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Postbaccalaureate Certificate in

Electrical Engineering

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, The University of Toledo

Dr. Peter Idowu's research interests include hardware-based microgrid test beds, MAS control of microgrids, induction motor current signature analysis, adaptive stabilizers for multimachine power systems, and power engineering education. Dr. Idowu teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in power systems analysis and operation and control of power systems. He manages the PPL Electric Utilities Power Lab research facility at Penn State Harrisburg.

Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo

M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo

B.Sc. E. E., Northern University (Now University of Tarapaca), Arica, Chile

Thesis: "Discriminator for Telemetry"

Dr. Aldo Morales' research interests include signal integrity, FPGA implementation for high-speed applications, communications, digital signal, image and video processing, wavelets, mathematical morphology and nonlinear signal processing, and neural networks. He teaches courses in digital signal processing, topics in digital signal processing, random variables and stochastic processes, wavelets, signal and systems, neural networks (undergraduate), and communications.

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Dr. Victor P. Pasko's research interests include atmospheric electrodynamics, atmospheric acoustic-gravity waves, gas discharge phenomena, computational plasma physics, and electromagnetics. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of engineering electromagnetics, plasmas, and plasma-assisted materials processing. From 2005 to 2008, Dr. Pasko served as chair of Atmospheric and Space Electricity Focus Group of American Geophysical Union. He served as a chair of U.S. Commission of International Union of Radio Science from 2011 to 2014.

Ready to Learn More?

Get the resources you need to make informed decisions about your education. Request information on this program and other programs of interest by completing this form.

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Faculty - Electrical Engineering Graduate Certificate Online - Penn State World Campus

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Postbaccalaureate Certificate in Electrical Engineering Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, The University of Toledo Dr. Peter Idowu's research interests include hardware-based microgrid test beds, MAS control of microgrids, induction motor current signature analysis, adaptive stabilizers for multimachine power systems, and power engineering education.

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The Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering is designed to provide a solid background in electrical engineering sciences. It also provides an opportunity for students to pursue interests in electrical and electronic circuits, including digital circuits and VLSI and its fabrication, microprocessors and their applications, electromagnetics, communications, control systems, and digital image processing and computer vision. Through a senior capstone design project, the curriculum emphasizes written as well as verbal communication and a teamwork approach among students to attain a common goal.

Areas of Concentration

Communications, Microwave, & Wireless Systems

Control Systems and Robotics

Electronics and Signal Processing

Microprocessors, Computer Networking, & Computer Engineering

Power systems

VLSI

Accreditation and Licensure

This program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, www.abet.org. Visit ABET for more information on accreditation, including the reasons that an ABET-accredited program is the right choice for the engineering professional.

Electrical Engineering graduates are encouraged to continue their professional development by taking the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination at the end of their senior year; the FE exam is a prerequisite for taking the Professional Engineering Examination.

Study Abroad

Students have the opportunity to study in Madrid, Spain, or Darmstadt, Germany, with all of their grades from abroad counting toward their Penn State cumulative GPA. See the Study Abroad program details for complete information.

Documents

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The Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering is designed to provide a solid background in electrical engineering sciences. It also provides an opportunity for students to pursue interests in electrical and electronic circuits, including digital circuits and VLSI and its fabrication, microprocessors and their applications, electromagnetics, communications, control systems, and digital image processing and computer vision.

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Engineering Programs Online - Penn State World Campus

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Distinguish yourself with a respected and recognized engineering master's degree or graduate certificate from Penn State World Campus.

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The History of Electrical Engineering: Crash Course Engineering #4

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I have had many good music students over the years become engineers (or doctors).

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Drexel University College of Engineering

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Conventional wisdom used to treat science and the creative arts like feuding cousins; the more they were separated, the better. But College of Engineering students have a habit of rejecting dated paradigms like this one. Nearly 100 engineers across every CoE department participated with Westphal College of Media Arts & Design in 11 musical concerts this holiday season.

CoE students fill the ranks of the University Chorus and Jazztet; the Gospel Choir and the Pep Band; the All-College Choir and the Chamber Music/Strings ensemble, and others. They perform music ranging from the Chichester Psalms to “Hey Jude” to a Brahms piano piece that was completed in 1854 when the composer was no older than they are now. To these students, college isn’t just about engineering and it isn’t just about music; it’s about combining passions so the strengths of one field augments another.

“My observation has always been that engineering majors appreciate the sheer aesthetics and power of art, but also have an inherent awareness and curiosity for the science behind it,” said Luke Abruzzo, music program director and associate teaching professor of music at Westphal.

