I grew up in Serbia, a small country in South-Eastern Europe. When I was born in ’70s, it was still Yugoslavia, but it broke into pieces during the ’90s turmoil. These days, the situation over there is not that great so I am happy to have left abroad.
Of course, I am a native speaker of Serbian language. I am not bad in English either. I may have an accent, but my wife tells me I sound pretty awesome anyway 🙂 … and she is not biased at all…
I always liked Electrical Engineering. So it was only natural for me to attend Electrical Engineering high school, conveniently named by Nikola Tesla. I wanted to be “on the edge” so I enrolled into elite class to study Applied Electronics and Telecommunications.
I graduated as Electrical Engineering Technician for Computers. Back then, computers were considered “the thing of the future”. I really enjoyed studying both computer hardware and software. Digital electronics and algorithm design were my favorite subjects.
Having sensed the appeal of engineering, I continued my education at The School of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade. Tough school: tough to enroll into, even tougher to finish! Looking back, I realize now how brutal it was. But I was young and I didn’t know any better. Nowadays, I am grateful for having gone through that ordeal. It was The Best!
As soon as I graduated with my Electrical Engineering degree, I was pulled into the (then) mandatory military service. I was almost bombed at during NATO aggression in ’99.
When I got out of the army, I figured: “This war stuff is not for me”. I emigrated to America, to live my life in a well developed country. I like order. I barely ever looked back…
I landed in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I can still remember the smell of Hershey chocolates 🙂 . Quickly thereafter, I moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and after few months, finally to Texas!
I wanted a job and I was eager to start my Electrical Engineering career. With a degree from some country that average American only heard the bad stuff about… job was not in the cards.
I needed a degree from an American institution to be recognized as a “Real Deal!” … and so I did it again. This time, it was one of the prestigious engineering universities in the US: Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
I became an Aggie (Texas A&M alumni)!
With a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in my hand, I landed a job in Madison, Wisconsin. I moved there in fall of 2003. At the time, I didn’t realize, I will spend next 10+ years in that beautiful Midwestern town. State capital with vibrant economy and excellent Power Engineering firms. A bit cold during wintertime though…
I may have overstayed, but I enjoyed working for the same one company for more than a decade!
I started as a Substation Engineer and about every three years progressed to the next level. I was doing Protection and Control work in a growing Power Engineering consulting firm.
The company served clients across the United States. I was involved in many projects and I witnessed, first hand, the great diversity of Engineering practices among variety of electrical utilities.
I have designed microprocessor relay protection schemes for substation equipment and transmission lines. I did some field testing and commissioning, but my day-to-day job entailed predominantly office work.
Australia! My wife teases me that we need to emigrate to Argentina next so I can check off another country of this world starting with A.
Be it as it may, I found myself in South Australia – one of the not-so-well-known states of Australia. City of Adelaide!
I actually like the climate here. It is not so hot and certainly not so cold as in Wisconsin. It’s definitely a different culture and my life experience is enriched yet again.
Professionally, I continued my Power Engineering consulting jobs. I worked for three different companies for next couple of years. I just couldn’t settle. A calling of different nature was heard ever stronger. A twist in my career was waiting for me…
One more time, I made a change. This time it was a slow transition into Lecturer position at the University of South Australia. I was able to get number of Electrical Engineering courses to teach or hold tutorials or practicals for, or both. Sometimes all of the above…
I also teach at The South Australian Institute of Business and Technology (SAIBT).
My main courses across both of these educational institutions are:
- Electricity and Electronics Systems
- Electrical Circuit Theory
- Power Systems Analysis (Design)
- Renewable and Distributed Power Generation
My latest enjoyment (I don’t want to say effort) has been development of On-line Courses. I have established this web site as a portal for my:
Teaching Powerful Electrical Engineering Courses with Passion!
The first course I developed is: Complex Numbers for Electrical Engineering Students course. It is designed to primarily help Electrical Engineering students. They encounter a lot of calculations with complex numbers as they progress throughout their studies and career, so they need to know it well.
One thing that I identified among students is that sometimes they even come to a fourth year and they still don’t really know some basic operations with complex numbers.
Maybe it’s the name – complex numbers – sounds so complicated, but in all essence, “complex numbers” is just a name and they’re not that difficult at all.
Once students manage to overcome their resistance towards those concepts they actually become quite successful in performing all the necessary operations and all the calculations that Electrical Engineering discipline entails in general.
I want to help you with gaining knowledge as to how to successfully use complex numbers and I would like you all to also become successful Electrical Engineers.
I hope to see you in the course!