I am an EE Ph.D. nearing graduate. After so many years in school, I
still feel I don't know what kind of job is the most suitable for me.

A little background of myself: I am in the software side of EE. My
experience include image processing, DSP, voice enhancement, pattern
recognition, etc. 

Most common jobs include: academia, research lab and industry. 

I have to say I am not a fan of research. In my opinion, most papers
that I've read don't contribute much to the human society. If I go
that direction and generate enough such things, I would be successful
in my career. But that's not what I wanted to do.

As an engineer person, I would be very happy if my work is creative,
useful, and interesting to people. However, I also have some worry to
industry. Some of my school friends go industry and according to them,
programming day after day is tedious.

A good answer shall contain (at least some of) the following:
1. General comments/suggestions on my out-of-school panic
2. Some ideas of other career choices
3. A list of local/web resources that can help me figure out what kind
of job is good for me.

Hello david553-ga,

You might find this article about Google's hiring of Ph.D.'s of
interest. (Registration required.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/business/yourmoney/06digi.html?ex=1107666000&en=ec0039994e36f8f2&ei=5070&oref=login&ex=1087444800&en=132b65be7a01ea1a&ei=5070

What's Google's Secret Weapon? An Army of Ph.D.'s
By RANDALL STROSS
Published: June 6, 2004

HEY, it's not rocket science. And it's not brain surgery. But if your
background is in either, you're welcome to take a shot and apply at
Google. The company's employees include a former rocket scientist and
a former brain surgeon.

... with a Ph.D.-centered culture, Google's co-founders, Sergey Brin
and Larry Page, have assembled the industry's most unorthodox
portfolio of human capital since Microsoft began intense recruiting of
computer science majors at top undergraduate schools in the 1980's.

Google, however, prefers those who have been trained for the maximum
time setting on the university's dial and who have experience in
organizing their own research agenda. The company has not released
data about its Ph.D's for two years, but based on its history, the
number is probably more than 100.

Mostly, Google has concentrated on recruiting those with a background
in what you would expect: computer science. Founded by two
near-Ph.D.'s who have purposely placed Ph.D.'s throughout the company,
Google encourages all employees to act as researchers, by spending 20
percent of their time on new projects of their own choosing.


Good luck.

~ czh ~

Image processing and pattern recognition have applications in medical
diagnostic equipment - would designing that sort of equipment be
fulfilling and socially useful?

Owain

One possible area of employment for a person with your skills would be
to work for a company that develops products or custom systems.  It
would help if you indicated in your question which country you are
looking for employment in.  There are some companies that specialise
in developing machine vision systems and image processing solutions. 
These can provide a challenging work environment as you have to come
to grips with the requirements of the particular industry (food,
agriculture, manufacturing, etc) as well as understanding the problem
from the perspective of image processing and machine vision expert. 
It helps to have some familiarity with industrial strength image
processing toolkits for this sort of work.  In Australia, some
companies that do this sort of work include
Adept Electronic Solutions http://www.adept.net.au/ 
Hamey Vision Systems http://www.hameyvision.com.au/
SciTech http://www.scitech.com.au/