Suggestion about career in Hifi Engineer!

[Music1969]

Do you mean "Electronics"
I did not see such a Bachelors degree in the 80 posted in US DoE site... but I also saw some others that I never knew existed.

A quick Google example:

About EMEC at CI - Computer Science Program - CSU Channel Islands

compsci.csuci.edu

This one says it will be ABET accredited in 2025

But it is offered in many countries outside USA

Some countries may call it Robotics

Different to pure Electronics. A combination like I described and link above describes

 

[MaxwellsEq]

It appears that there is a bit of a semantic confusion there.
You must be speaking from the heart but not from the cranial.

More wrong than right.
A CV becomes much more important but only as a degreed-engineer to get your proverbial foot in the proverbial door.

You are a bit out of date. There was a period when this was possibly the case, but modern engineering apprenticeships do exactly that - get your foot in the door.

Many "Western" governments have realised there is a problem - advanced economies require advanced education, but historic tertiary education is not a wide-enough pipeline to supply sufficient numbers of trained people, especially in technical subjects. Also classic tertiary education is expensive and the costs are tougher for the poorer parts of economies (including opportunity costs). Tertiary education has become a profit centre, and more profit is made from richer people. Therefore many of these governments are rediscovered apprenticeships which allow the students to be earning as they learn. During the process, many offer the opportunity to work for a BSc, thereby "discovering" those individuals who would have successfully sat a degree, but were put off by costs or the general nature of universities*.

These apprenticeships are are developed between universities and industry and registered with the governments. There are rules about their definition and quality. As an industry representative, I have been involved in developing apprenticeships (BTW, I have a traditional, full-time, university degree in electronics). I've also supervised selection processes when the organisation I worked for offered vacancies via them (see - foot in the door). The apprenticeships are genuinely effective! Some truly excellent engineers develop through this process. None of those I've met are in danger of producing stupid domestic audio products.

ASR has a "citizen scientist" feel. Amir and other experts encourage people to learn through reading the reviews, asking questions which are not answered elsewhere and recommending people do tests themselves (I wish I received a Euro every time someone on here recommended buying a Umik and using REW). Sometimes people are talked down to, but on the whole there is positive support for people doing real research themselves and thereby "learning on the job". Very rarely do people get given a load of partial differentials to work through...

* One of the cleverest engineers I worked with didn't go to university because they "didn't like what universities did to people who go there"!

 

[boXem]

What part of "OP lives in EU and doesn't care about US" is so difficult to understand?

 

[MaxwellsEq]

There's a European centre for apprenticeships https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/apprenticeship-schemes

E.g. https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/apprenticeship-schemes/country-fiches/luxembourg

Reading through the country notes, it's clear that many of these were kicked off in the last five years - all governments came to the same conclusion at the same time.

 

[pseudoid]

You are a bit out of date.... There was a period when this was possibly the case...

Whose word would/should I take?
Easy, I go for the real meaning of what a 'CV' has always attempted to achieve... and successfully so.

Chatter about CVs "being out of date" is your choice; I hope you don't have to explain your lack of curriculum vitae; during the interviews.
You do you to get your foot in that door, but ignoring achievements/accomplishments to get near that door should never be called "out-of-date"!
LOL

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Whose word would/should I take?
Easy, I go for the real meaning of what a 'CV' has always attempted to achieve... and successfully so.

Chatter about CVs "being out of date" is your choice; I hope you don't have to explain your lack of curriculum vitae; during the interviews.
You do you to get your foot in that door, but ignoring achievements/accomplishments to get near that door should never be called "out-of-date"!
LOL

I've recruited 100s of engineers, both hardware and software. I don't automatically filter applicants based on the presence or absence of a degree in their CV, but on skills, knowledge and experience.

This also leads to diversity in the teams which is an extremely valuable characteristics of successful groups.

