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 Lost E&E Engineering Student in soon tobe Industry, Soon to be Fresh Grad

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TSMike.Chang
post Oct 14 2019, 01:15 AM, updated 5y ago

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Hello Education Essentials, I'm currently a Year 3 student progressing well in academic studies with a CGPA of 3.82.
But despite the high CGPA, I'm generally "lost" in what to do with my rest of my life, as there is so "little" academic can offers in this wild fields of Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
As what I'm currently doing in Academic, is just memorize and regurgitate answers scripts, and replicating theory answers in Lab, and I don't feel joy doing all this now.

I was passionate about joining the IC Design industries, at first. But soon learning from lecturers who were from that particular industry, it would be hard for me to join, as I would be joining as a clean slate. As my Private University most likely can't bridge the gap between this field, as we don't offer such Microelectronics Subjects, despite having "Electronics" stated in my degree. Making the matters worst for employment.
Also, hearing from their personal experience, that they left this industry because they didn't find joy over the stressful workloads just to meet deadlines for clients projects, because of high demands from their superiors / clients. Until it became quite unsatisfying to work in.

My personal current struggle is that I don't find Electrical Machines / Power Systems / Control Systems that interesting from the Electrical Side, as it seems like a dangerous jobs.
As it seems like the academic textbook, is just wanting students to regurgitate steps and formula to calculate the solutions.

Furthermore from my 3 years in university, I didn't really build something that personally "wow" myself for my accomplishments in my group projects due to my lack of arduino programming skills, and most of the time the programming is done by my friends, as they are from diploma background and more exposed to programming. And I feel that I am not good enough to what their level of imagination and creativity in designing a system.

The only happy days in University was doing C++ programming on Codeblocks, as I can see what I am doing on my laptop. And troubleshoot why my program didn't work until it runs.
But I don't think what I learn can be actually applicable in the real world, due to the syllabus only restricts my boundaries towards mostly if... else... statements and arrays.
If my other CS friends told me to work with pointers, I have no idea what I'll be doing with it.

Basically I find my university syllabus pretty much is taught halfway, in a sense that alot of students can score well, but students like me can't connect the dots if they actually wanted to specialize in any field.
Or really struggle during industrial training finding what they want to join after graduating.

Also is it me or the lists of companies in Malaysia for EEE are quite vague and sketchy at times. Especially those Jobstreet listing.

This post has been edited by Mike.Chang: Oct 14 2019, 01:19 AM
Murasaki322
post Oct 14 2019, 04:53 PM

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Reading your post is like looking at a reflection of myself. Same as you, I am a performer who is lost and directionless in life. Except that I have been working for more than 1 year. I felt the same as you, that degrees are just memorizing and regurgitating data, then they award you with a piece of paper. The electronics industry is certainly easier to access in Malaysia with abundance of multinational companies especially in Penang. I didn't build anything "wow" either for my final year project. I just wanted to get over my degree because it was getting so repetitive and meaningless. However, I got 3 offers from MNCs before graduation, 2 from Penang and 1 from Bangi. You don't really need very in-depth knowledge to join the workforce as everybody starts the same. You will learn even more on the job and find that your degree is more useless than you think. But without the degree, you won't even be considered for such a position, so there is still some value there. Programming or whatever skills there is, you are at level 3/10 after graduation. But employment requires a level 7/10 to level 10/10 skill. So going in as a fresh graduate, it is basically a steep learning curve to catch up to industry standards. I did not end up getting employed in the electronics industry, but joined the electrical side because of a higher salary. They say do what you like and money will come to you, but to someone like me without any clear direction, I end up chasing money instead and hope that I find my passion on the way.

Anyways, I recommend you to create a LinkedIn profile and start browsing around instead of just looking at jobstreet. It is a professional platform with lots of articles and information other than job postings. Who knows you might stumble upon something that sparks the flame of passion inside you and lead you to a fulfilling career. All the best!
Just Visiting By
post Oct 14 2019, 10:30 PM

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QUOTE(Mike.Chang @ Oct 14 2019, 01:15 AM)
Hello Education Essentials, I'm currently a Year 3 student progressing well in academic studies with a CGPA of 3.82.
But despite the high CGPA, I'm generally "lost" in what to do with my rest of my life, as there is so "little" academic can offers in this wild fields of Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
As what I'm currently doing in Academic, is just memorize and regurgitate answers scripts, and replicating theory answers in Lab, and I don't feel joy doing all this now.

