Not necessarily 'projects' as such, but if you want to get a feel for how the most respected gurus spend their time, it's hard to find better books than the two "Art, Science, Personalities" books edited by the late Jim Williams of Linear Tech. First Second

The best personal projects always start with a healthy intellectual curiosity, and that, in turn, comes from having good sources of inspiration. That's what these particular books are good for.

I have a EE undergrad degree and work as a software developer (mostly web development).

Best advice is to code as much as possible. I second @jewdai's recommendation to study data structures and algorithms -> learning these will give you a solid toolset for solving problems (w/ code) in the future. The bible for data structures and algorithms is:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press/dp/0262033844/ref=zg_bs_132570011_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=G4V554CGYNTY1J7NT6AZ

You should investigate what type of industry you're interested in. If you're interested in signal processing, check out companies that specialize in that area (I guarantee they need software developers).

Best chance for getting an entry level position would be one where you can leverage your EE expertise, but spend most of your time programming (it's the only way to get better). Working on an embedded system (e.g. firmware) might be a good fit because you need solid EE knowledge as well as software skills.

I would also leverage my alumni network; talk to your classmates fellow grads who are in software now. Get their advice and network; those connections can lead to jobs (or at least interviews at their companies).

Best of luck!

Since you're wanting to work with the step-response, you are probably looking at a FDTD (finite-difference time-domain) solution. One open source implementation of this is OpenEMS. It's a simple enough concept that if you have some time, you could write your own implementation: it's basically just solving Maxwell's equations repeatedly at a number of points through your domain.

Most software will let you work in 3 dimensions, the limit will simply be on the computing speed/power you have access to. Any program will let you program different media, and study their effects. Finally, many programs will not calculate the step response directly, but will calculate in the frequency domain, which you can convert to step-response using a Fourier transform.

ANSYS HFSS is a good commercial software for this purpose, and is about on-par with the difficulty of any other program out there. These software programs are complex because they have to be a CAD program (for you to design the shapes and structures), and then a simulation program, which has a lot of complexities on its own. Other software out there is FEKO (3D, good for antennas), ADS (2.5D, mostly for circuit board design), and NEC (free, and best for antennas made of thin wires).

Computational electromagnetics is a huge subject, and there is a right tool for every application. The problems you're trying to solve don't sound too complex, but you still need to know what you're doing in order to get accurate results from the software. Some good books on the subject are this, which gives an introduction to the techniques used by many of the programs, and this, which gives you information on how to build your own FDTD solver using Matlab.

Best of luck with your simulations.

Sounds like what you're interested in is computer architecture. This is the study of how a computer system (whether it's chip level or system level) is organized and designed from a higher-level abstraction (usually at the register-transfer level or above). There are plenty of good resources on this, including many books (this one comes to mind). Not knowing your background, I can't say if this would be much of a stretch for you. I would say prior to jumping to this level you should have an idea of basic MOS logic design, sequential and combinational logic as well as some background in delays and timing.

Your best bet is probably to find a good old book on amazon or ebay and read to your hearts content. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions (I design microprocessors for a living).

It really depends on whether you want a nice soldering iron or just something that will allow you to try it for a few hours. There is a huge price difference. Of course there is also a huge difference in quality. You could get a very nice iron like this for around $250. Or you could get something much less expensive, like this for around $40.

The first one I listed is very similar to one of the best irons I've ever used. The second one is still head and shoulders above the piece of crap I used for the first several years I was soldering. It was like this, at around $5, and as long as I kept the tip sharpened with a file it worked pretty well.

The Synopsys book club has a list of EE/CS books that are either the clear standouts in their topic area or at the very least a good presentation of the material.

Two less theoretical books you might also be interested in, depending on what you are looking for:

The Circuit Designer's Companion by Tim Williams is a good overview of the practical aspects of turning a schematic into a working circuit. Grounding, how to choose the right type of cap/resistor/inductor, EMC, etc.

Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz is similar to the Art of Electronics but is written at a more introductory level. It includes a lot of the important small details that either aren't covered in EE coursework or tend to get muddled in the slog through theory and are therefore easy to forget.

