How Recent Graduates Perceive Some of the Preliminary Concepts in Electrical Engineering

This research paper is about some of the electrical engineering topics that are widely misunderstood among recent graduates despite the fact they are simple and well established scientifically. The misunderstanding is discovered through the responses collected via a survey distributed among engineers who identify themselves as either senior student or recent graduate with background in electrical, electronic, or computer engineering, including engineering technology disciplines. The electrical topics that were discussed in this paper are: 1) grounding, 2) RMS quantities, 3) circuit analysis, and 4) the difference between science and engineering. These topics are clearly well-defined and articulated among scientific communities whereas many recent graduates and engineering students failed to explain them correctly and/or in detail. It seems that either engineering education is not delivering the aforementioned topics as they should be delivered or educators overlook them. In this paper, the concept of the aforementioned topics are presented and how textbooks, curricula, and instructor notes are presenting them. Despite the fact that some of the responses to technical questions were correct, amazingly, none of the participants provided a satisfactory distinction between engineering and science - which is a fundamental question. Such observations deserve attention from engineering colleges and educational institutions.