I was passionate about joining the IC Design industries, at first. But soon learning from lecturers who were from that particular industry, it would be hard for me to join, as I would be joining as a clean slate. As my Private University most likely can't bridge the gap between this field, as we don't offer such Microelectronics Subjects, despite having "Electronics" stated in my degree. Making the matters worst for employment.
Also, hearing from their personal experience, that they left this industry because they didn't find joy over the stressful workloads just to meet deadlines for clients projects, because of high demands from their superiors / clients. Until it became quite unsatisfying to work in.

My personal current struggle is that I don't find Electrical Machines / Power Systems / Control Systems that interesting from the Electrical Side, as it seems like a dangerous jobs.
As it seems like the academic textbook, is just wanting students to regurgitate steps and formula to calculate the solutions.

Furthermore from my 3 years in university, I didn't really build something that personally "wow" myself for my accomplishments in my group projects due to my lack of arduino programming skills, and most of the time the programming is done by my friends, as they are from diploma background and more exposed to programming. And I feel that I am not good enough to what their level of imagination and creativity in designing a system.

The only happy days in University was doing C++ programming on Codeblocks, as I can see what I am doing on my laptop. And troubleshoot why my program didn't work until it runs.
But I don't think what I learn can be actually applicable in the real world, due to the syllabus only restricts my boundaries towards mostly if... else... statements and arrays.
If my other CS friends told me to work with pointers, I have no idea what I'll be doing with it.

Basically I find my university syllabus pretty much is taught halfway, in a sense that alot of students can score well, but students like me can't connect the dots if they actually wanted to specialize in any field.
Or really struggle during industrial training finding what they want to join after graduating.

Also is it me or the lists of companies in Malaysia for EEE are quite vague and sketchy at times. Especially those Jobstreet listing.
*
What I detected is a lack of passion towards what you're doing. It's common for people to go for something, thinking an indulgance in what they think is a passion is fulfilling but it turns out everything does not appear as they seem.

If there's a lack of passion towards what you do, you can consider dropping it. You can excel in doing something, you can be the top performer of any exercise as long as you put an effort into it, but to excel doesn't require souls. It requires commitments which a spirit isn't a part of, and that's why robots and machines are slowly replacing humans to do mechanical stuffs which do not require a tad of liveliness to perform and not many people are complaining but in fact embrace with open arms.

So what matters more is that you must find what you do fulfilling. There are E&E engineers who, like what you said, rush all days and nights just to satisfy their clients' demands, but believe me when I say a lot of them actually do find such task rewarding. So if you do not think it rewards but is instead oppressive and depressing, it means you do not like it enough to find joy in it.

So my suggestion is take your time to fathom what you really like. Other than that, there's nothing much anyone else here can offer because ultimately this soul-searching expedition has to be solely yours to undertake.

Regardless of which course you graduate, do bear in mind there's always a very steep, if not impossibly obstructive, curve that one has to overcome to excel. Architects have difficulty adapting the industry's taste to the academics' visualisation. Accountants have to deal with paperwork from people with nary an idea of accounting but mere processing of data and money flow and hence accountants have to analyse the data, while in university every data is given and their only job is to sort the data and that mismatch between university and industry is not restricted to only accounting but all courses like medicine, pharmacy, engineering et cetera, especially when laws and regulations come into play and that's something university does not provide guidance on.

You'll find the same bumpy journey whichever path you go. Just bear in mind you ought to at least pick one which you could find enjoyable.

Good luck.

This post has been edited by Just Visiting By: Oct 14 2019, 10:32 PM
TSMike.Chang
post Oct 15 2019, 08:20 AM

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QUOTE(Just Visiting By @ Oct 14 2019, 10:30 PM)
What I detected is a lack of passion towards what you're doing. It's common for people to go for something, thinking an indulgance in what they think is a passion is fulfilling but it turns out everything does not appear as they seem.

