From: labamba on
Hi.

I just graduated in December with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a
prominent Southern California university. For privacy's sake, I won't
disclose its name but I will say that its mascot rhymes with "shoo-ins".
Anyway, while I was there I took classes on a lot of different topics but
the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones on signal processing (DSP,
signals and systems, image processing, etc.).

I'd love to get a job in that field but every time I search for DSP related
jobs I see several terms in the requirements section that I've never even
heard of. When I was in college I studied things like FIR filters, IIR
filters, Z-transforms, sampling, etc. But in these job listings I see
things like ASIC, FPGA, VHDL, etc.

How can I teach myself these things? I'm taking a few free open courses at
MIT on signal processing and I got a few books on college-level DSP
exercises for MATLAB, but is that enough? I know I saw a few books on DSP
programming in C. Would that do?

In other words, where should I go if I want to get a DSP related job? Do I
have to go to grad school?


From: Jerry Avins on
labamba wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I just graduated in December with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a
> prominent Southern California university. For privacy's sake, I won't
> disclose its name but I will say that its mascot rhymes with "shoo-ins".
> Anyway, while I was there I took classes on a lot of different topics but
> the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones on signal processing (DSP,
> signals and systems, image processing, etc.).
>
> I'd love to get a job in that field but every time I search for DSP related
> jobs I see several terms in the requirements section that I've never even
> heard of. When I was in college I studied things like FIR filters, IIR
> filters, Z-transforms, sampling, etc. But in these job listings I see
> things like ASIC, FPGA, VHDL, etc.
>
> How can I teach myself these things? I'm taking a few free open courses at
> MIT on signal processing and I got a few books on college-level DSP
> exercises for MATLAB, but is that enough? I know I saw a few books on DSP
> programming in C. Would that do?
>
> In other words, where should I go if I want to get a DSP related job? Do I
> have to go to grad school?

First of all, those acronyms are the easy part. Search for them. For
example, ASIC stands for application-specific integrated circuit. There
are tools for designing them and fabrication houses to produce them.
FPGA stands for field-programmable gate array. There are several makers,
each with proprietary tools. VHDL is one of a few hardware-design
languages that can specify ASICs and FPGAs.

The field is broad and deep. Reading trade magazines is a way to absorb
some of it, enough to know what's there. Good luck and good choices.

Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
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From: Rune Allnor on
On 22 Feb, 22:12, "labamba" <spootski...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I just graduated in December with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a
> prominent Southern California university. For privacy's sake, I won't
> disclose its name but I will say that its mascot rhymes with "shoo-ins".
> Anyway, while I was there I took classes on a lot of different topics but
> the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones on signal processing (DSP,
> signals and systems, image processing, etc.).
>
> I'd love to get a job in that field but every time I search for DSP related
> jobs I see several terms in the requirements section that I've never even
> heard of. When I was in college I studied things like FIR filters, IIR
> filters, Z-transforms, sampling, etc. But in these job listings I see
> things like ASIC, FPGA, VHDL, etc.
>
> How can I teach myself these things? I'm taking a few free open courses at
> MIT on signal processing and I got a few books on college-level DSP
> exercises for MATLAB, but is that enough? I know I saw a few books on DSP
> programming in C. Would that do?
>
> In other words, where should I go if I want to get a DSP related job? Do I
> have to go to grad school?

Find some DSP topic of interest that

1) Is interesting to you
2) Is solvable

Then play around with it. If you have access to matlab - use it
to test out the various tricks and ideas you have heard about.
If you don't have matlab, get one of the clones (octave, scilab).

As for the work - I think you will find that the job market DSP
is divided into two main parts:

1) The people who design and implement stuff using all kinds
of DSP chips, IC, ASICs, FPGAs and those kinds of technology

2) The people who use DSP as a means to an end

Ah, and yes: There aren't a lot of jobs around.

So I will give only one advice: First get *a* job, regardless of
field, that takes care of the main issue, which is to pay your bills.
Then play with DSP as a hobby, for fun.

Rune
From: Tim Wescott on
Rune Allnor wrote:
> On 22 Feb, 22:12, "labamba" <spootski...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi.
>>
>> I just graduated in December with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a
>> prominent Southern California university. For privacy's sake, I won't
>> disclose its name but I will say that its mascot rhymes with "shoo-ins".
>> Anyway, while I was there I took classes on a lot of different topics but
>> the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones on signal processing (DSP,
>> signals and systems, image processing, etc.).
>>
>> I'd love to get a job in that field but every time I search for DSP related
>> jobs I see several terms in the requirements section that I've never even
>> heard of. When I was in college I studied things like FIR filters, IIR
>> filters, Z-transforms, sampling, etc. But in these job listings I see
>> things like ASIC, FPGA, VHDL, etc.
>>
>> How can I teach myself these things? I'm taking a few free open courses at
>> MIT on signal processing and I got a few books on college-level DSP
>> exercises for MATLAB, but is that enough? I know I saw a few books on DSP
>> programming in C. Would that do?
>>
>> In other words, where should I go if I want to get a DSP related job? Do I
>> have to go to grad school?
>
> Find some DSP topic of interest that
>
> 1) Is interesting to you
> 2) Is solvable
>
> Then play around with it. If you have access to matlab - use it
> to test out the various tricks and ideas you have heard about.
> If you don't have matlab, get one of the clones (octave, scilab).
>
> As for the work - I think you will find that the job market DSP
> is divided into two main parts:
>
> 1) The people who design and implement stuff using all kinds
> of DSP chips, IC, ASICs, FPGAs and those kinds of technology
>
> 2) The people who use DSP as a means to an end
>
> Ah, and yes: There aren't a lot of jobs around.
>
> So I will give only one advice: First get *a* job, regardless of
> field, that takes care of the main issue, which is to pay your bills.
> Then play with DSP as a hobby, for fun.

Get _a_ job, then leverage it to get another job closer to your chosen
field, and again and again, as many times as you can. You've got the
training, now work on the "five years experience programming in C, or
equivalent".

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com
From: Eric Jacobsen on
On 2/22/2010 2:12 PM, labamba wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I just graduated in December with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a
> prominent Southern California university. For privacy's sake, I won't
> disclose its name but I will say that its mascot rhymes with "shoo-ins".
> Anyway, while I was there I took classes on a lot of different topics but
> the ones I enjoyed the most were the ones on signal processing (DSP,
> signals and systems, image processing, etc.).
>
> I'd love to get a job in that field but every time I search for DSP related
> jobs I see several terms in the requirements section that I've never even
> heard of. When I was in college I studied things like FIR filters, IIR
> filters, Z-transforms, sampling, etc. But in these job listings I see
> things like ASIC, FPGA, VHDL, etc.
>
> How can I teach myself these things? I'm taking a few free open courses at
> MIT on signal processing and I got a few books on college-level DSP
> exercises for MATLAB, but is that enough? I know I saw a few books on DSP
> programming in C. Would that do?
>
> In other words, where should I go if I want to get a DSP related job? Do I
> have to go to grad school?

Typically any entry level job will come with the expectation that
they'll need to give you training to get you up to speed on things not
covered in your undergrad curriculum. Nobody expects you to know much
coming straight out of school, so don't be intimidated. Show
enthusiasm and interest, and be knowledgeable (but not necessarily
expert) about relevant topics in order to get an interview, and then be
honest about setting expectations for the job. Asking questions is
good, e.g., can you get training for VHDL or the FPGA targets that you'd
be expected to work with, etc., etc.

For the most part, if you are already competent in a computer language
or two, picking up VHDL or Verilog is not that hard.

Best of luck.

--
Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.abineau.com