Beginning Electrical Engineer

Yes Very True but i have a Brand New Mac Book Pro, and a custom built computer runnin an X2 6000+ Raptor drive, as for where it's in atlanta GA, at SPSU (this was part of GA Tech until 1990 and it is a "real World" school where every other week in your degree classes your in the lab (IE you learn it then you do it) it that helps at all

I would guess that the required equipment would be suppplied by the lab.

You should become familiar with a free circuit simulation program called mcap9. Details on where to find it and how to use it are at www.tier-2-innovation.com. You can put off buying measuring instruments, soldering irons, components, power supplies and work benches for a while. The ten tutorials will help ease the learning curve.

The grammar and composition are adequate for a freshman. The punctuation could have shown more consideration for the reader.

All your advice is greatly appreciated and honestly i value every comment that has been made on this thread. I know college will be tough, but even as i sit here typing i also realize that the true reality of it college life is probably incomprehensible to me at the current moment, i have loved electronics or well more specifically computers almost my entire life, at the age of 13 i began building my first computer from older computers and eventually replacing parts with newer ones. from there i began to look more into the electronics side, up until earlier this year i was planning on doing computer engineering but after much thought of what i really wanted to do with my life i realized that my true passion was electrical engineering. mostly this was sparked because my father is a corporate accountant at cummins diesel. he set me up with an "mini-internship" there for a day were i went out on sight with one of his coworkers where they walked me around the basement of a hospital where they had the generators and the transfer switches and control panels. and just giving me a little taste of what i would be actually doing as an electrical engineer. after my first year of college i will be interning with them over the summer and hope to gain a lot of experience from them. Back to the reason for this post is that my birthday is soon approaching and i was indecisive as for what to ask for, i wanted something that would help me in college (and yes i already have a digital recorder... hehe lol) and i have a couple of actives lined up over the summer (basically some classes for pre-electrical engineers) and i curious as to which i would reap greater benefits from. Thanks a lot to everyone that has replied, i really appreciate all of your thoughts!

"for a day were i went out on sight with one of his coworkers where they walked me around the basement of a hospital where they had the generators and the transfer switches and control panels."

A of other items for your college tool box are a good dictionary, learning how to use it, a writer's style manual, learning how to set off paragraphs, and capitalization.

Go for what is at the core of elcetrical engineering. You will need a good programable calculator.

There was quite a good thread on DMMs recently on CR4:-

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/19795/NEWBIE-Multitester-Opinions-and-some-other-questions

where my opinion seems to differ quite markedly from most of the other contributors.

Instrumentation is improving, changing and coming down in price much more rapidly than soldering equipment: so if its a choice between the two I'd go for the soldering station as a long term investment.

Good luck: make sure you put in enough time to do well at college, but, make sure you enjoy yourself too.

People round here are impressed with "guests" who remain engaged with a thread they've started, so, you've done really well so far. Why not register? Also: people get upset with students trying to get them to do their homework or projects for them, but, are more than willing to help when someone's stuck or struggling. You certainly don't sound like the kind of guy who will be looking to avoid work: so hanging around here is a good idea.

Well said...

The college is going to have all that stuff. You are going to want to be on a first name basis with the professors though. So plan on spending a lot of time in the lab and asking questions. That way you'll be successful instead of having a room full of test equipment that you don't need.

You won't need either of them. Buy a good calculator, you will need that. Use the money you saved to buy beer. You will want that

All of this is valuable information, my advice is to listen to what all these guys say (they really know their business) and then go ahead and get the soldering iron if you want it. Nothing as nice as a new toy every now and then.

pipewelder

Well, you probably won't get much use out of either for the first two years of electrical engineering education, if your education will be anything like mine. My first two years consisted mostly of English grammar and literature, Chemistry I & II, Physics, Computer programming, etc., etc. We took a couple of circuits courses in our sophomore year, and the labs had pretty much everything we needed.