If there's a lack of passion towards what you do, you can consider dropping it. You can excel in doing something, you can be the top performer of any exercise as long as you put an effort into it, but to excel doesn't require souls. It requires commitments which a spirit isn't a part of, and that's why robots and machines are slowly replacing humans to do mechanical stuffs which do not require a tad of liveliness to perform and not many people are complaining but in fact embrace with open arms.

So what matters more is that you must find what you do fulfilling. There are E&E engineers who, like what you said, rush all days and nights just to satisfy their clients' demands, but believe me when I say a lot of them actually do find such task rewarding. So if you do not think it rewards but is instead oppressive and depressing, it means you do not like it enough to find joy in it.

So my suggestion is take your time to fathom what you really like. Other than that, there's nothing much anyone else here can offer because ultimately this soul-searching expedition has to be solely yours to undertake.

Regardless of which course you graduate, do bear in mind there's always a very steep, if not impossibly obstructive, curve that one has to overcome to excel. Architects have difficulty adapting the industry's taste to the academics' visualisation. Accountants have to deal with paperwork from people with nary an idea of accounting but mere processing of data and money flow and hence accountants have to analyse the data, while in university every data is given and their only job is to sort the data and that mismatch between university and industry is not restricted to only accounting but all courses like medicine, pharmacy, engineering et cetera, especially when laws and regulations come into play and that's something university does not provide guidance on.

You'll find the same bumpy journey whichever path you go. Just bear in mind you ought to at least pick one which you could find enjoyable.

Good luck.
*
Exactly, what you are mentioning. Initially passionate but eventually lose over time after experiencing it.

Because of this industrial of EEE is too wide of the scope there are Alor of unseen branches yet to be explored. But not having sufficient time to learn all of it might be my biggest concern.

Furthermore, industry is trying to bond workers on contracts. And with current job market, a lot of them skim out on training because they know people nowadays wanted to jump ship to other companies they know how to walk and fly. And not contribute back to the company
Expert Pundit
post Oct 16 2019, 01:41 PM

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you need to be more positive. Degree is just a first step. You don't have to stick to what you study for your whole life.
TSMike.Chang
post Oct 16 2019, 02:40 PM

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QUOTE(Expert Pundit @ Oct 16 2019, 01:41 PM)
you need to be more positive. Degree is just a first step. You don't have to stick to what you study for your whole life.
*
Just seems waste of my youth ending up age 25 after my convo.
I don't feel like losing anymore time for soul searching anymore.

I need to repay my debts to PTPTN if exemptions doesn't work out.
Expert Pundit
post Oct 16 2019, 02:45 PM

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QUOTE(Mike.Chang @ Oct 16 2019, 02:40 PM)
Just seems waste of my youth ending up age 25 after my convo.
I don't feel like losing anymore time for soul searching anymore.

I need to repay my debts to PTPTN if exemptions doesn't work out.
*
You are still young. There are long way to go. And most importantly, you have plenty of time to catch up those you think are ahead of you.

Just stay calm.
MGM
post Oct 18 2019, 07:47 AM

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Isn't this part of the interesting future which everyone is talking about these days, IR4.0, robotics, exoskeleton, renewable energy, driverless cars, drones, ioT.
Murasaki322
post Oct 18 2019, 08:06 AM

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QUOTE(MGM @ Oct 18 2019, 07:47 AM)
Isn't this part of the interesting future which everyone is talking about these days, IR4.0, robotics, exoskeleton, renewable energy, driverless cars, drones, ioT.
*
The reality in Malaysia is, not many are willing to invest in new technologies like these, especially the older generation who decides the direction of an organization. They prefer sticking to the old way of doing things, granted that profits go into their pockets. Even more so Malaysia is just a land of manufacturing focused on production and sales instead of research and development.
TSMike.Chang
post Oct 18 2019, 08:14 AM

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QUOTE(MGM @ Oct 18 2019, 07:47 AM)
Isn't this part of the interesting future which everyone is talking about these days, IR4.0, robotics, exoskeleton, renewable energy, driverless cars, drones, ioT.
*
It is. For both industry for IT, CS and Engineering.
But then, concepts like these are too new and still in progress of development. Which platform they would continually exists or fail and die. We will never know.

