Advice for PhD (Electri & Electro Engineering) please?

Hi guys..

I am going to start my PhD in April however I still have to choose my field and supervisor...

In one side I can work with electric vehicles - decarbonising targets, meeting/minimizing energy consumption (distributed generation, PV, solar, storage)

In other side I can work with Multiphase Induction Motor Drives (Direct Torque Control techniques, fuzzy logic algorithms, neuro-fuzzy artificial intelligence stuff)..

I have some fair background with power system simulator tools (modelling/developing/simulating/analysing/calculating network parameters etc), but I don't want to do anything where coding (C++, Phyton, C#, JavaSc) is required as I have no interest in it. I can't tell if any of these topics require coding knowledge.

Any advice regarding this is highly appreciated.

How do you propose to do "Direct Torque Control, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence" without writing any code?

barry said:

How do you propose to do "Direct Torque Control, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence" without writing any code?

Click to expand...

This is a topic given from one of the supervisors whom I want to work with, and I was almost sure that coding was necessary for his subject. He has said the topic can be changed anytime if preferred, but I am not sure if he will have any subject where coding is not required.

I am more positive towards the first topic above (more interesting), but someone told me I will also need coding for that subject, though I have doubts. I do not want to waste 4 years + tens of thousands on a topic where I will not enjoy and need for my future career to be honest.

It's almost impossible to have an EE career today without
-some- sort of "coding". And you should expect that if
your PhD is to mean anything, you would be expected to
deal with abstraction more than detailed transistor plaster
work.

I hate software too and so I have traveled far into the
analog weeds. Here, all the coding I have to do is write
a SPICE snippet here and there.

If your education and career path depend on what one
professor feels like "advising" I feel a shred of pity for
you. What's -your' topic? What do -you- want to be
doing for the next decade after you defend? Hopefully
not just be another professor inflicting the same on
whoever comes after.

If you don't know, then maybe it's better for you to
enter the job market, find something you really like,
and look for an employer offering tuition reimbursement.
Then you can at least save the "tens of thousands"
and bonus, forget worrying about a social life because
your after-hours will be well accounted for.

meyra31 said:

Hi guys..

I am going to start my PhD in April however I still have to choose my field and supervisor...

In one side I can work with electric vehicles - decarbonising targets, meeting/minimizing energy consumption (distributed generation, PV, solar, storage)

In other side I can work with Multiphase Induction Motor Drives (Direct Torque Control techniques, fuzzy logic algorithms, neuro-fuzzy artificial intelligence stuff)..

I have some fair background with power system simulator tools (modelling/developing/simulating/analysing/calculating network parameters etc), but I don't want to do anything where coding (C++, Phyton, C#, JavaSc) is required as I have no interest in it. I can't tell if any of these topics require coding knowledge.

Any advice regarding this is highly appreciated.

Click to expand...

can you go an entire phd without writing code these days? sure
can you do a meaningful phd without writing any code? unlikely.

Maybe you should consider a different career path. I cannot envision any engineering discipline where you don't have to do SOME kind of coding. It may only be analyzing data using VBA in Excel, or MATLAB, or whatever.

I think you need to keep a more open mind. No one is asking you to be a software engineer, but there are certain times where you're going to have to do something that's not your favorite. You may not want to be a novelist, but there are going to be times where your're going to have to write an intelligible technical document.

You can start from a simpler coding to a more advanced coding as needed. The languages you mentioned above (C#, C++, Phyton, JavaSc) are typically or heavily object oriented (OOP), which is something not so easily digested by one with a vocation for electronics. But on the other hand, such a skill is the current trend in the job market, therefore some touch would be advisable, even if only to provide a friendly interface of your program with the user (let's say, the cherry on top). Even in pure C which is an extremely simple language in its essence, or even with MATLAB you can do what you need for your simulations.