 

[Doodski]

I've recruited 100s of engineers, both hardware and software. I don't automatically filter applicants based on the presence or absence of a degree in their CV, but on skills, knowledge and experience.

This also leads to diversity in the teams which is an extremely valuable characteristics of successful groups.

I experienced something like this perhaps. I made a 5 page chronological resume because employers where asking what it is that I really do. They did not understand my specialization nor previous occupations. So I detailed it with model numbers, makes, times, dates, terms of employment, instrumentation owned and operated and other interesting stuff. I was getting emails/calls and job interviews for engineering jobs. I had to downgrade it because there was a little to much heat in that resume. I think it was managerial and administrative staff like you that chose my resume. One place actually apologized for the mistake and gave me a job as a electrical assembler manufacturing oil and gas heavy duty equipment and drills. It was to me like arts and crafts for men but it was fun and healthy work and kept me in good physical condition.

 

[pseudoid]

I don't automatically filter applicants based on the presence or absence of a degree in their CV, but on skills, knowledge and experience.

I think we are getting into mincing words here.
Here is a simple (.. but unfortunately, a) binary Real-life example:
Company posts an "engineering" (not apprentices position) opening.
10, 100, 500 applicants, send in resumes.
HR must, firstly, weed out all resumes << which is the proverbial "Door#1" [depending on # of resumes, task is probably no more than a few minutes of some clerk]
Rest of the process is TL&DR but all things being equal - before applicants are interviewed by department-in-need << possibly Door#3+
Q: Who are you going to choose, as sitting interviewer behind Door#1 or Door#3 or Door#Z?
Candidate with both a degree PLUS achievements/accomplishments (=experience) or one without a degree (but an apprenticeship).

I've recruited 100s of engineers,

I could never match that number but many of my interviews with candidates have left me shaking my head with some of the weirdest stories I've ever heard.
One young candidate once stated he helped a fellow student during finals... to impress me with his team-player capabilities. We hadn't told him that the position will have required a clearance... yet

 

[Doodski]

Candidate with both a degree PLUS achievements/accomplishments (=experience) or one without a degree (but an apprenticeship).

Being indentured is a excellent way to get experience and a education. It splits things up into manageable bites and is a much better environment for some people. Some are better in class and some are better in a apprenticeship. I've worked with both and there are advantages to both.

 

[Doodski]

I could never match that number but many of my interviews with candidates have left me shaking my head with some of the weirdest stories I've ever heard.
One young candidate once stated he helped a fellow student during finals... to impress me with his team-player capabilities. We hadn't told him that the position will have required a clearance... yet

I woke early for a 11 am interview. I went to Starbucks and bought a vente (Tall) dark roast and then picked up a decent size amount of chocolate coated coffee beans. I ate all the beans and drank the coffee and then it started. BZZZZzzzzzzz from the caffeine. By the time I arrived at the interview I was OD'ing on caffeine. It was a horrible interview. But in the end it was better because I would have been suited up in some sort of winter outfit and expected to be all weather worker in all conditions for a oil and gas job. I like the outdoors everyday but not that much.

 

[fpitas]

When I hire techs I give them a very basic electronics test. An RC circuit, an op-amp, a transmission line. It has reduced many to tears

 

[Doodski]

Whe I hire techs I give them a very basic electronics test. An RC circuit, an op-amp, a transmission line. It has reduced many to tears

I can understand that being a high stress environment for some. After the technical drafting and electronics studies I was sharp as a razor but after some years of diagnosis, calibration and confirmation of repair units I lost my touch for some of that theory. Now I look at it very differently. I look more for blocks of circuitry and chunks as well as individual components. Maybe it's from too much divide and conquer troubleshooting. In recent years I challenged 2 actual apprenticeship exams. Both for first year millwright and instrumentation technician/mechanic exams and passed both. I received a few calls and one from a man in Scotland that was hiring for the future. He wanted mechatronics troubleshooting experience for the big automated trucks and some body that could read a electronics schematic, operate test equipment, diagnose and repair/guide the other trades around. That would be a great job.