University Syllabus in Malaysia are still stuck in early 2000s era and can't provide insights for what students should need to know.

Students are forced to pick up programming skills for platforms such as Arduino and raspberry pi at their own pace for their projects with little help can be offered by lecturers. (Most of them don't code) So you should understand that it isn't something easy to learn for everyone who struggles to code without external help until someone is fluent with programming themselves.

Main problem still exists that there are plenty of things university can't offer to their students. And industrial efforts to bridge this gap is quite bad. Making things more worst is our current employment job market aren't offering more space for us soon to be fresh grads.
TSMike.Chang
post Oct 18 2019, 08:23 AM

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QUOTE(Murasaki322 @ Oct 18 2019, 08:06 AM)
The reality in Malaysia is, not many are willing to invest in new technologies like these, especially the older generation who decides the direction of an organization. They prefer sticking to the old way of doing things, granted that profits go into their pockets. Even more so Malaysia is just a land of manufacturing focused on production and sales instead of research and development.
*
This is the concerning part for us for fresh graduate.
Where our industry is solely focused on Manufacturing and having too little people to R&D for companies. Internships are also still low paid as RM 500 in an isolated rural area and students can't really sustain themselves. With industrial leaders not being realistic and not keen in employing Fresh Graduates.

With more and more students entering into this job market. How many of them can safely secure a job placement after probation period truly scares me.
Murasaki322
post Oct 24 2019, 11:55 AM

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QUOTE(Mike.Chang @ Oct 18 2019, 08:23 AM)
This is the concerning part for us for fresh graduate.
Where our industry is solely focused on Manufacturing and having too little people to R&D for companies. Internships are also still low paid as RM 500 in an isolated rural area and students can't really sustain themselves. With industrial leaders not being realistic and not keen in employing Fresh Graduates.

With more and more students entering into this job market. How many of them can safely secure a job placement after probation period truly scares me.
*
Moreover the manufacturing plants are built in isolated locations because land is cheap, then they use the excuse of "rural area has low living cost" to hire cheap labour. So once you graduate your E&E Eng, try to get into forward-moving companies with actual development instead of becoming penjaga kilang.
quadcube
post Oct 25 2019, 01:21 AM

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QUOTE(Mike.Chang @ Oct 18 2019, 08:14 AM)
It is. For both industry for IT, CS and Engineering.
But then, concepts like these are too new and still in progress of development. Which platform they would continually exists or fail and die. We will never know.

University Syllabus in Malaysia are still stuck in early 2000s era and can't provide insights for what students should need to know.

Students are forced to pick up programming skills for platforms such as Arduino and raspberry pi at their own pace for their projects with little help can be offered by lecturers. (Most of them don't code) So you should understand that it isn't something easy to learn for everyone who struggles to code without external help until someone is fluent with programming themselves.

Main problem still exists that there are plenty of things university can't offer to their students. And industrial efforts to bridge this gap is quite bad. Making things more worst is our current employment job market aren't offering more space for us soon to be fresh grads.
*
TBH, whether uni can offer/can't offer, it's don't really matter too much. can't expect to be spoon fed forever right?
if uni provides sub-par edu, can't you do anything about it? why limit yourself to the syllabus "boundaries"?
expectation doesn't meet reality?
the fact is, uni is one of the best places that offers the chance to experience a small dose of reality with "safety net". what happens when you screw up a subject? lower GPA, lower CGPA, failing to meet Asian parent expectation? try having a family, loan and screw up your job.
you can be whoever you want to be in uni, you have the freedom not like primary/secondary school. fail as much as possible while you still have "safety net" because in the end, you can't blame anyone for your choices in life, certainly not your parents for not being able to give you better edu oversea, etc.

I did my EEE in IPTA, as you mentioned, shitty syllabus, lecturers, labs, etc. heck, 90% of my classes are in non-aircond with maybe 3 working fan out of 10.
I can complain about everything under the sun until I graduate right, so little effort needed, just whine.

