Electrical Engineering Overview
Let’s understand the current situation!
Get ready to think like an electrical engineer! Electrical engineers work with circuits and the principles of electricity to create amazing inventions like light bulbs, radios, and phones.
Prompts to ask students to discuss and introduce the topic:
- What is electrical engineering in your mind?
- Where do you think electrical engineers work? What do they do?
- Have you ever changed a light bulb in your house? Seen someone do it?
- What does a switch in your house do?
- Have you ever made a circuit? Seen one? Where?
- Where do you think there are circuits?
- Microwaves, fridges, TVs, computers (everywhere?)
- What have you ALWAYS wondered about electricity? Can we see it?
Videos to introduce Electrical engineering to students:
- Do you like to listen to music through your headphones? We can thank James Edward West for co-inventing the electret microphone! Learn more in this 2018 Baltimore Sun article about West and on this video interview with James Edward West.
- Check out UIUC’s electrical engineering program, one of the highest-ranked in the nation. Find out more in the Study Electrical Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering video.
Return to the STEM Activity Library to access the electrical engineering activities and other engineering majors.