Best way to get back into EE stuff is to build some projects! Hackaday and EEVBlog are your friends, as are Sparkfun, Futurlec, and Digikey.

My understanding is that placing the caps on the other side of the board isn't optimal, but will work, so long as you remember to keep the connections low inductance.

As for the value, it's partly determined by the frequencies you'll see in the circuit.

When considering the frequencies of the board it's best to look at periodic high frequencies, like clocks. But remember, because the clocks are "square waves" not sine waves there are a lot of higher order frequencies contained in them. Take the Fourier transform of a trapezoidal wave to see what I mean. These higher order frequencies are the ones you need to worry about.

0.1uF is good for circuits that are lower frequency, above 100MHz or so a lot of engineers will use 10nF or smaller caps for decoupling.

Check out a book on EMC for more information. [This] (http://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Compatibility-Engineering-Henry-Ott/dp/0470189304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333128646&sr=8-1) one contains a lot of good information of board design.

Edit: One thing I think forgot to mention is that you should generally route power and ground first. If you're using planes on inner layers this is really easy, if not try to make a grid of power traces on one side and ground on the other. This is because each parallel connection you have that is far enough apart to minimize the mutual inductance will reduce the overall inductance. At it's limit this becomes a plane.

Once you have your power and ground routed then do the clocks, then the digital signals.

This does not address the issues with analog signals on the board, as they should be segregated from all digital circuitry and power supplies.

Not sure about EE-related topics, but for CE you're almost guaranteed to use these textbooks:

• Computer Organization: Patterson and Hennessy.
  
• Computer Architecture: Hennessy and Patterson. Same people as the computer organization textbook, but this one goes a bit deeper into architecture.
  
• Algorithms: Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest, Stein, AKA CLRS. Standard algorithms textbook for 99% of CS/ECE algorithms courses.
  
• C: Kernighan and Ritchie, AKA K&R. Ritchie is the original creator of C and a co-creator of Unix, so this content comes straight from the source.
  
• C++: Stroustrup. Like Ritchie, he's the original inventor of C++.
  
  And of course, the most important and useful textbook of them all for almost anything coding-related.

Yuuuuup, feeling the same way except i think i'd like to get more into the microcontroller/FPGA field of EE.

I ended up getting this book a while ago and it's actually been quite helpful in explaining things in a manageable and very equation-lite way. Definitely gonna need another source for more in-depth but for the basics it's quite good.
Something like this would also be good to have for reference.

It may also be worth it to buy some of the tools you might need for personal use. Things have gotten a lot cheaper in the past 10 years with everything becoming integrated, so very basic and slow speed oscilloscopes etc can be bought. Here are some cool things you might be able to afford:

Oscilloscope/Logic Analyzer/Waveform Generator:
http://store.digilentinc.com/analog-discovery-100msps-usb-oscilloscope-logic-analyzer/

Much Much Nicer (and way more expensive) version of the above:
http://www.ni.com/virtualbench/

Basic soldering iron (I use this a lot even to do surface mount):
https://amzn.com/B000AS28UC

Cheap place to make circuit boards:
https://oshpark.com

Lots of parts and parts kits:
http://store.digilentinc.com/analog-parts-kit-by-analog-devices-companion-parts-kit-for-the-analog-discovery/

http://www.digikey.com

https://www.sparkfun.com

Being able to design and build your own project, completely self directed is a great feeling. There are a ton of resources out there to help. It will definitely be a lot of trial and error because no one will be helping or looking over your shoulder, but I think that makes it more fun!

-----
-----

BOOKS

Children Electronics and Electricity books:

• "Electricity for Young Makers" by de Vinck.
  
  
• "Make: Easy Electronics" by Platt. (12 experiments)
  
  
• "Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!" by Dahl.
  
