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10 Chapter 2
something you’re good at and will enjoy. As almost a side benefit, being in the
industry for a couple of years will also provide you with some networking oppor-
tunities that can be very useful when you’re looking for a permanent position.
Unfortunately, if you’re already in the workforce, it is probably not practical for
you to cut off your regular income and go back to the internship stage. If you fall
into this category, I encourage you to manufacture your own relevant experiences.
The object here is to build up a portfolio of devices you’ve built that are relevant
to a future employer looking for an embedded engineer. Pick a field that interests
you on a hobby basis—model aircraft, pets, cars, laser shows—almost anything is
a good example. Develop some hardware that’s relevant to this field, and keep it
in your portfolio. This assignment sounds almost ridiculous when stated so baldly,
but if you think about it for a little while, you’ll be able to see an embedded proj-
ect in almost any hobby or interest. You might develop an autopilot for a model
aircraft, a doggy door that uses machine vision to recognize your dog and opens
only for it, an electronic ignition module for your 1960s car with its points-based
ignition, and so on. By the way, local amateur radio groups are a positive hive of
people who can help you learn about electronics—not just RF stuff, but all kinds
of analog and digital material. Even if you don’t have much interest in amateur
radio for its own sake, it’s worth joining one of these clubs for access to your local
technical wizards. Visit the American Radio Relay League at <http://www.arrl.org/>
to find out more about what’s available in your neighborhood.
Now, if you’re on the large corporation ladder, promotions beyond a certain
point are generally much harder to obtain if you lack higher ( postgraduate)
study. You should think very carefully about this issue when selecting an under-
graduate degree. For example, there are some schools now offering bachelor’s
degrees in something called electrical engineering technology (the qualification is
called a BSEET). This sounds superficially like it’s the right kind of course, and
if you were to skim through the syllabus, you might think you see all the right
buzzwords— ABET, hardware, firmware, software, programming, circuit design,
and so on. However, the BSEET is a highly empirical course that is not designed
to lead to further study—it’s sort of the engineering equivalent of trade school.
I’d advise strongly that you steer clear of this degree program; at the institutions
I’ve examined that offer the BSEET, it is no cheaper than the BSEE, it takes
approximately the same length of time to complete, and it offers significantly
less in terms of employability and postgraduate study options.