Photo Reflection Project

Electrical engineer

 

Throughout the history, people today lives in the most advanced stage called “information era”. In “information era”, electricity plays an irreplaceable role in various kinds of field. Responding to the requirements of the world in such a special era, electrical engineers are involved in the design, manufacture, application and improvement of any device relevant to electricity. For electrical engineers, they apply principle of electrical theory into the practical projects and ensure their products to meet certain standards, in order to satisfy the requirements from the real world.

On the one hand, due to the complexities of the problems they confront, an electrica

l engineer works in a team consists of other electrical engineers from different branches of electrical engineering. In order to make a team become powerful and effective, idea communication are necessary to electrical engineers in a team. On the other hand, electrical engineers are required to solve the problems in a specific branch of the whole subject independently. To become a professional electrical engineer, it’s important for a man or woman to master math, electrical theories, computer programming and the use of certain software tools.

For educational requirements, at least an undergraduate degree is needed. For some famous companies, they ask their employees to have their master’s degrees or even the PHD degrees. Additionally, practical experience in the projects and high proficiencies in relevant tools (e.g Verilog or VHDL) make people competitive in the job market.

Electrical engineer is an occupation dominated by man (about 90%). Although with a lot of work to do, people in this field are satisfied with their jobs. An average salary for electrical engineer is over 70000$ per year in the US. (Payscale.com, 2016)

 

Principle engineer, semiconductor

As the majority of the material and basic unit for electric components, semiconductor supports the whole “information era”. Due to this fact, it’s not difficult to illustrate the importance of principle engineers in the field of semiconductor. Principle semiconductor engineers are responsible for the design and improvement for all kinds of semiconductor devices —- from the basic unit of transistor to a system of high complexity.

Semiconductor engineers are required to study in this field continuously, in order to catch up with the amazingly rapid development of this field. Engineers work in the labs and conduct researches to materials, devices, circuits, facilities, systems and try to discover any possibility to get a breakthrough. What’s more, semiconductor projects always contain multitasks. Semiconductor engineers should be able to arrange their time to deal with all the tasks and finish them of high qualities. Last but not least, it’s of great significance for semiconductor engineers to “think out of the box”. They ought to bravely challenge the convention and come up with new ideas, which contribute to the discoveries of new directions.

 

Because of the huge challenge as well as the extremely high complexity of semiconductor industry, it asks for certain educational backgrounds for engineers. Bachelor’s degrees in science or engineering are necessary for the employees. According to the tendency nowadays, companies always for employees with master’s degrees or even PHD degrees. Based on the educational background, those who have plentiful experience for developing are preferred. Also, the companies are in favor of employees with novel ideas. For normal semiconductor who wants to be a principle one, not until he or she has to work at their positions for 3~5 years and master important skills, can he or she be promoted to principle engineer of semiconductor.

Men occupy the majority of population of semiconductor engineer. The annual salary of a principle semiconductor engineer on average is over 130000$ in the US. (Payscale.com, 2016)

 

Career suitability

Actually, principle semiconductor engineer is a specific kind of electrical engineer.

I currently major in this field as an undergraduate student. I have studied in electrical engineering with a direction of semiconductor and microelectronics for 2 years before I came to OSU. In the past 2 years, I have gotten in touch with this field by taking several specialized course and taking part in a small project. I found a lot of interest in my major, which provides me with continuous enthusiasm to pursue what I want. I have confronted a lot of problems in the past 2 years in my major and I believe I will encounter more of them in the future, but I really enjoy the feeling that I overcome a difficulty by myself. It brings me a sense of achievement and enables me to find the value of my life.

I still remember that I have always wanted to be an outstanding engineer. I want to be different, I want to work a group of talented people and I want to design a chip to improve people’s lives. The occupation of semiconductor engineer allows me to do this. There is nothing happier for me to be a semiconductor engineer in the future. By the way, the salary for an engineer in semiconductor industry is pretty attractive!

Today is too early for me to be an engineer. So, in the next few years, I will try my best to prepare myself to become an engineer. I will never forget what my professor told us: “Dream big, work hard and then change the world!”