Well, I can whine all I want and it doesn't change a thing.
for example, in order to get the air-conditioned "environment" that I wanted, I had to worked my way up, joined competitions, represented MY at one point, giving 110% for course projects, which of course the main aim was to play the academic politic to have enough credential to start demanding for shit such as 24/7 lab access with split unit AC, equipments, network to run my own server cluster, etc.

course syllabus look boring or probably useless in the "real" world? Take on projects, self-learn EE design and best practices and supply solutions whether to seniors for their FYP, factory owner need automation solutions, etc. I also learned how to deal with PCB, PCBA production and by the time I graduated, >500 ppl worldwide have my design on their desk as their daily driver. Now, learning theories makes a lot of sense, as real world problems require those fundamental knowledge, e.g. filters, Fourier, EM, HV, etc.

of course, not everything is cherry and roses, I made compromises (having friend/junior do my homework, screw up my grades, etc.), bad decisions (fk up so badly that my lecturers were worried that I would jump off the roof LOL) but hey, I made my choices whenever I can, and I'll also live up to the consequences (berani buat berani tanggung). You can afford to make so much bad choices/fail in uni and in the end, you will still graduate. heck, most of those failures doesn't really affect your employability in general, but compared to your average peers, the experiences gained is much richer than wake up, go to class, come home play computer games, sleep and graduate.

take responsibility of your own damn future and stop following the "flow" naively (get good grade so you can get into good uni -> get good CGPA so you can get good job -> graduate and hit the reality wall? Doesn't it sound familiar?)
if u expect changes in MY uni education, show tangible results and lecturers will start noticing the differences and make changes to their syllabus. Of course, you might also earn "asshole senior" title for making the syllabus "harder"

This post has been edited by quadcube: Oct 25 2019, 01:29 AM
MGM
post Oct 26 2019, 01:20 PM

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QUOTE(quadcube @ Oct 25 2019, 01:21 AM)
TBH, whether uni can offer/can't offer, it's don't really matter too much. can't expect to be spoon fed forever right?
if uni provides sub-par edu, can't you do anything about it? why limit yourself to the syllabus "boundaries"?
expectation doesn't meet reality?
the fact is, uni is one of the best places that offers the chance to experience a small dose of reality with "safety net". what happens when you screw up a subject? lower GPA, lower CGPA, failing to meet Asian parent expectation? try having a family, loan and screw up your job.
you can be whoever you want to be in uni, you have the freedom not like primary/secondary school. fail as much as possible while you still have "safety net" because in the end, you can't blame anyone for your choices in life, certainly not your parents for not being able to give you better edu oversea, etc.

I did my EEE in IPTA, as you mentioned, shitty syllabus, lecturers, labs, etc. heck, 90% of my classes are in non-aircond with maybe 3 working fan out of 10.
I can complain about everything under the sun until I graduate right, so little effort needed, just whine.

Well, I can whine all I want and it doesn't change a thing.
for example, in order to get the air-conditioned "environment" that I wanted, I had to worked my way up, joined competitions, represented MY at one point, giving 110% for course projects, which of course the main aim was to play the academic politic to have enough credential to start demanding for shit such as 24/7 lab access with split unit AC, equipments, network to run my own server cluster, etc.

course syllabus look boring or probably useless in the "real" world? Take on projects, self-learn EE design and best practices and supply solutions whether to seniors for their FYP, factory owner need automation solutions, etc. I also learned how to deal with PCB, PCBA production and by the time I graduated, >500 ppl worldwide have my design on their desk as their daily driver. Now, learning theories makes a lot of sense, as real world problems require those fundamental knowledge, e.g. filters, Fourier, EM, HV, etc.

of course, not everything is cherry and roses, I made compromises (having friend/junior do my homework, screw up my grades, etc.), bad decisions (fk up so badly that my lecturers were worried that I would jump off the roof LOL) but hey, I made my choices whenever I can, and I'll also live up to the consequences (berani buat berani tanggung). You can afford to make so much bad choices/fail in uni and in the end, you will still graduate. heck, most of those failures doesn't really affect your employability in general, but compared to your average peers, the experiences gained is much richer than wake up, go to class, come home play computer games, sleep and graduate.

