Bosque

EET is a joke. Don't do it. We have both at my university, and our labs sit right next to each other. While we 3rd years in the EE department were working on building a control board for a robotics competition from scratch, an EKG, and a bunch of other interesting projects the third years next door were... turning on a light bulb. And very proud of the achievement.

Seriously, I would either just go get a technician certificate from a community college or go be in business if you are not going to be an actually engineer. EET is not worth the time and money.

rheidzan

ETs can do the work your company needs with less pay.

At Cal Poly, CET/CMT have much easier classes and less lab hours/credits.
If any, the Civil Engineering curriculum tends to be harder with more labs.
BTW, the ones designing those high-rise buildings and bridges are engineers, not ETs.A good engineering school should teach and prepare students to be hands-on for the real world period.

Also, depending on what state you're from, it is harder to get EIT and PE w/o traditional engineering degree.

aibarr

FWIW, I hadn't heard of engineering technology degrees until I discovered that with a masters degree, I could be on faculty for several colleges' engineering technology programs. Kind of appealing, considering that I'm not really planning on going for my PhD at the moment, and I really like teaching.

My firm certainly doesn't hire ETs, though.

father05

rheidzan says that "ETs can do the work your company needs with less pay."

I say that ETs can do the work that many, or even most companies need, with marginally less pay (again, here starting pay xET = xE). The fact is there are thousands of jobs where you do not need to be able to design the next generation of PC or whatever from scratch. Most companies are in business to make money - NOW. I think one problem we as a company see with hiring engineers is that they all want to come in and do the grandiose design jobs right off the bat. That's rarely what we need, and when we do, it's not the 2nd year guy that gets it. It's nto what we want either. We're looking for someone who wants to get something and make it work and improve it, if only marginally, real time, not sit in a tower with a design board dreaming up something for 2020. That sort of menial work seems to be below a lot of you (sorry for the broad brush). But there aren't really enought ETs that want to live in the real world to go around, so we wind up with BSxEs that are sometimes disgruntled and want to be the big dog right off the bat because they are forced to take a job to keep from starving doing work they believe to be below them. Then in two or three years after having some marketable hands on experience, they move on, only to find the same thing at the next job.

BTW, my 2 year old isn't proud of turning on a light bulb any more, that must not be much of a school there Bosque. And my HS JR was building basic circuit boards, etc in first year physics last year, so not sure about your ET program there.

aibarr, I know you are a CivE and that certainly requires a lot more individualized design than many other fields, so I am not surprised that your professional firm doesn't have any ETs, although CivETs certainly exist.

DCguy

I'm an ee and before I graduated with a bsee, I had to write a thesis, which took a year to finish. As an eet, a thesis is not required.

rheidzan

I always wonder why we would need CivET. That's just adding to the already-saturated civil engineering field.

Also, who cares if EET would like to be called engineers as well.
Since we call janitor "sanitary engineers", everyone started calling themselves as some kind of engineers.
The word "Engineer" has already lost its value anyway.

aibarr

Rheidzan, the civ market isn't saturated. It may be saturated in smaller localized cases, but by and large, more civil engineers are retiring than are coming into the field, and the vast majority of civs have little to no difficulty finding jobs. If you or someone you know of is having difficulty finding a job in a given locale, they should widen their net a bit, because jobs are definitely out there.

ExplorerCY

et's are people who couldnt make it in engineering.
please, lets not kid ourselves and try to say that ets are better in any way than engineerings. that just isnt true.

father05

4Truth, I'd say you have your answer on this page. Stigma, yes. Looked down upon, yes. At least by the persons frequenting this board.

ExplorerCY, that's like saying engineers, or as you so eloquently put it, engineerings, are just people who couldn't make it in phyics, math, med school, or some other fill in the blank field. I know, you didn't want to do med school or study abstract things like atomic physics. Not everyone wants to spend 30 years working on things like designing more efficient ways of making a fuel cell work, or designing cars or airplanes that might never be built either for the sake of design. Someone's gotta keep the planet running while you try to come up with something to improve it for the next generation, something in which you may or may not succeed, then make what you came up with work in the real world. I don't see why you'd begrudge that.