 

[fpitas]

I can understand that being a high stress environment for some. After the technical drafting and electronics studies I was sharp as a razor but after some years of diagnosis, calibration and confirmation of repair units I lost my touch for some of that theory. Now I look at it very differently. I look more for blocks of circuitry and chunks as well as individual components. Maybe it's from too much divide and conquer troubleshooting. In recent years I challenged 2 actual apprenticeship exams. Both for first year millwright and instrumentation technician/mechanic exams and passed both. I received a few calls and one from a man in Scotland that was hiring for the future. He wanted mechatronics troubleshooting experience for the big automated trucks and some body that could read a electronics schematic, operate test equipment, diagnose and repair/guide the other trades around. That would be a great job.

I grade with all that in mind. But the fact is, in this area a lot of these guys never knew theory, or even worked with circuitry. They pulled cables and bolted stuff into racks. The test weeds them out fast.

 

[pseudoid]

Going back to the 1980s, our company had required "sexual harassment (and illegal discharge)" courses that all salaried employees had to attend, yearly.
If you are an engineer, then you know how it is. Engineers are said to live in caves and lack any social aptitude.
I once felt like I was being interviewed (the cold sweats and all), while the (software position) candidate was taking great advantage of situation because...ummmm... 'opposing' sexes, sitting across one another.

The reason for my cold-sweats was because those courses had not advanced far enough for inclusivity of LGBTQIA+ training stuff yet.

 

[Doodski]

I grade with all that in mind. But the fact is, in this area a lot of these guys never knew theory, or even worked with circuitry. They pulled cables and bolted stuff into racks. The test weeds them out fast.

Interesting you say that. We had a guy apply from Russia and he was a engineer he said and he came for a test drive for a week and he lasted like till the first coffee break. All he knew was tubes it seemed and he was lost and admitted that. So I think Russian electronics peeps are of course well educated in the stuff but this guy was so confident that he could take on the role. It was fast and painless for all involved. I did apply to a traffic signals corporation and they wanted very strong digital fundamentals and tossed a 1 hour logic theory test on the interview table. I failed miserably...LoL. I figured out pretty fast that we had very different views on electronics from our vantage points.

 

[Doodski]

Going back to the 1980s, our company had required "sexual harassment (and illegal discharge)" courses that all salaried employees had to attend, yearly.
If you are an engineer, then you know how it is. Engineers are said to live in caves and lack any social aptitude.
I once felt like I was being interviewed (the cold sweats and all), while the (software position) candidate was taking great advantage of situation because...ummmm... 'opposing' sexes, sitting across one another.

The reason for my cold-sweats was because those courses had not advanced far enough for inclusivity of LGBTQIA+ training stuff yet.

RFLMAO... I went to a job interview and there was a woman standing behind the interviewer and she was whipping her tongue around and looking at me in a provocative manner and was flirting with me. I got irritated and asked to speak privately with the guy. Anywayyy... he did not seem to be too too surprised and apologized. I left.

 

[pseudoid]

A respected professor used to keep repeating "If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with your bullsh*t!"
I actually carried a pair of yellow bs-protector ear cups into a few contentious meetings... and got away with it!

 

[pseudoid]

How would you answer the question "How do you feel working for a female (opposite sex) supervisor?"
I started mine with "As long as they are competent... but my specialty is to manage electrons." I declined to take the job!

 

[Doodski]

How would you answer the question "How do you feel working for a female (opposite sex) supervisor?"
I started mine with "As long as they are competent... but my specialty is to manage electrons." I declined to take the job!

Yeah, what kind of leading statement is this? It makes one think they have crummy politics or something.

 

[pseudoid]

Some may accuse us of going Off-Topic w/anecdotes but they are relevant to our discipline for up-and-comers.
::don't be a nerd engineer::