To prove the point, the three engineering students articulate below how their experiences as long-time musicians enhance their engineering work. Whether analyzing the structure of a Prokofiev film score or tackling the principles of combustion, they rock the idea that creativity and a technical mindset are better together.

Nicholas Tornetta

Senior; BS, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics (MEM)

It is safe to assume that Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant would appreciate the creativity that pairs a piano, trumpets, and a tuba for a new arrangement of the band’s rock anthem “Kashmir,” one of the pieces MEM undergrad Nicholas Tornetta played this season. In a nod to Plant’s distinctive voice, there were no vocalists: lyrics were spoken during the song’s performance with Drexel’s Mediterranean Ensemble.

Nicholas Tornetta

A guitarist and pianist, Tornetta has been playing with the Ensemble for just one term, although he already has four terms with the Rock Ensemble under his belt. That is nothing compared to all the years he’s been a musician. His father required all the siblings to learn piano at a young age, Tornetta said; later, they could choose to do with it what they wanted.

What he wanted was to combine a love of music with the pursuit of engineering. It was a natural for Tornetta, who sees proportions and ratios and tonal relations as phenomena the two fields have in common. For example, he explained that Bartók is reputed to have followed the Fibonacci number sequence when composing his “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta” in the mid-1930s. The layering of instruments, he said, mimics the way integers build in the series, proving that Bartók’s approach was as technically inspired as it was creative.

For his own Vibrations Final Project for MEM423, Tornetta modeled a string instrument in MATLAB based on a Gibson ES-335 guitar, and applied different modes of vibration based on the input force of one plucked string.

“I think music makes me a little bit more creative in engineering,” Tornetta said. “A lot of times when I think of ideas, I try to prove them wrong. When I approach a piece of music, I think, where am I struggling, how can I do it differently? Then everything starts to come together and I put my own style to it. I feel like I apply that in my engineering studies, too.

“It’ just interesting how music, engineering, math, and architecture are pretty much the same,” he added. “They’re derived from similar topics and ideas – it’s a lot of patterns and numerical theories. Engineering takes super close attention to detail, but when you apply that to music, you can get stuck; you lose the overall feeling of the thing.

“Studying the two of them together,” Tornetta concluded, “creates balance.”

Mark Odorizzi

Senior, BS/MS, Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering (CAEE)

“Music seeps into every aspect of my life, molding the ways I think about problems, approach difficult tasks, and handle stressful situations.” That is not a recent quote. Odorizzi wrote it for a paper produced four years ago in a freshman writing class. That it remains as true now for the architectural and civil engineer is proof of Odorizzi’s commitment to both the analytical and the creative sides of his brain.

Mark Odorizzi rehearsing

Odorizzi has been a pianist since second grade. Today, he is an advanced performer. Classically trained, Odorizzi also enjoys the “freedom” of more contemporary pieces. Along with the Chamber Music/Strings ensemble here at Drexel, he plays piano each Sunday at the St. Agatha and St. James Parish in West Philadelphia because he enjoys volunteering his musical ability where it’s needed and because he likes working in a choir setting.

One of his most difficult musical challenges came when a friend majoring in biology who plays the cello handed him the sheet music for the “Brahms Piano Trio.” The challenge of the piece and the timeframe in which Odorizzi had to learn it provides a perfect example of how problem sets in music and engineering inform each other.

“The best skill set that carries over between being a musician and an engineer is the persistence in your work ethic, whether it’s one of my structural engineering problems that takes me eight hours to finish or working to prepare my senior design presentation,” said Odorizzi, who also serves as the president of the Drexel Chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society. “To gather my presentation I need to rehearse repeatedly with my design group, just as I would with any musical piece.

“The Brahms piece had the same initial shock as when I look at engineering problems that take me eight hours to do. The technicality can be just as tough for both of them. But there’s that mindset I learned in music of, okay, it’s going to take me awhile but I will achieve the end goal.”

Currently, Odorizzi is working on four pieces. He is also preparing to accompany a friend from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics (MEM) on a Saint-Saens violin concerto audition in January.

“People who have played instruments have a deeply instilled persistence and a drive that helps them tackle the really challenging engineering coursework,” Odorizzi said. “I have a million things on my mind at once. The piano keeps me grounded.”

Andrea Ruether

Freshman; BS, Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)

Ruether plays the Baritone saxophone, also called the bari sax. It is one of the largest members of the sax family. It’s a lower-pitch of the normal sax. It’s not very common. And it’s not necessarily an enjoyable instrument for most musicians.