ExplorerCY

^^^
i'm not saying that et's dont have successful careers, but please don't put them on the same level as engineers.

aibarr

Father05, I agree that there's probably a bit of a stigma against engineering technology majors, but I'm not sure that engineers do as little practical work as you think. The sort of work we do at our firm is pretty complex, and is pretty cutting-edge, but we definitely do hands-on design work here, and it gets built. We go out to the site, we get our hands dirty, we wear boots and hard hats. It's the same in other industries, too. I think that if you polled a group of average, practicing engineers, you'd find that they're all working on a product of one manner or another--one that's going to be designed today, and has as high a likelihood as anything of being actually produced tomorrow. (In my case, the thing I'm working on right now, a hospital, is actually under construction as I'm designing it… Nothing quite so motivating as driving by your construction site at 7 PM on a Saturday evening, enjoying your weekend, and noticing that they've got a full crew out working while you're on your way to see a movie!) So, we as engineers are definitely are keeping the 'real world' turning. There are a lot of research engineers out there who *are* working to build a better mousetrap for future generations, but most of us are turning out the specs for mousetraps that are going to production tomorrow.

I think our main concern for people who are considering engineering technology is that they not turn to it simply because they think they'll get a more hands-on experience as engineering technology majors, because I think the thing that we as practicing engineers see out here in industry is that there are plenty of exciting hands-on experiences to be had, but the best bet for getting your top choice is to go for a high level of academic rigor.

I'd say to go ahead and consider engineering technology, but if you're going to go for a technology degree, please make sure you're doing it for the right reasons. The most frustrating thing I can imagine is to end up underqualified for a host of jobs that sound interesting because you thought you were getting into something that would be the best of both worlds, while really, it's not what you thought it would be. Talk to engineering technologists, talk to *engineers* as well, scout out some jobs that sound interesting to you and ask people in those jobs how they got there. That's probably the surest way to get what you're intending to go for.

...and certainly don't take the Internet's word for it!

father05

aibarr, i defer to your voice of reason. I agree with your points, and I know that engineers will always be more qualified than ETs, just like Drs are more qualifed than physician's assistants and lecturers are not necessarily as qualified as research professors, but they all can perform necessary functions at as high or in some cases even at a higher level than the "pros" they stand in for.

The worst professor I ever had taught a P Chem2 class. The guy was a genius and a heavy hitter in research, a hundred times or more the chemist I'll ever be, but he was the worst lecturer on the planet. I think he thought it was beneath him to teach any undergrad, and he took it out on us. We were his first undergrad class for some reason in like 10 years. We'd have been better off with a fresh PhD or an experienced MS lecturer that wanted to teach. That's my point. Is the MS lecturer more qualified than the research PhD? No, but he could very well be better at it.

ken285

My guesses: drafters, steel detailers, inspectors, etc.

Bosque

I don't think anyone here is seriously arguing that xET's are not a viable option as a degree, or cannot get jobs. Both of those would be increadibly foolish positions to take. You just need to understand going in that you are not getting an xE degree. You will not be doing the same work. Think of it a bit like the difference between NCOs and officers in the military. They are both in charge of managing the grunts, but are still very different. There is nothing wrong with the NCOs, but to call them Officers would be foolish.

Anyway, just keep all that in mind. Good luck.

jasper60103

OK, I read or skimmed over some of the responses and thought I would add my 2 cents.

I'm a EET and worked in electronics field for 20+ years. One thing for sure is the EET will open doors to more hands-on type roles compared to a EE. The EET is a step above an electronic tech (or ET). Usually ETs have bench type troubleshooting jobs, or maintain electronic hardware or equipment. Not that thats a bad thing. As a EET, you'll have opportunites for more engineer type roles. One thing to consider is you may NOT have the opportunity to do electronic/electrical hardware design work. I think thats the main difference I've encountered over my career. My focus has mostly been in test, QA, mfg or other engineering support roles. I've done some s/w development work because I took some additional programming classes. I've also managed a team of engineers and techs. I do have some EET colleagues that are in h/w design, so its not impossible, but just not as common as with EE degree.

So my advice is if you really want to electronics/electrical hardware design work, or broaden your career opportunities, go for the EE degree. It will open up more doors. Also, you can easily advance your degree, i.e. masters in EE or Comp Sci, etc. FYI. My son is a rising HS senior and plans to study EE.

However, you can earn a decent living as a EET and have a rewarding career. Hope this helps someone. Please feel free to PM me if you have further questions.

jasper