B.S. Computer Engineering

“Nowadays the world is lit by lightning,” playwright Tennessee Williams wrote. But electrical and computer engineers prove him wrong every day.

From city lights to satellites, semiconductors, telephone switching systems and audio equipment, their work depends on electricity and the engineers who design and develop ways to harness its power.

The Computer Engineering (CompE) program bridges the curriculum gap between Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Computer engineers deal with the hardware and software aspects of computer system design and development. The CompE curriculum contains components of both the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering programs.

Computer Engineering majors receive a broad knowledge in the basic curriculum. Among the many covered topics are mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electrical circuits, engineering economics, algorithms, programming and computer organization. Computer Engineering students will take coursework in a number of areas (e.g., computer architecture, digital design) from both the software and hardware points of view, allowing a broader, more complete exposure to the subject. Additionally, these curricula will be unified in the one-year senior design project course bringing together the existing Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science programs.

The ECE department has 17 labs associated with its ECE classes. In the labs, students work alongside professors who may be designing medical instrumentation for healthcare, designing microcontroller-based applications, developing pager and satellite communications systems, or working on innovations in electrical power systems.

All students in the EE or CompE programs take part in the department’s senior design program, modeled on industry work groups that students will encounter on the job. Like professional engineers, students design and develop a project from conception through manufacture. In the process, they gain valuable experience in working as a team and dealing with personalities, as well as technical areas.

Senior design projects have included national intercollegiate competitions. Students compete in designing a micromouse and training it to run through a 10-square-foot maze. Students also work on interdisciplinary teams to design, build, program and test an unmanned autonomous helicopter. Other projects include developing a sophisticated stereo system, a control system for a satellite tracking antenna, a television tuner, fabrication of a hybrid circuit, software-defined radio, etc.