Andrea Ruether

“That’s one of the things that drew me to it,” said Ruether, a musician since sixth grade. “It plays more of the undertones of songs, the support, which is something I love to do because I think that’s the backbone of music. I like just building the chords. When you’re listening to music, you’re not just hearing the melody. You’re hearing everything, and it creates such a tone and depth to the music.”

Ruether played the bari sax in a recent Concert Band performance of Eric Sessler’s classic piece, “Beyond the Earth,” which has just one movement. Ruether played continuously through it.

To Ruether, the parallels between music and engineering lie in patterns: teasing them out, picking through them to find out what’s important and what’s less worthy of her energy, putting them back together into a unified piece or project.

“I think one of the first things anyone does when approaching a problem is determining what the problem is. You have to run through it, whether it’s music or course work,” said Ruether, who just completed a term-long project on miniature cars powered by supercapacitors. “With the cars, you test them and look for problems; and with music, you also run through it and look for problems. You slowly come to a final result where you have created your own product.”

Time-management skills are honed through both music and engineering work, she said, as well as preparation. Ruether would be no more likely to show up to an engineering class unprepared than she would to Concert Band, which practices twice a week during term.

“They both teach you how to use your time well,” she said, “and even though it’s a lot, you still feel pride for what you’ve done.”

In This Article

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Music and Engineering, A Pitch Perfect Combo - Drexel University College of Engineering

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Conventional wisdom used to treat science and the creative arts like feuding cousins; the more they were separated, the better. But College of Engineering students have a habit of rejecting dated paradigms like this one. Nearly 100 engineers across every CoE department participated with Westphal Col…

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The U.S. DOE this week announced the world's first exascale computer known as Frontier, powered by AMD chips and clocking in at 1.1 exaflops, making it the first to break the exascale barrier.

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The U.S. DOE this week announced the world's first exascale computer known as Frontier, powered by AMD chips and clocking in at 1.1 exaflops, making it the first to break the exascale barrier.

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Faculty

Sedig S. Agili, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Associate Program Chair, Electrical Engineering & Electrical Engineering Technology

Co-Director, Center for Signal Integrity

Omid Ansary, Ph.D.

Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Administration, Chancellor's Office

Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Rafic A. Bachnak, Ph.D., P.E.

Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Professor-in-Charge, Master in Engineering Management

Professor-in-Charge, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering

Wolfram Bettermann, Ph.D.

Associate Teaching Professor of Physics, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Science & Tech Building, 123A TL

Steven Carabello, Ph.D.

Associate Teaching Professor of Physics, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Science & Tech Building, 126TL

Nashwa Elaraby, Ph.D.

Associate Teaching Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

George Michael Gehring, Ph.D.

Assistant Teaching Professor of Physics, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Science & Technology Building, 126TL

Robert Gray, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Professor-in-Charge, Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering, World Campus

Peter B. Idowu, Ph.D., P.E.

Assistant Dean for Graduate Studies, Graduate Studies

Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering and Technology

Kiana Karami, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Aldo W. Morales, Ph.D.

Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Co-Director, Center for Signal Integrity

Xinwei Niu, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

AB Shafaye, M.S.

Associate Teaching Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Program Chair, Electrical Engineering & Electrical Engineering Technology

ABET Coordinator, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Internship Coordinator, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

Seth Wolpert, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, School of Science, Engineering, and Technology

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Electrical Engineering & Electrical Engineering Technology

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Associate Program Chair, Electrical Engineering & Electrical Engineering Technology

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Is Electrical Engineering a good degree?

A degree in electrical engineering is a great choice for those passionate about science, technology and mathematics. There are numerous benefits when you choose to work in this field. Some benefits include competitive pay, the chance to work in a variety of industries and being on the forefront of today's innovations, while working alongside mechanical engineers and computer engineers. In addition to those, you will also be well prepared for employment in a wide range of companies and research labs. If you are wondering, " What is mechanical engineering?" or " What is computer engineering and how will I work alongside other specialized professionals as an electrical engineer?", we have your answers! Learn more about the mechanical and computer engineering individual responsibilities to better understand the scope of these industry professions.
What courses will I take?
With this degree, you will learn important analytical, technical and engineering skills through course such as:

Calculus

Differential equations & linear algebra

Computer science

Python

Classical physics

Modern physics

Basic electronics

Engineering design

Technical writing

Professional ethics

Engineering finance

Embedded processors

Electrical simulations

Applied statistics

Digital logic

Circuit analysis

Computer systems

Electromechanics

Analog and digital signals

Motors and actuators

Power electronics

Solid state physics

Electronic controls

Independent projects

With expert faculty by your side, courses like calculus, engineering design, circuit analysis and more will help you develop core competencies pertaining to electrical components and a variety of specializations. An electrical engineering program like this will also help you strengthen your problem-solving skills, internal and external communications and critical thinking skills. These competencies and skills will be valuable for your career and everyday life, preparing you to enter the electrical engineering field with confidence.

