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Electronic and Computer System Engineering

The ECEN major differs from the others as it is more hardware focused. It looks at the use of conventional and modern electronics and how to design with these. It looks at optimizing your circuits to get the best results at the smallest cost.

  • The first year is chosen entirely for you, this isn’t because the university wants to be cruel it is because the knowledge you gain during this year is going to help you so much with your other years, the Mathematics and the Computer science especially. This year focuses on making sure each of the students has a knowledge of basics of engineering as a whole, it also requires that you get a B average within your compulsory courses to progress to second year.
  • The second year is where you start to get given a bit of choice in what you do, you also start to deal with a lot more hands on electronics. The use of individual components and integrated circuits  is focused on with a small amount of design being introduced.
  • The third year is where you start doing some bigger projects that do some really cool things. This is also the year that you make the shift from conventional electronic components to programming electronics (hence why the comp sci is really helpful), a lot of this programming is used to interface electronics with computers via a serial interface i.e. a USB cable. This is really where the knowledge you have obtained over the last two years gets applied and stretched
  • The fourth year takes everything you’ve learned, puts it in a big bottle and gives it a good shake. After everything has mixed in together it takes the collective knowledge and applies it. This year is more about creating useful devices such as: a microcontroller, a sub-woofer driver, a range finder and a Lego robot with basic artificial intelligence.

Each year takes what was taught in the previous year, uses that and adds something to it, and every so often there are leaps in what is required of you. Provided you keep up with the work, it’s absolutely possible to make it though.