FEMLAB is a product from Comsol/Sweden and is a multi purpose
finite element program.
The application aera is verry large!! I think no other tool has so much
possibilities. One of the big advantages is that you can couple
differential equations e.g. electromagnetic with thermal equations.
FEMLAB used to be an extention for MATLAB, but now ( Version3.0) it is a standalone application, so you do not need MATLAB to run it. It is so versitile, I do not know any software that can be applied for almost any technical discipline.
You would need some knowledge of higher mathematics (calculus, pde's and so).