What kind of jobs do electrical engineers do?

Today, there are countless industries that rely on electronic components and machines, making the profession of electrical engineering very promising for the future. As a result, electrical engineers can find work in a variety of industries such as:

Aerospace

Automotive

Engineering services

Manufacturing

Telecommunications

The federal government

Research and development

Utilities and construction

In these fields, there are a multitude of roles electrical engineers can choose to be. Below you can find some of them, along with information detailing what they do.

With an electrical engineering degree, you can apply to be:

Research Engineer: Here you can work in a lab, testing and inventing. These engineers are responsible for discovery-stage technology behind any new electronic product.

Design Engineer: A design engineer visualizes how the future product will look, thinking of possible scenarios for the application of new technology and chooses the best one.

Project Engineer: The project engineer oversees others when working on a new product or technology. Having a high proficiency in multiple electrical engineering disciplines, as well as strong leadership skills is key. Internal and external communications are also critical to this role.

Test Engineer: These engineers keep technology working properly, making sure nothing goes wrong. In the case that something goes wrong, they are there to troubleshoot.

System Engineer: The skills of a system engineer help with proper installation and maintenance of the systems created.

Application Engineer: Using whatever resources are available to them, application engineers adapt existing equipment and technologies to fulfill the needs of their employers.

What is the general work environment like?
As stated previously, electrical engineers can find themselves in a number of industries from research and development to the federal government. For many jobs, electrical engineers tend to work indoors in offices. However, at times they also may visit sites to assist with any electric power outages or oversee equipment.

What do electrical engineers make?

In terms of pay, electrical engineers make a relatively high salary. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for electrical engineers was $99,070 in May 2018. The lowest 10 percent earned around $61,000, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $153,240. Like most degrees, your pay depends on what kind of work experience you have. As most can guess, the more practical experience you have, the higher the chance you have to make more in electrical engineering jobs. Digging deeper, PayScale breaks it down, providing the pay versus experience level for electrical engineers.

An entry-level electrical engineer with less than one year of hands-on experience can expect to earn an average total compensation (includes tips, bonus, and overtime pay) of $65,813 based on 2,946 salaries.

An early career electrical engineer with one to four years of experience earns an average total compensation of $70,804 based on 9,741 salaries.

A mid-career electrical engineer with 5 to 9 years of experience earns an average total compensation of $83,395 based on 4,601 salaries.

An experienced electrical engineer with 10-19 years of experience earns an average total compensation of $97,043 based on 2,743 salaries. In their late career (20 years and higher), employees earn an average total compensation of $108,270.

PayScale also provides the median annual wages in May 2018 for electrical engineers in the top industries in which they worked:

Research and development in the physical, engineering, and life sciences: $108,130

Navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing: 100,630

Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing: 99,810

Electric power generation, transmission and distribution: 96,920

Engineering services: 93,850

Overall, the field of electrical engineering is a promising one. It is projected that the employment of electrical engineers will grow two percent from 2018 to 2028.

Why do we need electrical engineers?

If you are interested in an electrical engineering career or getting a dual degree in engineering, it will take hard work and will be worth it. An aspiring electrical engineer will lead the way in electrical projects and electrical circuits that can benefit renewable energy and so much more! It is important to find a degree program that will let electrical engineering students explore different aspects of engineering in order to be the best they can be.

Electrical engineers play a key role in everyday life. From flipping a switch on in your house to using medical equipment such as medical imaging scanners, electrical engineers are the ones that make these innovations and electrical components work and grow. Without them being on the forefront, answering tough electrical questions, our world would be a different place.

If you are interested in learning more about electrical engineering, be sure to visit North Central College's web page on their electrical engineering degree programs.
Kara Kots is a social media specialist for North Central's Office of Marketing and Communications, where she contributes her content, writing and communication skills.

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What do Electrical Engineers do? | North Central College

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A degree in electrical engineering is a great choice for those passionate about science, technology and mathematics. There are numerous benefits when you choose to work in this field. Some benefits include competitive pay, the chance to work in a variety of industries and being on the forefront of today's innovations, while working alongside mechanical engineers and computer engineers.