electrical vs electronics engineering

electro89

Hey!, could someone please explain the differences between electrical and electronics engineering for me?

Michael Collins

No problem.

Speaking in general terms, Electronic Engineering is concerned with information transfer & processing, that is, harnessing electron movement in order to transfer or process information. The applications of this are extremely broad. Think computer hardware, how to design the microchip that is used in a CPU for example. A deep knowledge of transistors, and how to use them for signal processing is also important. In general you work with small voltages & small currents. But it's more than that alone, as an Electronic Engineer you will also deal with high level ideas like computer programming, communication theory, electromagnetic theory (how radio waves propagate through space etc)

Electrical Engineering on the other hand, is concerned with power transfer. Think ESB, and power transmission systems. That is, harnessing the electron to transfer power. You generally deal with large voltages and large currents. As an Electrical Engineer you will work with large generators and motors. An understanding of Electromagtics is also important for this. And then there are the higher level, more abstract parts to it such as Control Theory, where you control a power grid for example, in order to meet the power requirements exactly and not waste energy.

Again, this is a general view. There's a large amount of overlap between the two. Ideas like circuit theory (how to analyse circuits) and Control Theory that i meanted above, are common to both. Anyway that's the two broad catagories. Let me know if you want more info on any part.

Colin Mac

Same thing. Electronic engineering is a branch of electrical engineering.