Question

Compare the Electrical and Electronics Engineering pathway,discuss about the pros and cons of the pathway.Finally choose which pathway is ideal for a future demanding industry.

BEng(Hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Power Systems)

BEng(Hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Microelectronic Systems)

BEng(Hons) Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Communication Systems)

Subjects:

Microelectronic
Very Large Scale Integration, Digital System Design and Implementation, Embedded Systems

Communication
Wireless and RF Communication System Design, Optical Communication System Design, Computer Networking and Security

Power
High Voltage Engineering, Industrial Instrumentation and Modern Control Systems, Power System Analysis

Answer 1

So let us understand all the pathways:

1.Microelectronic Systems

In this course you can learn about modeling and fabrication of various Semiconductor Device.

Pros of joining this course:

• It will give you good understanding of analog circuits like Mosfet , high frequency analog filters,analog and mixed signal systems
• Also you will get good understanding about digital circuits and how any chip is designed.How to write code for any combination circuit and take it to chip tape out phase using many tools for processes like RTL coding, synthesis, Physical design.
• You can learn about various RTL languages like Vhdl and verilog.

Cons of joining this course:

• Some students find solving analog circuits difficult like solving Mosfet and transistor circuits but if you are interested in digital circuits you can find this course interesting.

2. Communication systems

Pros of joining this course:

• If you are interested to learn about wireless networks, radars , design of antennas. This course will be helpful.
• You can learn about optical  and photonics network,wireless optical communication,optical link design and planning.
• Little less knowledge of coding is required so if someone who hates coding can choose this.

Cons of joining this course:

• You may find lot of derivations being carried out with help of lot of laws.
• Also understanding and remembering derivations may be bit difficult because many times lot of assumptions and laws are made to arrive at conclusion.

3.Power

Pros of this course

• This course will give you good understanding about machine drives and motor control.
• You can learn about power system modelling,simulation,optimization,deregulation and destructuring.
• If you are curious to learn about any working of any electrical devices and power analysis in detail , this will be good.

Cons of joining this course

• You will have to remember working of any electrical devices/machine in detail , how they function at applied voltage and their power analysis with equations.
• Lot of voltage and current characterstics and schematic diagram of device/machine have to be remembered.

Personally , in my opinion i suggest microelectronics course because it has lot of industry opportunities like Apple, Intel, Qualcomm. With the advent of technology and increasing speed like 4G, 5G phones coming in market VLSI (Very large Scale Integration which you can learn under microelectronics course ) industry has major role to play.

Rest it depends on your interest. I have quoted about all the pathways above .You can choose based on your interest.

P.S. Me , being VLSI design engineer i am more inclined towards VLSI because i like my job and this industry is very interesting . You get to play with circuit components in designing a chip which i find interesting and VLSI industry is booming in market during COVID-19 times also because all our products play major role in connecting the world virtually using technology.

Rest you can choose based on your area of interest.

Cheers!