I'm in New Zealand.
Is practical work a requirement for the US EE degree?

I gained a BE (Electrical) in 1973 (+ACE-) (and an ME on a second pass
some years later) and a requirement for the BE was I think 400 hours
(maybe more) in +ACI-electrical practical work in an approved
establishment+ACI-. There was also a lesser requirement for a small
mechanical component. I was a +ACI-bursar+ACI- for the New Zealand Post
Office who provided a wide range of practical experience. In my case
I learned to strip wire with my teeth at an early age and decided to
stop doing it sometime during my BE degree :-)) - teeth cost far more
than wire strippers. I also started playing with electrical stuff of
sorts at about age 10  AFAIR. Having a practical electrically based
childhood is probably a good way to combine the practical aspects
with the theoretical material picked up in an EE degree. University
taught me some practical stuff but having a food grounding already
was a major gain.

>From childhood/teenage years I recall with various fondness such
things as hand cranked telephone generators, old valve radio sets
scavenged for parts, OC640 transistors (my 1st one cost 1 pound
second hand - about +ACQ-2US now and probably about +ACQ-US20 plus then+ACE-)
(pre OC70/71 AFAIR), 1 transistor broadcast band transmitters (using
an AC126 +ACI-audio+ACI- transistor as I recall) discovering amateur radio
and more.


From: Craig Lee +ADw-clee+AEA-ATTCANADA.NET+AD4-
+AD4-I've found that engineers imported from other parts of the globe
like
+AD4-Malaysia,
+AD4-Germany, Russia, U.K, Australia, New Zealand, etc., seem to have the
proper
+AD4-theoretical background, and can also compete on the practical level.
+AD4-
+AD4-So what is our educational system doing wrong, and what are
non-North
+AD4-American
+AD4-educators doing right?


It MAY be that there is a correlation between those who decide to
travel and those who are most practically orientated.

Now, flame suit on. No insult intended here -

In another but related area. My wife has a BSc in zoology and at one
stage ran a small agricultural agronomy lab team as a technician. She
noted that fairly consistently the people with technician training
(NZ certificate in Science here) were less flexible at performing new
work and took much longer to do useful work when a new job was
assigned than those with BSc training).

I realise that that is a large generalization and I'm not trying to
propose on this basis that a university degree is superior per se. It
may be that in our (NZ) case it at that stage reflected the abilities
of the people who undertake the particular types of study. Tech
institutes were very practically orientated and often this path
allowed you to get income sooner than with a university degree.






regards

        Russell McMahon