  
• "Electronics For Kids For Dummies" by Shamieh. (13 experiments)
  
  Newbie Electronics books:
  
  
• "Make: How to Use a Breadboard" by Ragan and Culkin. (10 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: Electronics" by Platt. (34 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: More Electronics" by Platt. (36 experiments)
  
  
• "Lessons in Electric Circuits - Volume VI - Experiments" by Kuphaldt. (free book)
  
  
• Series "Engineer's Mini-Notebook" booklets by Forrest Mims. (download archives)
  
  
• List of books about 555-series Timer ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Basic Circuit Theory books:
  
  
• "Electrical Circuit Theory and Technology" by Bird. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Introductory Circuit Analysis" by Boylestad. (download old edition)
  
  
• Series "Lessons In Electric Circuits" by Kuphaldt. (free books)
  
  
• List of books about Diodes, Transistors on Wikipedia.
  
  Analog Design books:
  
  
• "Microelectronic Circuits" by Sedra and Smith. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory" by Boylestad and Nashelsky. (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about Operational Amplifier (OpAmp) ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about LM-series Analog Linear ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Design books:
  
  
• "Digital Fundamentals" by Floyd. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: Principles and Practices" by Wakerly. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: with Introduction to Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog" by Mano and Ciletti. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design and Computer Architecture" by Harris and Harris.
  (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about 7400-series TTL Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about 4000-series CMOS Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Signal Processing books:
  
  
• "Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing" by Smith. (download or online)
  
  Computer Design books:
  
  
• List of books about
  6502,
  6800,
  6809,
  8080,
  8085,
  Z80,
  68000,
  x86
  processors on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about
  8051,
  ARM,
  AVR,
  PIC,
  RISC-V
  microcontrollers on Wikipedia.
  
  Electronics Reference books:
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. (download example chapter)
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics - The X Chapters" by Horowitz and Hill. Shipping in 2020.
  
  
• "ARRL Handbook" by various ARRL authors. (download very old edition)
  
  Historical books:
  
  
• "The Intellectual Rise In Electricity - A History" by Park Benjamin in 1895.
  
  
• "Electricity - It's History and Development" by William Durgin in 1912.
  
  
• "Bibliographical History of Electricity & Magnetism" by Paul Mottelay in 1922.
  
  
• "History of Communications Electronics in the United States Navy" by Linwood Howeth in 1963.
  
  -----
  -----
  
  

  MAGAZINES
  

  
  Current Electronics Magazines: (subscribe now)
  
  

• "Circuit Cellar"
  
  
• "Elektor"
  
  
• "Everyday Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Nuts & Volts"
  
  Historical Electronics Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Electronics Today"
  
  
• "Everyday Electronics"
  
  
• "Popular Electronics"
  
  
• "Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Radio Electronics"
  
  Historical Computer Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Byte" - 2nd group
  
  
• "Dr Dobb's Journal"
  
  
• "Interface Age"
  
  

• "Kilobaud"
  
  -----
  

Wanted to chime in besides Balanis (he explains MoM in antenna theory as well but much better in Advanced Emag) you could try this this video course

or this book which I learned from myself


Also if you like using python you could pick up an intro to computational physics book with python and then look up FENICS, MEEP or gprMax

Johnson's High Speed Digital Design has a few chapters on power planes and multi-layer stackups, as well as being a good overall reference. The Circuit Designer's Companion is another popular book that covers PCB design techniques as well as several other electronics basics.


The best way to learn is to have your designs reviewed by experienced engineers; but if you're asking here I'm guessing you are doing this as a hobbyist. Maybe post your designs on some EE forums for review?


Also knowing 'how' is not as useful as 'why', ECAD tools generally are different enough that the specifics of how to accomplish something are not the same. Which tool do you use? Most have online user groups or forums for specific questions.

You're really going to need to start getting to electromagnetics to really understand what's going on.

If you want a general idea of what's going on, and some design guidelines, an easy ungrad level book would be RF Circuit Design by Chris Bowick: https://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Design-Second-Christopher-Bowick/dp/0750685182/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467379245&sr=8-1&keywords=chris+bowick

If you want to get a better understanding of basic EM theory, a book I'm fairly pleased with is Engineering Electromagnetics, by Nathan Ida: https://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Electromagnetics-Nathan-Ida/dp/3319078054/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467379265&sr=8-1&keywords=Nathan+Ida

For vector calculus: Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus

For complex variables/Laplace: Complex Variables and the Laplace Transform for Engineers - Caution! Dover book! Slightly obtuse at times!