take responsibility of your own damn future and stop following the "flow" naively (get good grade so you can get into good uni -> get good CGPA so you can get good job -> graduate and hit the reality wall? Doesn't it sound familiar?)
if u expect changes in MY uni education, show tangible results and lecturers will start noticing the differences and make changes to their syllabus. Of course, you might also earn "asshole senior" title for making the syllabus "harder"
*
Didn't know that our IPTA is that bad. Is it one of our top 5, UM/UTM/USM/UPM/UKM?
Recent ranking with UM at no.15 and UTM at 40:
https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019...for-engineering
TSMike.Chang
post Oct 26 2019, 09:50 PM

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QUOTE(quadcube @ Oct 25 2019, 01:21 AM)
TBH, whether uni can offer/can't offer, it's don't really matter too much. can't expect to be spoon fed forever right?
if uni provides sub-par edu, can't you do anything about it? why limit yourself to the syllabus "boundaries"?
expectation doesn't meet reality?
the fact is, uni is one of the best places that offers the chance to experience a small dose of reality with "safety net". what happens when you screw up a subject? lower GPA, lower CGPA, failing to meet Asian parent expectation? try having a family, loan and screw up your job.
you can be whoever you want to be in uni, you have the freedom not like primary/secondary school. fail as much as possible while you still have "safety net" because in the end, you can't blame anyone for your choices in life, certainly not your parents for not being able to give you better edu oversea, etc.

I did my EEE in IPTA,
as you mentioned, shitty syllabus, lecturers, labs, etc. heck, 90% of my classes are in non-aircond with maybe 3 working fan out of 10.
I can complain about everything under the sun until I graduate right, so little effort needed, just whine.

Well, I can whine all I want and it doesn't change a thing.
for example, in order to get the air-conditioned "environment" that I wanted, I had to worked my way up, joined competitions, represented MY at one point, giving 110% for course projects, which of course the main aim was to play the academic politic to have enough credential to start demanding for shit such as 24/7 lab access with split unit AC, equipments, network to run my own server cluster, etc.

course syllabus look boring or probably useless in the "real" world? Take on projects, self-learn EE design and best practices and supply solutions whether to seniors for their FYP, factory owner need automation solutions, etc. I also learned how to deal with PCB, PCBA production and by the time I graduated, >500 ppl worldwide have my design on their desk as their daily driver. Now, learning theories makes a lot of sense, as real world problems require those fundamental knowledge, e.g. filters, Fourier, EM, HV, etc.

of course, not everything is cherry and roses, I made compromises (having friend/junior do my homework, screw up my grades, etc.), bad decisions (fk up so badly that my lecturers were worried that I would jump off the roof LOL) but hey, I made my choices whenever I can, and I'll also live up to the consequences (berani buat berani tanggung). You can afford to make so much bad choices/fail in uni and in the end, you will still graduate. heck, most of those failures doesn't really affect your employability in general, but compared to your average peers, the experiences gained is much richer than wake up, go to class, come home play computer games, sleep and graduate.

take responsibility of your own damn future and stop following the "flow" naively (get good grade so you can get into good uni -> get good CGPA so you can get good job -> graduate and hit the reality wall? Doesn't it sound familiar?)
if u expect changes in MY uni education, show tangible results and lecturers will start noticing the differences and make changes to their syllabus. Of course, you might also earn "asshole senior" title for making the syllabus "harder"
*
For me I'm in IPTS, some what minimum barebones labs one.
Well, to challenge myself with my friends I think competitions are the way to go, just that really, hardly know where to start , without a proper way to get informed by advertising [that's always a problem for us].

We been looking for suitable challenges and deadlines to fit our schedule since Year 2 to Year 3 now.
But so far I would say all the timing we are looking for, aren't the best schedule, also not many actual lecturers want to handle us la. sweat.gif
We so far only found out Maxis/Keysights IoT Challenge, (which was way out of our league in terms of programming and database collection skills with the provided platforms for us to use), RoboCon Malaysia (too expensive faculty won't pitch in). Resources, Knowledge and Budget is really a constraint on our side.

