What is Electrical Engineering? What do electrical engineers do? What is Computer Engineering? How is it different from Software Engineering? If you are thinking of a career in electrical engineering or computer engineering, here is what my department has to offer.
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Electrical engineers design products and/or systems that use electricity, such as the consumer electronics that surround us: radios, televisions, cellular telephones, computers and so forth. Electrical engineers design and build many devices for industry: ultrasound machines, artificial limbs, elevator-dispatching systems, weather radars, the electrical power grid, and thousands of other electrical systems that we take for granted as part of our everyday lives.
Electrical engineers often think in terms of systems. A big, complex system such a flight simulator can be broken down into subsystems. A team of engineers develops one of these subsystems under the guidance of a team leader. To do this work, electrical engineers draw on their background in the applied sciences, mathematics, computers, and management. A team of senior engineers integrates the subsystems to assemble the complete product.
Electrical engineering has many branches or specializations. A communications engineer designs software and hardware for communications systems such as the cellular telephone system. A power engineer designs and builds electric generating stations, high-voltage transmission lines, and the power distribution system that brings electricity to homes and industry. An engineer in control and robotics might work on the electrical system that ensures a smooth flow of paper through the rollers in a paper mill, or on the controls for manipulating the Canadarm aboard the space shuttle. Microwave engineers design and build wireless systems such as the antennas and microwave circuits that make cell phones work. An electronics engineer designs products such as radios and televisions, motion detectors, DVD players, or any of hundreds of other electrical devices. Electrical engineers design semiconductor devices such as transistors, and incorporate them into “very large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits” containing hundreds of thousands of transistors. An engineer in signal processing might develop methods to compress information such as an audio track so that it fits into less space on a computer’s hard disc, or might work to develop powerful software to correct errors in digital video information coming from a noisy communication channel or even from a scratched DVD disc. Concordia’s electrical engineering offers a solid education and allows the student to specialize in any one of these areas.
Because electrical engineering encompasses a wide variety of specializations it opens the door to many different careers. Our program provides a solid foundation in the fundamentals: mathematics, engineering science, circuit analysis, electronics, and computer systems. Students can choose a variety of specializations: power engineering, electronics and VLSI, control systems, telecommunications, computer systems, and microwave engineering. Students in the Telecommunications Option specialize in both the hardware and software aspects of telecommunications networks. Students in the Electronics/Systems option have a wide choice of elective courses, which can be chosen according to the student’s interests to specialize in one area, such as power engineering, or to design a career spanning several areas, such as computer systems, electronics, and microwave engineering. Our program emphasizes lab work, with more than 30 courses using up-to-date equipment in modern laboratories. Recruiters from industry recognize that Concordia graduates have extensive hands-on experience in the lab. Our courses are taught to small classes by professors who are established researchers and bring their leading-edge knowledge into the classroom.
The B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering is a 120-credit program which normally takes four years of full-time study after CEGEP. Courses in this program are in these main areas:
Our program includes a final-year design project which provides students the experience of working in a team. Each team designs a solution to a significant engineering problem, and implements their design as a working device or prototype.
Our electrical engineering program is accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board and our graduates are eligible to become registered professional engineers and members of the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec.
Computer engineers design, build and test computing systems for general purposes such as personal computers as well as for dedicated controllers built into MP3 players, DVD players and recorders, or even today’s washing machines. Computer Engineers have the hardware and software skills and knowledge necessary for the understanding, development and integration of such ubiquitous systems.
Computer engineering includes both software and hardware. A hardware engineer might design the hardware module that controls the fuel-injection system in your car, reading sensors for the position of the crankshaft, the speed of rotation, the position of the accelerator pedal, and firing the injectors that supply fuel to the cylinders. A software engineer writes the program that runs on the hardware module, and determines how much fuel to inject into each cylinder and exactly when to inject it as the piston moves inside each cylinder, according to the power required by the driver and the car’s speed. This is an example of a computer system “embedded” into a mechanical system (the car) that controls the system in “real time”. Our program specializes in such real-time embedded systems.
Software engineers design and write large-scale software systems such as the Airline Reservation system or the Automatic Teller Machine system, which access massive databases over wide computer networks and serve thousands of users at any one time. Computer engineering differs from software engineering because computer engineers design special-purpose hardware and write software that works closely with that hardware, often in a real-time environment for an embedded controller.
Computer engineering has many specializations. A computer engineer working in control systems might design the fuel-injection system described above, or design the software that runs on it. A computer engineer working in computer architecture might design the next generation of CPU chip. Modern aircraft use “fly-by-wire” technology where the pilot’s controls talk to an embedded computer that controls the flight surfaces on the wings and tail. A computer engineer might develop a special-purpose processor that can fly a large aircraft and design the software that is the heart of the fly-by-wire system. An engineer specializing in computer security develops hardware and software systems to protect computers from intrusion. Our computer engineering program prepares you with the necessary hardware and software skills for these careers.
Concordia’s computer engineering program provides a solid foundation in engineering mathematics and science, programming methodology, data structures, operating systems, digital electronics and control systems. The program lets you specialize in “system software” or “system hardware”. Our program emphasizes practical work, with labs in about 30 courses, using modern equipment. Real-time embedded systems are featured with hands-on design and programming labs. Our program offers small class sizes. Our faculty members are established researchers who bring their cutting-edge knowledge and experience to the classroom to enrich the students' learning experience.
The B.Eng. in Computer Engineering is a 120-credit program which normally takes four years of full-time study after CEGEP. Courses in this program are in these main areas:
Our program culminates in a final-year design project which provides students the experience of working in a team. Each team designs a solution to a significant engineering problem, and to implements their design as a working device or prototype.
Our computer engineering program is accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board and our graduates are eligible to become registered professional engineers and members of the Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec.
The ECE Department offers a co-op program in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. A co-op program formally integrates a student’s academic studies with work experience in a co-operative industrial organization. The program consists of study and work terms. Students undertake full-time jobs during the work terms in appropriate external organizations, thereby complementing their academic knowledge acquired in the classroom.
For more information about our co-op programs, please visit these websites:
Electrical engineering: coop.concorida.ca/programs/engcompsci/electrical.shtml
Computer engineering: coop.concorida.ca/programs/engcompsci/compeng.shtml
You can apply for admission to our Electrical Engineering program or to our Computer Engineering program at: https://welcome.concordia.ca/concordia/preference.jsp
[ Note] This message is originally from Dr. Christopher Trueman, Eng ].
Page Title: What's ECE - Concordia University - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Page URL:http://www.ece.concordia.ca/prospectivestudents/introduction/whatsece.php ...tsece.php
Date Printed: Wed May 16, 2012
