If your main interest is in diagnosis and repair, I suggest you look
into an Electronic Engineering Technology (EET) curriculum. Courses and
degrees are offered by a lot of community colleges, as well as technical
schools. Visit your local community college and have a talk with a
counselor there -- he or she can give you a lot more information about
what they offer, what the course content is like, and the kinds of jobs
it'll prepare you for.

An Electrical Engineering (EE) degree at a college or university
prepares you more to do design, rather than repair. A BSEE (Batchelor of
Science in Electrical Engineering) curriculum involves a lot more
mathematics than an ASEET (Associate of Science in Electronic
Engineering Technology) or BSEET degree. If you follow a traditional
order of course work, you'll be in a BSEE program quite a while before
you get to much that you recognize as electronics, since you'll usually
start with calculus, physics, chemistry, and, yes, English. This is to
lay the ground work for you to be able to understand electronics at the
necessary level when it's introduced later in the program. In contrast,
EET courses are a lot more hands-on, and get to the basic subject matter
earlier. But it doesn't cover the material in as much depth as in an EE
program.

While community colleges seldom or never grant a BSEE degree, they
generally offer quite a number of courses that can be transferred to a
full college or university toward a BSEE degree, if that's your choice.
Those courses are likely to be non-electronics courses, though, like the
physics, chemistry, math, and English I mentioned.

You might start along one path and decide later on the other. That's
fine, although you should be aware that quite a number of courses in one
program might not directly transfer for credit into the other. The
counselor can give you the straight story about all that.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Justin wrote:
I am not sure if this is the right place to be posting this, but i
figure its worth a shot. OK, first of all i have been away from radio
for a few years (regretably) my call is KB2YFH. Anyway, i got my
ticket when i was 16 i think or maybe younger... My question is i am
getting older and still have nothing but a H.S diploma and dead-end
jobs to show for... so, obviously i would like to continue my
education. I realize now that my only true love was fixing and
tinkering with my old radio equipment. I would like to know if someone
could tell me what career path i should take that will qualify me and
give me the experience i need in working with electronic equipment...
preferably Wireless communications, RF circuts ... you know all the
skills used to diagnose and repair such things as amateur transievers
etc. I was licensed in NJ, but recently moved to Florida's Space
Coast (Melbourne) where i am happy to see that ham radio is alive and
thriving. I assume taking courses in electronic engineering would be
in the right direction, but i am not sure exactly what i should do. If
anyone could please give me some advice on what type of schooling i
should look for, and if possible what schools are good for what i am
looking for it would be greatly aprreciated. Thank you and i look
forward to getting back on the air ASAP.