If either math or physics is your strength in high school, we can teach you to use that talent to make the world smarter, safer, more efficient, and more high-tech. Electrical Engineering is a useful, lucrative, and often impressive form of applied math. About a fifth of all engineering jobs are in Electrical or Electronics Engineering, so there are lots of different jobs around, but power and telecommunications jobs are probably the obvious fields that hire electrical engineers in the USA.

At Tri-State University, we have courses that teach you to think like an engineer, and first-rate labs to develop your hands-on skills. Most of all, we have professors who are experts both in the state-of-the-art and in teaching. Dr. Steve Carr is our power and motors expert, and he both teaches and supervises labs for students with a special interest in the motors and generators that operate hybrid cars and wind power generators. Dr. Larry Samuelson is our electronics professor, who teaches courses that have his students building radio-frequency systems. Dr. Bob Whelchel teaches signals and design, showing his students how to choose and design the signals that you will send from antenna to antenna. These courses are small enough (usually about ten students in each) to provide you the personal attention you deserve from a Ph. D. at every stage of your work.

Most of our students go to work straight out of college commanding good salaries (the federal government says starting salaries average just under $52 000, and TSU grads are in this category). In fact, many have jobs lined upon before graduation. However, some go on to graduate school to get a Master's or Ph. D in Electrical Engineering; we've sent students to graduate schools as far away as Reno, Nevada and Baltimore, Maryland, and as close as West Lafayette, Indiana. Career jobs and summer jobs include power engineering with motor makers and construction firms, telecommunications at Sprint, ITT or electronics work at machinery makers like John Deere and Cummins, among others.

Program Strengths:
Our department emphasizes learning through creating and testing student ideas in lab. Fundamental concepts and vocabulary are best retained when they come to life. We don't cut corners! We believe our students learn more concepts more thoroughly because of labs - projects aren't a way out of learning, but a way into it.

Co-operative Education and Internship:
We encourage, but do not require, co-operative education. We strongly encourage internship work in the major over the summer, or a summer Research Experience at a big state school (usually funded by the National Science Foundation). This way you will benefit from the close-knit learning environment here, and also learn from the wider resources of big institutions. These experiences also help (a lot) with your job search. The department faculty do offer you help in your job search, but we do not take over the responsibility of finding you a job.