Just Ask Heidi: Is China Still Far Ahead of the U.S. in EE Graduates?

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

First, we asked you to send in your questions for Happy Holden, Joe Fjelstad, Eric Camden, John Mitchell, and Tara Dunn in our “Just Ask” series. Now, it’s Heidi Barnes’ turn! Heidi is a senior signal and power integrity engineer at Keysight Technologies. She has written over 20 papers on SI and PI, and she is an active member in developing the new IEEE P370 standard involving interconnect S-parameter quality after fixture removal. Heidi has been awarded five patents and a NASA Silver Snoopy award (each Silver Snoopy pin flies on a space mission first), and she was named DesignCon's 2017 Engineer of the Year. We hope you enjoy “Just Ask Heidi.”

Q: Do you think China is still graduating 5-10 times more “electrical engineers” than the United States? 

A: I don’t know the exact statistics, but I can say that in China, they are very proud to talk about their government leaders with technical engineering backgrounds. Engineering is considered a very well-respected career path in China. In the U.S., I think the push for STEM is having an impact at the elementary school level. I also like to think that the recent success of the commercialization of the space industry in the U.S. will inspire a surge of interest in engineering.

To submit your questions for Heidi, click here.