Groups, a research workshop run by the University of Southern California (Los Angles, CA). In her senior year she also completed a summer internship at Apple Computers (Cupertino, CA).
After graduating she posted her resume on the Nortel jobs website and was later invited to the Nortel campus for several in-house interviews.
Zounon was hired into the R&D division of Nortel. “I develop software applications in an embedded system environment for our passport product MG15K.” The MG15K connects the access network, the call server and the public switch telephone network.
“I believe my soft skills played an important role in helping me find my job at Nortel,” says Zounon. “I had a lot of leadership experience in college with campus organizations such as NSBE and SWE.”
She advises college students to be sure they are knowledgeable about their design projects. “You should be able to explain to your interviewer your role and the technical details of the project. This will give you the confidence you need to showcase your abilities.”
Wayne Liang: doing FCC regulatory work
Engineer Wayne Liang of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC, Washington, DC) changed his career from chemistry to electrical engineering. He got a BS in chemistry in 1993 at the University of California-Riverside and worked in hazmat-related chemistry for several years. When the time seemed right to go back to school, he enrolled in the EE program at California State University in Los Angeles. He earned his MSEE in 2000.
Liang took a position with the Department of the Navy in San Diego working on radar systems and GPS tracking. Four years later he moved back to LA and did aerospace-related engineering there as a contractor for ARINC (Annapolis, MD). In 2006 he saw a position at the FCC online and interviewed via video conference from the agency’s LA office.
He got the job, which took him to Lakewood, CO. Liang does regulatory work to “ensure that everyone who transmits over radio does it legally and within the allocated spectrum. If there’s interference we investigate and see who’s at fault and correct the situation.” The position requires him to travel throughout the six-state area he covers.
“Electrical engineering is a very broad field,” says Liang, who suggests RF experience for careers in government. He points out, however, that one of the government’s biggest employers, the Department of Defense, uses engineers in all disciplines.
“I think a masters degree is a good idea,” he adds. “Without special training and an advanced degree you can only do certain things. EE is such a deep field. If you only have a bachelors, you probably only know the basics.”
Qualcomm’s Juhi Saha creates cell phone chips
Juhi Saha is a power systems design engineer in wireless communications at Qualcomm (San Diego, CA). She earned her BS in EE and computer science at the University of California-Berkeley in 2005. She’s now at UC-San Diego pursuing her PhD in systems biology, a fairly new field dealing with circuitry that mimics biological systems.
Saha says her father introduced her to programming when she was in high school, and she originally planned a future in computer science. Her shift to electrical engineering was prompted by an inspiring professor, Berkeley’s Bernhard Boser. In 2004 she took his class in circuit design and developed a passion for the subject. “He pointed out how you could be creative with it. He didn’t go by the text at all,” she says. “I’m so glad I took his class. It really changed my life.”
During college she got a job at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley, CA) working with the SuperNova Acceleration Probe to design astronomical CCD camera chips for galaxy imaging. She wrote her thesis on radiation testing. By the time she graduated Saha appreciated how much fun electrical engineering could be.
Saha came across wireless business solutions company Qualcomm at a career fair and sent in her resume. She says her interview at Qualcomm was different from those she’d had with other companies, where she usually went through a day-long battery of interviews and finished with a rigorous written technical test. By contrast, the interview at Qualcomm was “very pleasant. I had six or seven people ask me questions and then someone took me out for lunch. Everyone here was really nice.”
Her first few months were spent learning, she says, but she was soon given responsibility for developing power management chips for cellular phones. These chips maximize talk time, light the screen and control clocks, among other capabilities.
Initially Saha was the baby of the group. Everyone else had at least ten years of experience. “It was great. I always had someone I could turn to, and they took good care of me,” says Saha, who now mentors new hires.
Saha spends a large percentage of her time meeting with other departments and presenting her work to groups as large as fifty people. “I never thought I would be doing so much public speaking,” she says.
“College students should take their technical communication classes seriously. It’s really important to be able to communicate,” she offers. “You may be an awesome person on paper, but you also need to be able to communicate well.”
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