Is Electrical Engineering Hard? An Honest Answer from Practicing Engineers

Yes. Electrical engineering is one of the harder engineering majors. It is math-heavy from the first semester to the last, much of it deals with things you can’t see, such as electric and magnetic fields and signals, and lab courses add long hours of building, measuring and writing reports on top of the problem sets. It is also very learnable for students who keep up, because nearly every course builds on the one before it.

Below, licensed Professional Engineers at Dreiym explain where the difficulty comes from, which courses are hardest, how electrical engineering compares with other majors, what helps students get through, and what the work looks like after graduation, including the path to a PE license.

What Makes Electrical Engineering Difficult#

Electrical engineering is one of the broadest engineering disciplines, and the degree takes you through power, electronics, communications, controls and computing before you specialize. The difficulty comes from four things:

• The math. Calculus, differential equations, linear algebra and complex numbers are the working language of the degree. Signals, controls and electromagnetics are all written in them.
• Abstract concepts. You can’t watch current flow or see an electromagnetic field. A mechanical engineering student can watch a beam deflect under load; an electrical engineering student has to build intuition from equations, models and meter readings.
• A cumulative curriculum. Circuit analysis feeds electronics, and electronics feeds the communications, controls and power courses. A weak semester early makes everything after it harder, and it’s hard to catch up once you fall behind.
• The lab load. Labs mean building circuits, measuring them with oscilloscopes and multimeters, working out why the measurement doesn’t match the calculation, and writing it up. They usually take more hours than their credit suggests, and most programs finish with a senior design project.

The Hardest Electrical Engineering Courses#

Which course is hardest depends on who’s taking it; ask a few electrical engineers which one nearly broke them and you’ll get different answers. These are the core courses where students most often struggle, roughly in the order they come:

• Circuit analysis: Kirchhoff’s laws, Thevenin and Norton equivalents, RC, RL and RLC transients, and AC phasors. The math isn’t advanced, but it’s an early filter and everything after it depends on it.
• Electronics: diodes, transistors, amplifiers and op amps. The devices are nonlinear, so you work with simplified models and learn when each one holds.
• Signals and systems: Fourier, Laplace and z-transforms, convolution, sampling and filtering. You learn to think about signals in frequency as well as time, and communications, controls and signal processing all build on it.
• Electromagnetics: Maxwell’s equations, waves, transmission lines and antennas, worked in three dimensions with vector calculus. It is the most abstract course in the curriculum, and many students find it the hardest.
• Control systems: feedback, stability, root locus, frequency response and state-space methods, combining signals and systems with linear algebra and differential equations.
• Communication systems: modulation, noise, coding and error correction, built on probability and random processes, which many students find unintuitive.
• Power systems and electric machines: three-phase power, transformers, motors and generators, load flow, fault analysis and protection. This is the foundation for the power studies consulting engineers perform.

Electives such as renewable energy, robotics and biomedical instrumentation build on these core courses.

How Hard Is Electrical Engineering Compared with Other Majors?#

Published lists of the hardest engineering majors don’t agree, so it’s more useful to ask what kind of hard each one is. Electrical engineering sits near the demanding end, mainly because so much of it is abstract.

• Mechanical engineering has a similar math load and rigor, but its forces, motion and heat can be seen and felt. When we test a grounding system, we never see the current going into the earth; we see a number on a meter. Most engineers call the two different kinds of hard.
• Chemical engineering is comparably demanding, with the weight on chemistry, thermodynamics and transport phenomena instead of fields and signals.
• Civil engineering centers on structures, soils, water and transportation, with more emphasis on design codes and less abstract math.
• Computer engineering shares the early circuits, digital logic and electronics courses, then shifts toward computer architecture and embedded systems. The difficulty is similar.
• Computer science shares programming and digital logic but needs much less of the physics and continuous math behind electrical engineering’s reputation.