For the finite difference stuff I would wait until you have a damn good reason to learn it, because there are a hundred books on it and none of them are that good. You're better off waiting for a problem to come along that really requires it and then getting half a dozen books on the subject from the library.

I can't help with the measurement text as I'm a physicist, not an engineer. Sorry. Hope the rest helps.

Gonzalez is a good book. I highly recommend Pozar's Microwave Engineering (It's my favorite textbook, ever):

http://www.amazon.com/Microwave-Engineering-David-M-Pozar/dp/0470631554

You can get a copy of 2nd edition on Abebooks for cheap. (4th ed. for $60, sold!)

Oh? First year EE student? That's cute. Go buy a copy of this book right now, and don't wait 'til after completing a BS to brush over important concepts. This was singlehandedly more comprehensive than most of my individual courses.

If you can find it, Pozar is a pretty good foundation to work from.

Get a good handle of digital electronics (statemachines, combinatorial logic and registered logic). They'll give you a good basis for building up an understanding of how a computer works.

Digital Design and Computer Architecture
http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Design-Computer-Architecture-Harris/dp/0123704979

That book will take you through basic digital design, Verilog HDL, and then show you how to use Verilog to build a MIPS-like microprocessor (DLX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLX).

Much of the later material is derived from this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Architecture/dp/0123744938/ref=pd_sim_b_1

----------------------------------------------------------

Steve Gibson did a series of podcasts called How Computers Work.
http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm
Search for HOW COMPUTERS WORK

----------------------------------------------------------
If you have any questions or need any other resources in the future, reply to my post.

Strictly speaking in terms of bang for buck, I like Robert's courses. They are Altium-centric, of course, but the concepts he teaches will apply to any tool.

http://www.fedevel.com/academy

I highly recommend one book if you don't have it in your library, Henry Ott's EMC engineering...it served as a constant reference for me in the lab:

https://www.amazon.com/Electromagnetic-Compatibility-Engineering-Henry-Ott/dp/0470189304

Our Logic class was entirely self taught, our book was this. It seemed to be good enough, and I am sure getting a much older edition wouldn't change much at all.

WLC100 is a great cheap soldering station.

Well, if you want to become an engineer, you'll need to go to college. After you get your prereqs out of the way, the first courses you'll take will be something like Circuits 1 and 2, covering RLC circuits and basic transistors, opamps, etc., and a digital course covering logic gates, flip-flops, etc. Later on, you'll get into Fourier and Laplace transforms, more analog and digital, and elective subjects based on your specialization.

Typical books:

Circuits: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Electric-Circuits-Charles-Alexander/dp/0077263197

Digital Design: http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Logic-Design-Companion-CD-ROM/dp/0495471690

The Scientist & Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing is a pretty decent book as a crash course. It covers the high level concepts in the first half and the hard core math at the very end.

In the middle there’s a chunk of stuff that’s very practical if you don’t have the time to learn all the math behind it. This is the stuff that I found most useful. It covered the various filters, why you would use one over the other, and basic implementations.

If you really want to learn DSP, a course might be useful but it all depends on what you want from it.

Buy nice so you don't buy twice. You get what you pay for with irons. Hakko is a decent brand name, but I wouldn't buy from Adafruit. They typically charge higher prices for the same parts/equipment you can get on Digikey or Amazon. Here is the same iron but $20 less on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Everything-Probably/dp/0123860016

"Electrical Engineering 101: Everything You Should Have Learned in School...but Probably Didn't"

Find it in a library or pick it up. Solid review book that discusses concepts and reasoning but isn't just a bunch of problems. Chapter 0 and 1 alone have paid for the book many many times over in my career.

Pickup an old (two or three revisions back) FE study guide. The PPI books have tons of review books but the FE is very thorough.

