Job opportunities for Electronic Engineering Graduates

I did Electronic Engineering for my undergrad and I too had my doubts while I was doing it.
It just seemed like never ending Maths/Equations/Control/Simulation/Pointless programming etc...
I too chose it as it was my favourite and I felt a bit cheated when I didn't
really get to do much actual electronics during the degree.

What I didn't know at the time is that all this misery was providing
a mathematical base of knowledge which you would be able to use for
applications that you wouldn't ever imagine. I finished the course the
summer before the sh1t hit the fan recession-wise in 2008. I was applying
for jobs but felt useless as on paper I wasn't an expert at any one thing
that would lead to a strong interview. So after a summer of PFO's from
companies I decided to do a Masters.

By doing this I got to pick my subjects in an area I was interested in and
also do a far more applied project than the Final year project in the undergrad.
I don't think I was ever so busy in my life, starting at 9 or 10 in the morning and working
solid until 9/10 at night. The difference was that I loved every second of it.
Everything was different, the course assumed a certain engineering standard and that was it.
No more background theory, no more Laplace Transforms/Maxwell Equations/PID Control bla bla bla.
Everything was applied now, this stuff was what "Actually" happened in industry/real world,
as opposed to the pie in the sky stuff from the undergrad.

I learned a lot during that Masters and one thing I learned was to appreciate the things I learned in my undergrad.
That masters would have been next to impossible without the solid engineering background. Every week you would
learn something and think back to your undergrad and have an "Oh Now I understand what that ___ ___ technique meant!!!".
That is still happening now.

In terms of jobs I had no idea what I wanted to do at the time but after
the last few years I have seen a good few area's where electronic engineers
could go towards.

Development for this platform whether hardware or software is going to increase exponentially over the coming years as these boards are in everything! (think iPad/Drobo/Phones etc)

Robotics is always going to be a huge area as new products will always need new production lines etc....

Machine vision, already a large area but could also start to grow even more due to the likes of Microsoft's Kinect platform which will certainly attract competitors.

Transmission mediums (Wireless, Fibre Optics) are going to become very important as smart phones/internet ready devices/cloud computing flood the networks with huge amounts of additional traffic.

^ I tried to make suggestions here based on subjects you might be doing in your final year.

All I am trying to say, even if you don't read the stuff above, is that it IS worth it! When you start to apply what you have learned,
this starts to happen big time in 4th year, you will realise that your original instinct was correct.

[I apologise in advance for my rambling but I hope it helps in some way as I wish I knew back then what I know now so that I would have done a little bit less messing/gaming and a bit more work perhaps.:o]

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Have you ever considered embedded systems? Writing software and/or designing hardware? You'll get to use a complete range of skills.

Lots of job in this area maybe not in Ireland but plenty going in the UK and other parts of Europe.

I did a degree in Electronic Engineering (a long time ago). Worked for one year in a memory chip manufacturing company. The rest of my career I spent working as an electrical engineer in power applications - which was (for me) much more interesting. Perhaps an option for you?