Undergraduate Curriculum Requirements

Required Courses

The following are required courses in the EE curriculum:

ECE/COE 0031 LINEAR CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS 1
ECE/COE 0041 LINEAR CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS 2
ECE/COE 0132 DIGITAL LOGIC
ECE/COE 0142 COMPUTER ORGANIZATION
ECE 0257 ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS
ECE/COE 0501 DIGITAL LABORATORY
ECE 1201 ELECTRONIC MEASUREMENTS AND CIRCUITS LABORATORY
ECE 1212 ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT DESIGN LABORATORY
ECE 1247 SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICE THEORY
ECE 1259 ELECTROMAGNETICS 1
ECE 1552 SIGNALS AND SYSTEMS ANALYSIS
ECE 1563 SIGNAL PROCESSING LABORATORY

Each student must complete the following probability and statistics course:

ENGR 0020 PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS FOR ENGINEERS

Substitute Courses

The following University of Pittsburgh courses may be substituted for required courses in the EE curriculum:

CHEM 0110 and/or 0120 for CHEM 0960 and/or 0970
PHYS 0475 and 0476 (honors physics) for PHYS 0174 and 0175
PHYS 1351 for ECE 1259

If a student wishes to have any other courses considered as a substitute for a required ECE course, the student must submit a written request to the undergraduate coordinator, including a course syllabus, catalog description, and description of prerequisites.

Design Requirement

This requirement, which involves design and implementation of a solution to a real problem, provides students with a significant and complete design experience, including problem definition, investigation of the state of the art, prototype design, implementation, and evaluation. Projects require synthesis of a hardware or software structure to solve a problem, specification of how the structure can be realized, and construction of the solution.

The projects allow students to apply the analysis and synthesis skills they have developed during their undergraduate course work and appreciate how different areas of the curriculum are related to each other. The students also gain practical experience in problem definition, laboratory skills, teamwork and inter-group communication, prototyping techniques, project scheduling, and other aspects of engineering practice that are not encountered in course work. Both written and oral reports are presented.

Typically, the project requires:

A proposal: Description of the problem and design approach.
A schedule: Specific tasks to be accomplished with milestones identified.
A final report: Description and evaluation of the final design.
A poster presentation and an oral presentation at a Senior Design Expo, held at the end of the fall and spring terms. (Only an oral presentation is required for projects completed in the summer term. However, students are encouraged to present a poster at a subsequent Expo, if possible.)

Projects can involve two terms of credit—for example, using a design course to initiate the project and an independent study to complete it.

Several mechanisms are used to assign credit for the project, including the ECE design course (ECE 1896 SENIOR DESIGN COURSE), a specialty area design course (such as ECE 1193 VLSI DESIGN or ECE 2391 PROJECTS IN COMPUTER VISION), or a school-wide design course (such as ENGR 1050 PROJECT REALIZATION). Design topics may be suggested as part of a course, but students usually select their own projects. In most cases, students work on a team of three to five students.

For specific EE concentrations, the design course may be a requirement within that concentration. The specialty area design courses include:

ECE 1161 EMBEDDED COMPUTER SYSTEM DESIGN
ECE 1193 VLSI DESIGN
ECE 2391 PROJECTS IN COMPUTER VISION

These courses have a limited enrollment.

Communications Requirement

A student must select one communications course from the following groups:

Engineering

ENGR 1010 COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR ENGINEERS

Rhetoric and Communication Department

COMMRC 0500 ARGUMENT
COMMRC 0520 PUBLIC SPEAKING
COMMRC 0540 DISCUSSION

English Department

ENGCMP 0400 WRITTEN PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION
ENGCMP 0450 RESEARCH WRITING
ENGCMP 0515 PERSUASIVE WRITING

Note that English BW (ENGCMP 0150: BASIC WRITING) and English GW (ENGCMP 0200: GENERAL WRITING) cannot be used to satisfy this requirement. All engineering students complete an examination upon entry into the University to determine their ability in written communication. If a student does not perform satisfactorily on this exam, English BW is required as a remedial course beyond the normal requirements.