For me, I personally really lost on actually what industry I actually wanted to join.
I am no idea what I'm interested, and not interested, aside from syllabus level.
Especially in what this industry in Malaysia actually offers to us Malaysians.
And hearing from feedback from my seniors, they said mostly focused on Manufacturing rather investing in R&D.
Giving me an impression of "High Paid Technician" rather than an Engineer that actually innovates.

Well, hopefully I can start to see things through, and try to take control on what areas to explore in EEE.
Do tell me what fields you are currently working with. And mind giving me a better idea of this industry.
Or what useful programming language, that I should take a challenge on?

Also, for me, I've picked the private university because they accepted me for my bad Pre-U grades, I've lost my scholarship after few semesters after some personal and financial related issues, and forced to work my way up again in Engineering in a mid range IPTA university.

I'm taking responsibilities in my grades, hence seeing my results mostly paid off. Most of my semesters are A A- with my full efforts trying to understand what's actually happening in class.
I personally don't want to afford anymore failures, as I really wanted to aim for that PTPTN Exemption to pay off my tuition fees bills and not hold accountable to debt once graduated. To lighten my parents and my own shoulders.
But I've nearly relapsed into my personal issues during my Year 2, and struggled with problematic soul-less lecturers in a particular semester, which that semester I received a massive drop to nearly failing a lecturer subject that semester, while getting moderates Bs for the other two subjects.

Abit derailed there, but not knowing what's the next step really just worries me.
There's always risks in every action we takes. Just that I'm trying my best not to fall and drown myself, while getting hurt and learn in the process.
empire23
post Oct 29 2019, 08:21 AM

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QUOTE(Mike.Chang @ Oct 14 2019, 01:15 AM)
Hello Education Essentials, I'm currently a Year 3 student progressing well in academic studies with a CGPA of 3.82.
But despite the high CGPA, I'm generally "lost" in what to do with my rest of my life, as there is so "little" academic can offers in this wild fields of Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
As what I'm currently doing in Academic, is just memorize and regurgitate answers scripts, and replicating theory answers in Lab, and I don't feel joy doing all this now.

I was passionate about joining the IC Design industries, at first. But soon learning from lecturers who were from that particular industry, it would be hard for me to join, as I would be joining as a clean slate. As my Private University most likely can't bridge the gap between this field, as we don't offer such Microelectronics Subjects, despite having "Electronics" stated in my degree. Making the matters worst for employment.
Also, hearing from their personal experience, that they left this industry because they didn't find joy over the stressful workloads just to meet deadlines for clients projects, because of high demands from their superiors / clients. Until it became quite unsatisfying to work in.

My personal current struggle is that I don't find Electrical Machines / Power Systems / Control Systems that interesting from the Electrical Side, as it seems like a dangerous jobs.
As it seems like the academic textbook, is just wanting students to regurgitate steps and formula to calculate the solutions.

Furthermore from my 3 years in university, I didn't really build something that personally "wow" myself for my accomplishments in my group projects due to my lack of arduino programming skills, and most of the time the programming is done by my friends, as they are from diploma background and more exposed to programming. And I feel that I am not good enough to what their level of imagination and creativity in designing a system.

The only happy days in University was doing C++ programming on Codeblocks, as I can see what I am doing on my laptop. And troubleshoot why my program didn't work until it runs.
But I don't think what I learn can be actually applicable in the real world, due to the syllabus only restricts my boundaries towards mostly if... else... statements and arrays.
If my other CS friends told me to work with pointers, I have no idea what I'll be doing with it.

Basically I find my university syllabus pretty much is taught halfway, in a sense that alot of students can score well, but students like me can't connect the dots if they actually wanted to specialize in any field.
Or really struggle during industrial training finding what they want to join after graduating.

Also is it me or the lists of companies in Malaysia for EEE are quite vague and sketchy at times. Especially those Jobstreet listing.
*
Protip 1: Nothing you learn in uni will be particularly useful. It's merely there to provide a foundation from which you can recall the fundamental principles for which you can build up your skill. Uni gives you the dots, experience gives you the lines to join those dots.