Now, that having been said, I applaud you for wondering which item would get more use. It depends on what you would like to do, such as, make your own circuit boards, but if you do that, you might also need a good DMM to use for testing and troubleshooting. Quite a quandry, I'd say.

Why not save a little more and buy an oscilloscope, since you have both a soldering iron and a DMM? Check out ebay for oscilloscopes.

This Bill has to agree with that Bill.

When I put together my first lab, the first thing I bought was an oscilloscope... the best that Heathkit made. Then I got a DMM, a frequency counter, a signal generator, and then improved as the years went on.

If you are intent on a soldering iron, I would look at Weller. My first one I got in 1970, and the transformer finally went bad about 1995 or 1996. Get a professional quality iron with temperature controlled tip, and it should last you for a very long time.

Sincerely

the other Bill

Get a copy of MathCad student edition. You'll need it.

Half my Mech Eng degree belongs to it.

More than likely you will be doing projects for class and labs on a bread board. I doubt you will be making PCB's for quite some time (if at all during school).

You would be better served getting a good engineering calculator. I have had my HP 48SX with the engineering card for about 20 years or so. I got it soon after it came out. I use it daily and use it for more than just cypher'n.

I don't know where you are living and going to school or if English is your first language. As pointed out by many in this thread a good grasp of the English language will serve you well. A poorly written and punctuated resume' will go straight into the trash can.

Travis

I would counsel, as an engineering (albeit mechanical) student mentor, that your money would be better spent on an engineering reference book than either. If you already have the DMM, and a soldering iron, both of which should be provided in the lab courses you would take, why upgrade now?

Better for you to buy the McGraw Hill Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers or some other title that piques your interest now, and will provide solid guidance throughout the scholastic process.

Best of luck. No matter what it takes, finish!

again i love all the response that i am getting here.

as for a calculator i already own a TI-89 Titanium (also still have my old 84) that should be a sufficient calculator, should it not?

as for the actual use of either a DMM or soldering iron, most likely those will stay in my shop here at my parents house. mostly these will be used for personal projects or experimentation beyond what were doing in the labs etc. (that is if i have any free time)- also don't really think the dorms would much approve of soldering in a dorm!!!

Money wise, both of these will be a present for my birthday so it's just a choice as to which one to get

\ALSO,

1.) quick question as far as an oscilloscope, i have always been enticed with the Fluke products, read many places they're about the best test/diagnostic tools you can buy. would it be more indicative to just get an "portable" oscilloscope since it will also preform the functions of a DMM

2.) will an oscilloscope be able to "log" or is that model dependent, and will it really benefit me in EE, i can see the obvious benefits in diagnostic work but will i be doing that type work enough in college to justify possibly paying more for the "logging" functions

PREVIOUSLY KNOW AS GUEST! Also i was planning on purchasing "The Art of Electronics" book to read through in hopes that when i do begin my course work it is always better to have at least a little background in what there teaching, do any of you have any personal experience with this book etc, or is there any other recommendations that are easy to read (ie: don't already need an EE degree to understand) that will help out.

Also whether or not this makes a difference i do not know, but SPSU, the college i will be attending is a very "hands on" college, that is why i chose this college. I was accepted at GA Tech also, but decided to attend SPSU knowing that i learn more when i am learning hands on.

fyi- Tech founded SPSU after some war to re-train the engineers that had come back when they realized that the engineers that had years of experience in the field did horribly in the theoretical environment in which GA Tech teaches

Welcome...

I can highly recommend "The Art of Electronics" which I bought recently. It is considered by many to be the "bible" of hands-on electronics.

My understanding is that the authors wrote this text for the many Harvard undergraduate students not necessarily majoring in EE who desire a practical lab experience without the huge math component normally found in these texts. The text has become very popular all over for experimenters. I love this text!

Rumor has it that some day soon the third edition will be available as some sections refer to data sheets that are no longer available.

ARRL handbook is also very useful in this regard.