How to Get Through an Electrical Engineering Degree#

There’s no shortcut through a curriculum that builds on itself, but these habits help:

• Get the fundamentals solid. Algebra, trigonometry, calculus and complex numbers come up constantly. Master circuit analysis before advanced electives.
• Keep up every week. Use office hours before a weak topic snowballs.
• Work problems, not just notes. Exams ask you to apply methods to problems you haven’t seen. Study in a group, then make sure you can solve problems alone.
• Check hand calculations with a simulator. Working out why your answer and the simulation differ builds intuition the math alone doesn’t.
• Get practical experience. An internship or co-op shows where the theory gets used, which makes the hard courses easier to stick with.

The simulator below gives you a feel for that first circuits course. Wire resistors, capacitors, inductors, switches and DC or AC sources into any network, and it works out every voltage and current with Kirchhoff’s laws and shows which resistor would burn out. Our free online circuit simulator page has the same tool with a walkthrough of the math.

To see it on an industrial signal, read our guide to the 4-20 mA current loop, which follows a transmitter loop from the 250 ohm resistor at the receiver to the current mirror inside the transmitter.

What the Work Looks Like After Graduation#

The job is hard in a different way: the degree loads the theory up front, while professional work is more applied and more of a team effort. Software does much of the heavy calculation, but the engineer still has to set up the problem correctly and recognize when an answer doesn’t make sense.

Electrical engineers work for utilities, manufacturers, oil and gas companies, electronics and telecommunications firms, government and consulting firms. At Dreiym, our engineers, including Brian J. Brackensick, M.S., P.E. and Stepan V. Eero, M.S., P.E., are licensed Professional Engineers with active and past licensure in multiple states. Their work shows where the hard classes lead:

• Power studies. We model a facility’s electrical system in ETAP or SKM, calculate available fault current, check equipment ratings, and set protective devices so the one closest to a fault opens first. Arc flash studies add incident energy calculations using IEEE 1584-2018, which feed the risk assessment and equipment labels NFPA 70E requires. Brian leads our power studies.
• Corrosion and cathodic protection. Cathodic protection is an electrical problem as much as a chemical one: it makes DC current flow through soil or water onto a buried or submerged steel structure so the structure doesn’t corrode. Design means calculating current requirements, anode output and circuit resistance, then measuring structure-to-soil potentials in the field. Stepan is a NACE CP Specialist (CP4).
• Forensic work. Forensic electrical engineers determine whether an electrical failure caused a fire, injury or equipment loss. Circuit analysis, electromagnetics and power systems all come back here.

How to Become a Licensed Professional Engineer#

Many electrical engineers work their whole careers in industry without a license. You need one to offer engineering services directly to the public or to sign and seal engineering work, and clients generally expect it for consulting and expert witness work. The usual path:

1. Earn a bachelor’s degree in engineering, usually from an ABET-accredited program.
2. Pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, a computer-based exam from NCEES with an electrical and computer version. Many students take it near graduation. With your degree, it qualifies you as an engineer intern (EI) or engineer-in-training (EIT), depending on the state.
3. Gain qualifying experience, typically about four years of progressive engineering work, usually under a licensed PE.
4. Pass the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam. The electrical and computer PE exam is offered in power; electronics, controls and communications; and computer engineering. Some states let you take it before your experience is complete.
5. Apply to your state board, then keep the license current with the continuing education many states require.

Each state board sets its own requirements, so check the rules where you plan to practice.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How long does an electrical engineering degree take?

A U.S. bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering is designed as a four-year program. Many students take longer because of co-op terms, a change of major or a lighter load in hard semesters.

Can you study electrical engineering if you’re not good at math?

Yes, if you’re willing to become comfortable with it. Calculus, differential equations and complex numbers run through the whole degree, so firm up algebra, trigonometry and calculus early. If you dislike math, expect a hard slog.

Is electrical engineering worth it?

For students who like the subject, it usually is. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports median pay for electrical and electronics engineers well above the median for all occupations, and the skills carry into power, electronics, manufacturing and many other fields. The pay alone won’t carry you through the coursework, though.

How Dreiym Engineering Can Help#

Our electrical engineers put this coursework to work on electrical power studies, including short circuit, coordination and arc flash studies, and on forensic electrical investigations after fires and equipment failures. If your project needs a licensed electrical engineer, with work PE-stamped where required, we can help. If you’re interested in this kind of work, see our careers page. Contact us for a free quote.