Electrical and Electronics engineering are two popular engineering streams in India. Electrical is one of the oldest branch along with mechanical and civil. Electronics is one of the modern streams, which has become popular during the last two decades. 

Electrical Engineering

This is one of the oldest branches of Engineering. It deals with the study of the application of principles of electricity and electromagnetism. There are so many branches that come as a part of electrical engineering. Electronics, telecommunication, instrumentation, etc are some of them. The course offered at most colleges briefly touches all these areas. The first year of the engineering course has mostly common subjects for all branches. It deals with subjects like maths, physics, chemistry, drawing, basics on electrical, electronics and mechanical engineering and a paper on computer programming. Maths is one of the subjects that an electrical engineering student will learn throughout the course. There will be papers on mechanical engineering during the next three to four semesters. During the second semester, there will be papers on network systems, material science, electrical circuit theory and electronic devices and circuits. Electrical machines papers start from the fourth semester onwards and continue till the end. Electromagnetic theory, digital systems, etc are also papers of the fourth semester. The course proceeds to control systems, power systems and communication systems in the fifth semester. There are more papers on drawing like machine drawing in the sixth semester. It will also have papers on power electronics, microprocessor, VLSI technology in the sixth semester. There are also a few industrial management and engineering economics papers during the final year. Other papers that would be dealt with throughout the second half of the course are control systems, power systems, etc. Each university/college has a set of electives to choose from during the last year. There are also practical papers for all semesters. The final project is also a very important part of the curriculum.

Electronics Engineering

Electronics engineering is that branch of Electrical engineering that deals with the study of electronic components, devices like diodes, transistors, etc. The course structure during the first three semesters is pretty much the same as that of electrical engineering. During the fourth semester, the course deals with data structures, signals and systems, digital electronics and instrumentation. The fifth semester has papers on industrial electronics, electronic circuit design, communication systems and automatic control systems. Digital signal processing, microprocessor, VLSI technology are papers dealt with during the sixth semester. The rest of course structure is the same as that of electrical engineering course. There are electives to be chosen from during the final year. Again, the final project is important.

Key difference between Electronics and Electrical Engineering

As can be seen by going through the above structure of the syllabus, there are a lot of common papers in both subjects. In case of electrical engineering, the course touches almost all branches of engineering. Electronics engineering course is a little more restricted to the subject itself. There are quite a few jobs that prefer either of the two. But there are some of those that are specific to the subject. Electrical engineering focus on mostly generation and consumption of electricity where as electronics mostly deal with electronic components and communication principles. Job opportunities for electronics engineers are more compared to that of electrical engineers since they can go into multiple areas like hardware, computer engineering, telecommunication, circuit design and so on. Now electronic devices are available in most of the fields, hence career opportunities are also multi-fold.