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Dependent-Interview2 t1_j5zysay wrote

As an electrical engineer with a long career in the semiconductor industry, i highly recommend you going into Photonics.

Optical Engineering or Physics with focus on optics or both.

Light is the new Silicon as it approaches its physical limits.

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CyberGrid t1_j611pyb wrote

Great suggestion. Can confirm all optics-themed fairs are now about photonics. Thats where the monnies are, powered by rapid explosion of tech and tech demand.

Be careful though as optics has various fields. An optics engineer focused on lasers wont be employable for a IC photonics job, for example.

However, me wonders if this trend will be shortlived and the technology will become replaced quickly by another one in future. Not sure if light as new silicon will have a longevity of a whole generation.

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WittyUnwittingly t1_j66jik7 wrote

Just saying, I have a masters degree in optics and photonics, and was unable to secure a job for so long, I became a math teacher.

That was about 5 years ago, so things may have changed since then, but the job market was actually dry as hell for optics.

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Salami-Vice t1_j615l0j wrote

I would definitely recommend doing optics as a specialization not the main field. While its growing, its a very nitch field and the employment pool is not as large as the main enginering fields (EE, ME, SW).

I'm a mechanical engineer with a specialization in optics. Having both fields has helped me do better design, but also when optical work is done, I can then move onto the mechanics of things. Helps with finding jobs as you can now target either or.

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Baselines_shift t1_j61ssv0 wrote

Check out Heliocon.com an initiative from the National Renewable Energy Lab to get more photonics and optics engineers to design advanced heliostats for concentrated solar power (reflects thousands of suns with heliostats - mirrors - to a central tower to generate solar heat at up to 1,500 C for solar thermochemistry)

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