1. ...my birthday is soon approaching and i was indecisive as for what to ask for, i wanted something that would help me in college.

I was a student of several majors in EE and also teacher /program coordinator in Tech College. If I would have such good people who like to offer me a gift, I would ask (a) cash/check with my promise I will spend the fund for education, (b) if it must be a device - my choice would be Scope-Meter, said by Fluke, but it is expensive. It will give you opportunity to train yourself in many different EE real world application as electrical machinery, Data Acquisition, electronics DC and AC up to 100 MHz, programming (yes, yes were practical).

2. Listen your lecturers v. carefully, ask questions. Always pay attention to your supervisors, peers and everybody who speaks to you. Before you try voice-recording you MUST ask professor/instructor for his/her permission!

3. I loved the students as you are. They respected me too so we did a lot good thing together as teams or just a couple. Don't worry be happy.

4. Keep you health in the best possible shape. Sports? are the good hobby. Be organized - timing is most important in your progress. Find a self-controlled method/system. Loosing one hour of lab or lecture could break your well organized learning process.

Hope to hear from you after your graduation. Whatever will be your discipline from nanotechnology to electrical power production and distribution.

To all answering members - thank you personally - you made my happy day!

I belive i have made my decision.

i am going to ask for the soldering iron. as much as i would love to get the scope-meter thats just too much to ask for especially after a macbook pro.

i am probably going to save up over the summer and buy a scope meter, not so much for school but i love having "toys" specially ones like a scope and DMM in one.

on a personal note i would like to extend my thanks to everyone who replied, you have given me a lot of insight into... well just about everything. i am defiantly a member who will use this forum for any other questions or discussions i will have in the future (not homework questions though!!!! LOL)

Again My Gratitude to everyone on this forum

For what it is worth... save the scope for later. By the time you need it, there will be much better available and more then likely at a better price. You will have plenty of access to good equipment to use.

You know what I would buy, or ask for, its not to expensive, (as a parent I'm willing to bet your parents would enjoy the "cheaper" side of this) ask them for a good pocket "logic probe". I have an ancient BK one that has been used more times then many other pieces of test I have. It will come in quite handy in class on later on. In any case... happy birthday.

Just a question to good (I would say very good) respondents:

Is only Electronics taught in today's Electrical Engineering Programs? What about Power Majors? Where breadboarding is almost not used? Except Theory of DC and AC circuits.

Or maybe those Mega-Watts experts are not present in this Forum?

Actually, over the last several years, I have gotten into more electronic systems; fiber optics and the like. Prior to that all I did was high voltage systems. It does seem that Power Distribution is less discussed than it used to be.

However, it has been many years since I was in Engineering school.

Maybe some of the recent college of Engineering students can speak up and tell us what they concentrated on in their studies.......

Having some contacts with High Power / High Voltage systems (grid) I have seen some deficiency in some University Electrical Engineering programs so e.g. some outside University courses are offered in i.e. Grid Protections, Generator's dynamics (transients), etc. In Utilities many of necessary calculations are done using software.

New subjects must be introduced in Smart Grid where networking (including fiber-optics) is one of fundamental field. Here safety and reliability is many times neglected.

I believe that the Carrier way: from High Power Grid to good networking with measurements and protection control/monitoring will lead to experience and trouble-shooting knowledge and those will give well - paid and stable job security.

A beginning electrical engineer needs a thorough and firm grasp on the basics first if he never learns anything else.

The new, latest, and greatest topics for applications to real world problems with their ever increasing interaction and complexity could well be a second course and/or graduate program.

A beginning electrical engineer is not expected to learn all of the myriad of potential areas of concern in the broad field before him but to specialize in one or two areas of his special interest and strive to be the best that he can be therein.

Don't neglect the idea of continuing education!

Currently there is concern that "smart meters" at the consumers premises could well be an entry point for malicious malcontents to wreak havoc with the distribution grid and/or generation facilities etc. This would require expertise of computer course graduates or other experienced personnel.