The EE component of my CSE degree felt like a math degree in disguise. Calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, discrete mathematics... It was a long time ago but I remember it as three years of math prerequisites and Maxwell’s equations and then finally we could learn what a MOSFET is. Absolutely terrible. I just want to learn how circuits work and how to build a guitar amp! But noooooo I need to learn how to solve partial differential equations, which I’ve done zero times in the field.

There are people who think engineering is basically Lego but bigger, and people who think engineering is applied physics.

They're different jobs.

The Lego level is more like being a technician. You can slap a few ready-made building blocks together, maybe tweak them a little using basic algebra, and you've got your design.

That's fine for guitar amps and simple synth circuits and such.

But if you use that approach while designing the control circuitry for a power plant or a rocket motor, in the best case failure will be very expensive, worst case people will die.

That's where the real engineering happens. You're modelling systems from first principles and you know enough to be fairly confident that the equations you create to characterise a complex design with multiple inputs and outputs accurately predict its behaviour.

If you start with hobby electronics you have zero experience or insight into that level. So when you begin your course you're completely blindsided by how much math there is, and have no idea what it's for.

And some domains, like robotics, have even more math. You can use plain old EE control theory, but you can extend it into modelling systems using Lie groups and Lie algebras - which are more often used in quantum physics.

I agree that is excessive. But I would hate equally, if not more, learning with magic rules delivered by the professor in the sky. The info doesn't stick for me unless I understand the intuition behind the reasoning.

100% this

And then circuit analysis is just a big exercise in building "castles in the sky" and worrying your upside down staircase has railings

(Among other several pet peeves about EE that I could go on about)

You could do engineering without knowing about partial differential equations, or numerical methods. Most digital IC designers, FOGA guys etc do that. You would be missing some tools though. Not needing a tool ever doesn't mean it's not used anywhere else. You can't get into RF, proper signal integrity, or analog circuits without these and some more.

I also just wanted to build a guitar amp.

I worked with EE for a while and it was very boring building stuff.

It basically took me changing careers to SWE and working for a games company to finally use the math part of my EE degree.

I ended up building my guitar amp years after.

Community college is the short cut. My local AAS EET program went safety -> DC -> AC -> amplifiers in 4 semesters.