Protip 2: Passion is pointless. It's older brother, consistency is a far better guide. My honest passion is sitting at home watching Netflix and playing video games. Doesn't make it viable though.

Protip 3: A high CGPA is meaningless without the ability to rationalize what you've learned to real life. For example what's the point of knowing Ohm's law if you can't figure out why we use high voltage instead of current. Remember that engineering at it's core is a practical application of science, thus the trick is to apply it. Eg; Try building a discrete power supply with no ICs with negative feedback loops and with a PSRR of 60 dB or more?

Protip 4: If you're not a totally incompetent nimrod who can't follow instructions, power systems, electrical machines and control systems are extremely safe. My mantra is "If you wouldn't put you cock there, don't put your hand there", plus as these are specialized and considered "heavy" areas, the pay is pretty darn good.

So just because you find it uninteresting it doesn't mean you should stop. Just finish and plot your next plan. Adulthood is about sucking it up and doing shit you don't like lah.

IvanWong1989
post Nov 9 2019, 02:18 AM

!StringTheory!
*******
Senior Member
4,191 posts

Joined: Jul 2009
From: Ipoh



QUOTE(empire23 @ Oct 29 2019, 08:21 AM)
Protip 1: Nothing you learn in uni will be particularly useful. It's merely there to provide a foundation from which you can recall the fundamental principles for which you can build up your skill. Uni gives you the dots, experience gives you the lines to join those dots.

Protip 2: Passion is pointless. It's older brother, consistency is a far better guide. My honest passion is sitting at home watching Netflix and playing video games. Doesn't make it viable though.

Protip 3: A high CGPA is meaningless without the ability to rationalize what you've learned to real life. For example what's the point of knowing Ohm's law if you can't figure out why we use high voltage instead of current. Remember that engineering at it's core is a practical application of science, thus the trick is to apply it. Eg; Try building a discrete power supply with no ICs with negative feedback loops and with a PSRR of 60 dB or more?

Protip 4: If you're not a totally incompetent nimrod who can't follow instructions, power systems, electrical machines and control systems are extremely safe. My mantra is "If you wouldn't put you cock there, don't put your hand there", plus as these are specialized and considered "heavy" areas, the pay is pretty darn good.

So just because you find it uninteresting it doesn't mean you should stop. Just finish and plot your next plan. Adulthood is about sucking it up and doing shit you don't like lah.
*
This. +1.

To TS n others out there that are still lost. Brace yourself because you'll be in for a ride later in your working years. =)

1. My background, Mechatronics. End up, Firmware Engineer.
2. During uni time, did robotics n ai. Now, write software for walkie talkies
3. Thought programming my passion. Now, still my passion but I would certainly prefer more Netflix, game n sleep everyday. XD

In summary, some could realize their inner expectations, some wouldn't be able to. This is life n reality.

Some tips for ts n others to prepare you for post-uni life.
1. Whatever u study, your job is not to remember the details of the content. Your job is to understand how to pickup the knowledge, how to ask when u have to, n how to find your way around acquiring new information. Learn to fish.
2. Do not be shy in asking questions. But also do your homework before you ask. A little homework goes a long way in improving people's impression of you. Example: don't just say "I see this problem. Here's the debug log". It's better to do "I see this problem, I've taken a b c steps to figure out..I think it's this root cause. But I would like to have a second opinion'
3. Whereever you work, if you think your current place is bad, just remember when you jump, the new place might just be worse. Point being, every career have it's quirks. Good n bad. Both
4. Do not get stuck too long in a field that you don't enjoy, as changing fields aren't that easy. You may have heard of that product engineer cousin of yours changed to become a software engineer. But how many that tried to but failed. Not saying impossible, it'll just take time n luck to change.
5. You may not like people networking, I may not like people networking . But life isn't an Island. Just don't burn bridges. I've seen too many instances of colleagues leaving n somehow ended back up with same boss years later, n not from own choice.
6. And lastly.... Do not compare with other people. There WILL always be richer people, having an easier time at work, smarter, luckier, etc. Compare with your own yardstick.

 

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