Electronic Vs. Mechanical

ANXIOUS

I want to do Engineering next year and I was wonder which one to choose ? If you could give me previous experieces of your course/Career that would be great. Thank you

Michael Collins

Electronic! Electronic! Ok so that's what I'd choose, do you have any slight preference yourself?

The job prospects are similiar enough, maybe a slighlty better chance of getting something in the electronic area, but being a mechanical engineer wouldn't rule you out of electronic jobs as most mechanical courses do a fair bit of electronic nowadays.

You can always go the undenominated route where you have a year of all the different areas within engineering e.g. Chemical, Civil, Elec, Mech etc. and then choose which one you like the best after that - in fact even if you pick one on your CAO, most colleges are a general engineering in first year, at least with the undenominated approch you have a choice.

Personally I did Electronic Engineering in UCD and thought it was great. Very interesting subjects, some very good lecturers and a general nice atmosphere in the place.

First year was general with all engineers lumped in together. You mainly do a lot of revision of leaving cert subjects like Maths, Chemistry, Applied Maths, Physics - if you're doing these for the leaving it'll be a big help, most of them have a bit extra above and beyond the leaving but it should be no bother. There were also some new subjects like Thermodynamics - all about heat transfer really, Fluid Mechanics - about calculating fluid flows, Computer Science.

Second Year then it got interesting. Circuit Theory - how to analyse circuits, Solid State Electronics - all about semiconductors, Computer Engineering - learn the C programming language & hardware like flip-flops etc, Physics - Classical and Quantum stuff, Applied Dynamics - like applied maths but describing more complicated physical stuff like gears and pullys and 3D forces, Elec Circuits - how to design lots of circuits like amplifiers, transformers etc, Electromagnetics - all about static electric and magnetic fields, very interesting but notoriously difficult, Maths maths and more maths.

Third Year - a continuation of subjects from Second Year mainly. New stuff was Power Systems - all about the way the ESB works, Communication Theory - all about how comm. systems work like AM and FM radio, TV, Satellite, Linear Systems - about signal and system analysis really like what frequencies radio and tv singals use why they use them and how it all works really, Maths maths maths maths and oh yes maths

Fourth Year - again a lot of continuation of Third Year subjects, some other stuff like RF Circuits - how to build and design communication systems, Antennas - how they work and all the types (basically E-mag again), DSP - digital signal processing like Linear Systems but digital, Optoelectronics - lasers, LEDs etc, plus lots of optional subjects like:

Optical Engineering - lenses and stuff from a very mathethical point of view
Maths - surprise surprise
Digital Comms - like Comm Theory except only digital!
Microwave - high frequency stuff like Radar and Wireless systems
ADSP - applications of DSP, great subject really shows you what you can do as an electronic engineer.

And of course in fourth year there's a massive project - as if the rest wasn't enough to be going on with like :rolleyes:

Anyway that was my experince of electronic eng in UCD, the course is changing now so it's more modularised - which means you have more choice I suppose and can even pick some "modules" from outside engineering like philosophy...if you like. But the basic course will be pretty much what I've outlined both in UCD and anywhere else really.

lafors

ANXIOUS wrote:

I want to do Engineering next year and I was wonder which one to choose ? If you could give me previous experieces of your course/Career that would be great. Thank you

You could do a mix....Mechatronic Engineering, its more mechanical but a better chocie in my opinion. Then you could do a full year Masters in whichever you prefered, mech or elec!

I did it in DCU, was a really enjoyable course a lot of hands on work and has work placement, a couple of robotic projects etc.

Since then I've been working in an Irish company who make laser cutting machines for the Semiconductor Industry worldwide and now working for a Japanese company who make&maintain photo lithography machines for the semi-conductor industry (i.e. Intel, AMD, Micron, ST, etc...)

Great jobs with plenty of travel if you like.
Whatever you choose don't get stuck working for a big multinational technology company, stay working with contractors, much better in my opinion

Good Luck

Boston

lafors wrote:

You could do a mix....Mechatronic Engineering, its more mechanical but a better chocie in my opinion. Then you could do a full year Masters in whichever you prefered, mech or elec!

I'm taking an mechatronics course this year and I can tell you the electronics you do as part of mechatronics is very different to the elec you do while doing pure electronics. With Mechatronics it's aimed more towards mechanical uses with large currents and voltages. Electronics as you might imagine is more focused at low currents and voltages. I'm not saying this isn't cross over, and definitly what you learn an elec course would make mechatronics very easy, but that doesn't hold the other way around.

A Primal Nut

I don't know much about Mechanical Engineering but I'm in third year Electrical/Electronic Engineering in DIT Kevin Street. It's similiar to what Michael Collins said about DCU except we went straight into things in first year with Electrical Circuit Theory, Analog & Digital Electronics as well as Maths, Physics, Computers and Mechanics. In second year no Physics or Mechanics and instead start Electrical Machines & Power Systems. Third Year you get to Major in one of Electrical Power Systems, Control & Automation, Communications Systems and Computer Engineering. You actually study all four in the first half of third year so it's a very intensive term. From the second half onwards you just do your major. In fourth year you can choose an extra option, such as Wind Energy and Microwave Engineering and a few others. There is no work experience but the second half of fourth year is dedicated entirely to the project, so your last exams are in Winter of Fourth year. Good news, but for some reason the project is only worth 250 out of 1300 marks, the equivalent of 2.5 subjects, not much considering it's a full half a term's work. I do know that the course is radically changing for the people directly below us. There is also twice as many labs as UCD but whether that's a good thing or not I'll leave up to you to decide.
The course is interesting but Electronic Engineering is difficult. What we've done so far in Electrical Engineering, Computers, Communications and Digital Electronics so far is grand, not too hard to understand once you do a bit of work. Analog Electronics though is a bitch to understand - so much going on, but you will get through it.

All Engineering is difficult and there are loadsa jobs regardless of what you choose. So from those points of view neither is better. So think of what company you would like to work for. A company involved in electronics or on involved with mechanics? That mechatronics sounds sounds like a good combination too.