As an Electrical Engineer, learning Instrumentation & Control is the least that I want to do. It reminded me of my career choice after graduating from High School. I want to take Electronics & Communication Engineering (ECE) as I love electronics. I did some analysis on the job market then, it seems that there are 5 times more graduates of ECE that Electrical. This was then the advent of Personal Computers. The only computers we have been using then are the Apple TRS-80 & IBM Mainframe which is uses a card reader to load programs. We do Fortran on the IBM whilwe program BASIC on the TRS-80.
It was only on my third year at the University that I finally decided to become an Electrical Engineer. Then the start of boom of the Personal Computers, then at this present times part of our daily lives.
Integration, connectivity and control is where the industrial sector is leading to. Industrial sites are separated geographically but consolidated virtually. In doing this, the Instrumentation and Control Engineers are gaining momentum. I have known some Engineers who works as an Electrical, Instrumentation and Control Engineers and they are very in demand particularly in the Oil & Gas sector. This is making me think that rather than being a purist Electrical Engineer, I could learn Instrumentation & Control as a career development.
My current project is giving me all the possibilities to do this. Last year, I attended SCADA and PLC training cource, this time I am helping the Instrumentation & Control section on their PLC switchboard layouts using the I/O list they have prepared. It is only on my second week doing the task but I am loving it. It seems to fill in the missing knowledge I wanted to learn.
As the opportunity is already there, I want to continue up to the creation of loop and logic diagrams to at least get the feel of being an I&C Engineer even for a short time.