What made you choose your career?

Thread Starter

amilton542

Joined Nov 13, 2010
497
I'm interested to know, what made forum members choose to go down the electrical/electronic route?

It all started for me after leaving school when I was a sales assistant in a small town earning minimum wage. We had a powercut and I concluded we depend on electricity, so with a subsequent resign I had chosen the path I wished to take...and now it will be my life.

What is your reason?
 

Kermit2

Joined Feb 5, 2010
4,162
I didn't want to learn nuclear power because I would have to serve on submarines after school, and electronics was the only other job I was offered. (USNavy)
 

Zazoo

Joined Jul 27, 2011
114
I was working for an insurance company and realized that if I was going to get anywhere with that career I had to make insurance my life. It was mind-numbingly boring, so I decided to go back to school before I got "stuck."

I wanted to do physics/mathematics but also realized that gainful employment would be important once I graduated, so I decided engineering would be a good fit. I had some electronics experience from the Air Force so I picked EE.
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
I became interested in the subject from really quite a young age. I could not say exactly when this began, my best guess is that it came in progressively, starting with playing with batteries and bulbs etc. when I was still in primary school.

As I got into my teens electronics became my main hobby, and in (high or secondary) school my chief interest was on related subjects. By the time of leaving school and looking for employment I was determined to get into engineering. Job prospects were not brilliant at the time, but with a bit of persistence I got an apprenticeship which later led on to taking a degree in electronics.
 
Last edited:

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I didn't want to learn nuclear power because I would have to serve on submarines after school, and electronics was the only other job I was offered. (USNavy)
They offered me nuclear power and I took it. I failed out of nuclear school and still got stuck on a submarine, doing "electronics" (sort of).

Electronics, really, isn't my career per se, industrial controls is. I am interested in electronics on a personal level, and plan to got to college for it, because I find it challenging. It doesn't come naturally to me like mechanical things. Call it my natural instinct to want to take the path of most resistance. I think maybe subconsciously it comes from me wanting to "make up" for failing the electronics courses in nuclear school. That was the only thing in my life that I literally tried as hard as I could and still failed at.
 

GetDeviceInfo

Joined Jun 7, 2009
2,192
when I was young (sigh) I took apart virtually anything I could get my hands on, trying to understand what was going on. Out of high school I went straight into the trades as a mechanic (Millwright), but slowly worked into managerial positions, supervising many different trades. Electrical/electronics caught my attention for several reasons, Electricians by and large thought they were top cats but often came up short of answers, production 'control' basics where often misunderstood by most everyone except highly paid flyin equipment techs, and most companies where struggling with evaluating/implementing the 'new' technologies. Although I didn't do any 'formal' training in electrical/electronics (aside from Electrician JMan), I spent a good half life in researching, experimenting, spattered courses, and good ol' real time troubleshooting.

I guess you could say I was 'born' into it.
 
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