Educational Objectives
During their careers, computer engineering graduates will
- become successful practicing engineers or pursue another career that makes use of engineering principles and professional skills;
- become contributing members of multidisciplinary teams and successfully apply the fundamentals of their educational background; and
- pursue professional development, including continuing or advanced education, relevant to their career path.
To achieve these objectives students are given a rigorous foundation in mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics, programming, and circuit theory. Then they are immersed in a sequence of required courses in digital systems, field programmable gate array (FPGA), microprocessors, electronics, computer architecture, sensors, transducers and data acquisition, advanced computer programming, and data structures. In their senior year, students are given the choice to pursue their own areas of interest in computer engineering and computer science through the selection of several elective courses. Both the required courses and the senior-year courses are designed to achieve breadth and depth in the curriculum. The engineering design experience is distributed throughout the entire curriculum, beginning in the first year and continuing throughout the curriculum, culminating in a two part senior-year capstone project.
Students must complete a 4-credit lecture and laboratory course in general chemistry. Students also must complete two 4-credit lectures courses in calculus-based physics (including laboratory components), thus meeting the depth requirement. Students complete a mathematics sequence including Calculus I and II, Differential Equations, and ECE 320 - Probabilistic Topics for Computer Engineering . Students take several computer engineering courses that integrate their mathematical skills and include these courses as co- or prerequisites.
The ability to work professionally on computer systems later, including the design and realization of such systems, is demonstrated by the progression of courses from introductory to comprehensive, including design components. Our integrated design experience and senior capstone projects are increasingly becoming industry sponsored.
Through participation in the All-University Curriculum and in additional elective courses in the humanities and/or social sciences, students are given the opportunity to broaden their perspectives and to participate in the larger learning community of the University.
Extensive laboratory work supplements the theoretical course work through suitable hands-on experience. In addition to the laboratories in the sciences, there are required laboratory courses in engineering: Circuits I and II; Electronics I and II; Digital Logic; FPGA; microprocessors; digital devices; and sensors, transducers, and data acquisition.
Students exercise their verbal and technical writing skills in a required writing course and in many engineering courses. In addition, written and oral communication of laboratory results is required.
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