What can I do with this Engineering Degree?

CerebralCortex

Hi all,
In 2001 I started a national certificate in Electronic Engineering. In 2004 I completed a diploma in Electronic Engineering. Following that I decided to do a bachelors degree in Digital Software System Engineering. It took 4 semesters to complete. To give you a flavour of what it involved here is a list of subjects I took:
First year 2004-2005:
Semester 1:
Digital Signal Processing, Digital Systems, Software Eng, Communications, Spanish, Maths, Programming and Coding.
Semester 2:
Digital Signal Processing 2, Digital Systems 2, Maths 2, Project Management, Software Eng 2, Telecommunications, Spanish2.
Final year 2005-2006:
Semester 1:
System Architecture, Operating Systems, Software Engineering 3(Java), Telecommunications, Quality Assurance and Reliability, Project.
Semester 2:
Real Time Operating Systems, Operating Systems 2, Software Engineering 4(Java), Networks, Artificial Intelligence, Project.

I have a rough idea of what kind of jobs I could do or to put it another way what kind of engineer I could be. What I am looking for is other peoples opinions on what kind of engineering role I would be most suited to based on the above subjects listed? Also feel free to ask me to elaborate on any of the subjects listed.
Thanks for your time
Lou

toiletduck

Did you do project work?

CerebralCortex

toiletduck wrote:

Did you do project work?

Yes indeed. My final year project was to implement TinyOS on a Telos platform mote. Why do you ask?

CerebralCortex

CerebralCortex wrote:

Why do you ask?

I assume it is because most projects are chosen as opposed to being compulsary, so it might show what interests you have. Plus it is probably the most likely question you'll be asked if you go for an engineering job somewhere.

toiletduck

^^ Exactly. At any interviews I've had since graduating, they seem very interested in the final year project. And reports from friends indicate the same.

Plus if you're going for a job and you've a lot of experience in the field from your fyp, then obviously you'll have a huge advantage.

From your subjects, digital designer or telecomms seem right up your alley. What are your interests (software, networks, digital etc.)?

CerebralCortex

toiletduck wrote:

^^ Exactly. At any interviews I've had since graduating, they seem very interested in the final year project. And reports from friends indicate the same.

Plus if you're going for a job and you've a lot of experience in the field from your fyp, then obviously you'll have a huge advantage.

From your subjects, digital designer or telecomms seem right up your alley. What are your interests (software, networks, digital etc.)?

Operating Systems I found very interesting especially the real time ones and yes also the telecomms maybe the applications side google talk for example. I enjoy programing and code, it sits well with me. What brand of Engineering would that suggest to you? Anyway thanx for yer input.
Lou

dave2pvd

What you may end up doing may not necessarily be based on your total curriculum. I ended up in automation. Why? All because of a specialist subject I took in my final year: PLCs. Two hours a week for one year and it determined the course of my career.

CerebralCortex

dave2pvd wrote:

What you may end up doing may not necessarily be based on your total curriculum. I ended up in automation. Why? All because of a specialist subject I took in my final year: PLCs. Two hours a week for one year and it determined the course of my career.

Do you know of any companies that specialise in RTOS(real time operating systems)?

dave2pvd

I'm not familiar with the term. I live in the US, though. Engineering terms are sometimes different.

Are you talking about a real-time production data system? Something that would be used for process management? If so, there are many many companies; from injection molding machines all the way up to oil refineries. Try a google search and you'll come across plenty of vendors & integrators.

copacetic

I think embedded processor development could be for you, like cerebral says most of these are RTOS based systems. Although you should have heard of it really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_operating_system

For instance you might get a job in a phone company, writing code to run on Linux on an Arm in a handset. Most HW development companies have a section doing this type of work. The only thing with this kind of work is that it is relatively easy to outsource the actual coding so I'm not sure of the long term prospects.

In general though what subjects you did should have little bearing on what you end up doing. What do you want to do?

The reason we would ask about final year projects is that nearly everything done in college is just background work that everyone is doing. The project is at least a bit more individual. When you get a job that's when you really start to learn..

DublinDilbert

Hi There,

Most companies in ireland who develop products would licence the RTOS, or use a free one such as Linux, depending on the application...

This doesn't mean your project work on the RTOS isn't valid, as generally to write applications to run on the RTOS you'll need a some understanding of how an operating system works. Its also very useful in debuging applications to know how it starts and stops processes, how it switches contexts between process...

There are some embedded jobs in ireland, genrally they need quite flexible people, people who can understand both electroincs and code, if you can do both that's a big plus.... I would also learn a bit about software development cycles, eg waterfall model / spiral model, cause they usually ask that type of stuff in an interview, just to make sure you have an awarness about how importing testing software is ect...