Electrical engineering is a very wide area and it contains many branches and majors, from power, machine, communications, computer science , control ..etc... It is very difficult to find a single software that cover all these branches. Yet, Matlab covers most of these fields as it contains various toolboxes.
Matlab is a good tool and students should be encouraged to use it. However, I believe that students should also be exposed to the tools used in the industry. We use PSS/E and DSA Power Tools (for power flow, fault analysis and stability), and PSCAD (for electromagnetic transients). Other available tools are: Power world simulator, EMTP-RV, DigSilent. Some of the above programs have free versions for students. Others have educational discounts.
Its difficult to point out just one software tool for electrical engineering undergraduate students , given the range of topics and skills students need to understand / acquire. I tend to use three solutions for freshmen: (i) an interactive application for helping students understanding how to build a simultaneous equation system for a DC electrical circuit with 4 nodes (this application is available through ResearchGate - see paper entitled "Interactive Exercises on Analysis Methods for DC Linear Electrical Circuits"); (ii) an online simulation tool for electrical circuits, developed by Paul Falstad (available at http://www.falstad.com/circuit/); and (iii) a remote lab for electrical circuits, developed by Ingvar Gustavsson (see http://openlabs.bth.se/electronics/). These 3 solutions address 3 different domains: analysis, simulation and experimentation. Students need to be fluent in all these 3 domains and (in a higher level) be able to understand and to predict any differences among the results (like the lack of accuracy of a given model used in simulation).
If your students need programs for PCB design, you might want to consider educational version (licence) of Altium design software. It is the successor of Protel.
If you need simulation software it depends on which field of electrical engineering is in question. Circuit design simulations differ when it comes to LF, HF and/or digital circuit simulators.
From a hardware standpoint, I found the student edition of Quartus II to be very helpful. The program provides an easy to navigate environment for practicing Verilog and VHDL.
There are variety of softwares in Electrical Engineering, those have been briefed here.
SIMPOWER SYSTEM TOOLS
SimPowerSystems work together with SIMULINK to model electrical, mechanical, and control systems. These case studies provide detailed, realistic examples of how to use SimPowerSystems for Series Compensated Transmission Network for studying subsynchronous resonance in AC Power Transmission systems. The Study of DC motor drive with armature voltage controlled by thyristor chopper. The PWM inverter driven variable frequency AC induction motor in variable voltage for variable speed operation.
PSPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis)
PSPICE is a universal Standard simulator used to simulate the operation of various electric circuits and devices. It helps to simulate electrical circuit design before they are set up. This allows the designer to decide if changes are needed, without touching any hardware. It helps to study the network response. In short it is a simulated lab bench on which the test circuit can be created and measurements can be made.
ETAP (Electrical Transient Analyzer Program)
The ETAP is informative software for electrical engineers to learn the latest trends in power system modeling, design, and analysis. Topics include an overview of modeling electrical power systems via one-line diagrams. The overview of the ETAP includes System Modeling (sources, branches, loads, protective devices, etc.), One-Line Diagram, Libraries (data and interface), 3-Dimensional Database (presentation, configuration, and engineering data), Cable Systems (ampacity and sizing), Transmission Lines (line constants, ampacity, and sag and tension), Report Manager, Wizard, etc. It can be used to perform load flow studies, motor acceleration studies, transient stability analysis and harmonic analysis.
MATLAB Programming
MATLAB is a high-level language and interactive environment that enables you to perform computationally intensive tasks faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++, and Fortran. It includes Algorithm development, Data acquisition, Modeling, simulation, and prototyping, Data analysis, exploration, and visualization, Scientific and engineering graphics, Application development, including graphical user interface building.
PSCAD (Power System Computer Aided Design)
PSCAD/EMTDC is a general-purpose time domain simulation program for multi-phase power systems and control networks. It is mainly dedicated to the study of transients in power systems. A full library of advanced components allows a user to precisely model interactions between electrical networks and loads in various configurations. A graphical user interface and numerous control tools make PSCAD a convenient and interactive tool for both analysis and design of any power system.
A lot of great examples already above, I'd just add in the use of MATPOWER (a set of functions freely downloadable for use with Matlab http://www.pserc.cornell.edu/matpower/) that can be used for load flow and optimal load flow.
Another option for dynamics is IPSA (http://www.ipsa-power.com/software) which is very simple to use for basic dynamic studies.
All depends which aspect of electrical engineering is being covered.
For demonstrating the basic phenomena and interdependencies in dynamic power systems (Power flow, Sags, Dips, Phase rotation, Harmonics, Flicker etc.) I use the free PQTeachingToy, which is free and a great companion to my lecture(s) on that topic. Follow the link to check it out.
Test the program Micro-Cap is an integrated schematic editor and mixed analog / digital simulator that provides an interactive sketch and simulate environment for electronics engineers. There is a student version.
For Electrical engineering students, MATLAB is definitely good along with Simulink, it gives you the chance to build prototype and test it and visualize your results with the help of various plots.
For power systems Power world is a good simulation software, its easy to use and you can play around with it.
There are a lot. It is impossible to say which is the best. It depends. For instance, If you need a rapid tool in order to solve calculations with phasors, you can try my own proposal. It is for free and fully portable: http://www.smartgrids.ro/obenerg/obphasor/
Agree with Me. Bogdan, you need to be more specific in your search. If you want to run a Power Flow, or Short circuit study, Arc Flash, Motor Starting, Reliability, Control circuits, Load Analysis, CD/ACetc., try these 2 links: