What Electrical Engineers do for society is very important. The top areas you will find Electrical Engineers are in construction and manufacturing. Engineers are present in most all things used day to day. Technology with Electrical Engineers would be equivalent to kitchens without chefs.
They attend a 4 year ABET accredited college at a minimum and obtain a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering or the BSEE degree. Some will continue on to obtain a Masters Degree in engineering as well. After college they may obtain PE license to become a professional engineer registered with different states throughout the United States. Often college graduates will become EIT or Engineer in Training after passing a Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. After that, you must achieve a certain amount of experience while working directly under another Professional Engineer or a PE. All of this will vary from state to state but typically that is the progression of a student towards obtaining PE certification. It should be noted that not all engineering positions require PE certification and not all electrical engineers will have PE certifications.
After school, an engineer will obtain a position with industry specific electrical work. For example in manufacturing the role of an engineer will differ from what a power industry or microprocessor engineer would do. The sub categories of an EE would be power, electronics, control systems, signal processing and telecommunications. The work of an electrical engineer surrounds us. The basis of cell phone design, to computers and down to the electricity coming from the wall outlet powering your computer all leads back to the work of electrical engineers.
An engineer can play the role of inventor and designer. As engineers improve or invent things patent protection can be sought to protect the idea. Often things invented within the constraints of employment may become the property of the employer just FYI. Things to reference as examples of this would be computers, light bulbs and cell phones. An electrical engineer will design a circuit board with components like resistors and capacitors to function for its intended use.
In the construction industry an engineer would design circuits and power delivering devices in order to maintain power to the end user. For example in a Hospital setting, certain criteria exist for machines that need power and cannot afford interruption. An example of this would be life support machines. A doctor wouldn’t want a patient to die because of power failure so electrical engineers would design circuits, evaluate loads, and hook to an emergency generator for example to maintain constant power. These are just some of the ways engineers contribute to society. Through this article, I hope I have established the importance of Electrical Engineers to society.