Check out https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/education/ . Find some blogs that discuss the specialty that you are wanting to pursue.

When interviewing, make sure you speak through your thought process. People want to get an understanding of how you approach problems.

Being a EE fits many problems that people are looking to hire for. Don't limit yourself.

Godspeed, Good luck (you make your own) and good hunting.

If you need a quick, dirty, and practical explanation of EE concepts, I find that the Practical Electronics For Inventors is a good book. Otherwise the other books mentioned in this thread are quite good too.

Came here to say this, bought my Hakko a few years ago, would highly recommend. Amazon has them for ~$90.

I was thinking about using Designing Analog Chips by Hans Camenzind along with The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz as a guide for projects to do. I also recognize its important to know to design digital electronics (even though it may not necessarily be my strength) and know how to do research if I do end up doing the PhD so I was also looking into these books: link 1, link 2, and link 3. Are there any other books I should look into?

When I took EM in addition to Cheng the professor suggested getting Div, Grad, Curl and all of that. I found that to be alot of help in solidifying the math and intuition needed.

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562

Sigh

See here (start on Pg. 9)
https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/ece303/Lectures/lecture28.pdf

Also here:
http://whites.sdsmt.edu/classes/ee382/notes/382Lecture32.pdf

If you want to google more, your keywords are "hertzian dipole field solution"

The gist of it is that for an oscillating current I(r), you immediatley know the auxiliary fields A and Phi (they follow the wave equation, with I as the source). From the auxilliary fields, you can immediately know E and H. (This is on Pg 8 of that second link). Actually just follow through those slides, you'll notice how the near-field terms you circled in red pops out from the equations.

If you like that, check this out:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596153740/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details

You mentioned Arduino, so I'd recommend this book and Make:Electronics

For the more academic side of things I'd recommend, The Art of Electronics Student Manual

These aren't textbooks, but I cannot recommend them strongly enough for someone interested in analog design. Get an interlibrary loan if you don't want to shell out cash.

• Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science and Personalities
  
• The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design

See if your library has this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-Edition/dp/0123744938

It's what we used in my computer organization course and I found it to be quite helpful. If you are desperate, a PDF version of your book is comes up as the second result on google...

As a reference book AofE is fine, but the one that really helped make everything "click" in my mind was Electrical Engineering 101 https://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Everything-Probably/dp/0123860016

As far as I am aware, Ted Williams' The Circuit Designer's Companion is considered to be the bible on layout and PCB design.

Go to the library and look up this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Fields-Waves-Communication-Electronics-Simon/dp/0471585513

About the simplest way I know to calculate it is in Chapter 6, transmission line equivalence of plane wave reflection on inhomogeneous dielectric boundaries.

you could start here. or here.

Start here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Computing-Systems-Principles/dp/0262640686

[RF Circuit Design] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0750685182/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1) by Chris Bowick. Has extensive coverage of analog RF filters and lucid explanation of the subject.

I recommend Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics.

You will find it difficult to escape vector calculus in understanding electromagnetics, but Griffiths begins with a quite clear refresher of what you need to know. He continues into electrostatics and magnetostatics, then to electrodynamics, EM waves and radiation, and finishes with relativistic electrodynamics. He also has an informal, conversational style. The text suffers a bit from putting necessary concepts in the exercises, some of which can be quite difficult.

The Amazon reviews will say much more than I have - also look at the reviews for the 3rd edition (which I have, and which has been out for longer).

I could read and read and read, but it wasn't until I put it to practice that I got it. https://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Design-Second-Christopher-Bowick/dp/0750685182 I walked through his examples and built and measured some impedance matches and it finally stuck.

As mentions, no option without the math if you really want to grok things.

The closest lite-math way is through amateur radio publications from ARRL. However this gloss over and skip a ton of stuff that ultimately you'll need to still learn with the math later if you really want to understand things.

We used Ramo/Whinnery/Van Duzer in school. I'm not saying good or bad. Ramo is the R in TRW if that means anything.