Electrical Engineering deals with the study, design, and application of systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetics. While many people associate electrical engineering with electronics and circuits, electrical engineering encompasses a wide variety of areas including embedded systems, computer and other types of digital electronic systems, signal processing, control systems, and communication systems.
An undergraduate degree in EE can also open the door to entrepreneurship or graduate school in engineering, law, business, and medicine.
Electronics and integrated circuits are what most people think about when they think about electrical engineering. Circuits are designed for a wide variety of applications and are the building blocks (along with mathematics and science) for many of the other areas in electrical engineering.
Pacemakers are a specialized application of electronics which must be designed to limit power consumption.
A cell phone demonstrates many different aspects of electrical engineering, such as the antenna used to transmit and receive signals (music, voice, video are all signals), the communication systems used to determine how to transmit and decode received signals, the embedded system (computer) used to connect everything together and process signals, and the battery and powering systems.
Embedded systems use specialized single chip microcontrollers to interface to various subsystems. These microcontrollers are programmed to use this information to monitor and control the behavior of a system in an intelligent way. For example, a typical automobile will have over 30 different microcontrollers to monitor subsystems.
Control systems involves the use of modelling and feedback to modify or “control” the behavior of a system. For example, control systems keep a Segway upright and direct and land rockets.
MRI scanners make extensive use of electrical engineering including electromagnetics, electronics, and signal processing.
Communication systems involve the design and analysis of system to improve the worldwide network of cell phones, satellite radio, high definition television, and data transfer. This includes the de- sign of the internet and new satellite systems.
Signal processing uses mathematical and computer analysis to modify or enhance signals and images.
Digital systems use digital logic subsystems to create larger digital systems, such as computers, microcontrollers, and digital cameras.
Major course requirements and additional info coming soon.