I want to become an electrical engineer, what should I expect?

I’m still making my way through calculus classes, but I plan on getting a BS in electrical engineering once I finish all the prereqs I can at my junior college.

What are things I should know/expect while going down this path?

-How should I prepare for taking full course loads of engineering classes? What kinds of things should I do to help get me through the semesters? What did you do or wish you knew while starting your major?

(At my uni folks are reluctant to work in study groups, or don’t have the time, so through my GE and STEM classes I’ve mostly been on my own. Along with instructors with little to no communication, full load semesters can be tough even with easy GE mixed in)

-Should I look for internships early or wait till I graduate? Do most uni’s help with or provide internship opportunities? What kind of things should I look out for?

-I’ve heard people joking about job searching for EE being a nightmare, how much of that is true? Is it really that difficult, and is there anything I can do that would help make my search for a job easier after graduating?

  • What kinda stuff do you guys do? I understood that EE is a lot of either working with design teams for projects/products, or supervising manufacturing. I’m curious to hear what actual electrical engineers are doing.

  • What kind of jobs are considered “good”, like do most of you hate what you do or are you generally happy with your careers? Do I have a high chance of being worked to death in this field?

  • Are there any questions that I should be asking that I haven’t? And generally what kind of wisdom would you pass down to someone looking at doing electrical engineering?

I always thought engineering was cool, and to this day I love taking apart broken things and seeing how they work. Understanding electricity and electronic components/devices has always been something I’ve been drawn to and have found messing around with to be fun. But I don’t want to get into a career that will suck every once of passion out of me, or leave me with a degree that costs more than it’s worth.