Changes required by Idaho’s State Board of Education have led many undergraduate programs to overhaul portions of their curriculum related to communication. We took advantage of this opportunity to think about what YOU (our students) need to be successful. As a result, we’re announcing exciting new courses, new degree requirements, and updated course prerequisites. Tune in later this week for info on new elective and certificate options.
New Degree Requirements
The Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering no longer requires ENGL 202, a three-credit technical writing course. Instead, students will take three new one-credit courses designed just for electrical engineers.
- ECE 180 Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering | This new one-credit in-person course will lay the foundation necessary for success in the ECE curriculum. Students will learn about common hardware and software tools. An overview of the profession and potential careers will help students put their learning in context, and a lab project will provide hands-on experience.
- ENGR 207 Technical Communication for Electrical Engineers | In this course, students explore writing conventions for electrical engineers using content from the co-requisite laboratory course. Students will draft, revise, and edit electrical engineering documents for specific audiences, focusing on effective textual and visual communication. Topics include analyzing audience needs, effective engineering style, communicating data, and creating technical graphics. Students must have completed ENGL 102 and be enrolled in ECE 212L.
- ECE 245 Introduction to Electronic Materials | This one-credit course provides an introduction to basic materials concepts relevant to electrical engineering including energy band diagrams, insulators, conductors, and semiconductors. Bonding in common semiconductor device materials is also discussed along with conduction and valence bands. Students also explore semiconductor device doping, Fermi energy and level, carrier transport mechanisms, and generation and recombination. Conductivity, resistivity, mobility are briefly reviewed along with the operation of diodes and selected transistor types. To be successful in this course, students must have completed CHEM 111.
New Course Prerequisites
- ECE 212L | A new corequisite course is required starting fall 2020. In order to enroll in ECE 212L, students will now also need to be enrolled in ENGR 207.
- ECE 360 | The system modeling and control course now requires a prerequisite of ECE 212 or ENGR 240.
- ECE 380 | This course now requires students to have completed a Foundations of Communication course (usually COMM 101) and either ENGL 202 or ENGR 207.
- ECE 473 | We have removed the ECE 300 corequisite requirement.
Advice to Students
Every student’s journey is different and we can’t describe every potential situation in this one article, so it is best to meet with your academic advisor to make sure you’re on track. Schedule an advising appointment.
ENGR 207
- If you have already taken ENGL 202 and are looking to enroll in ECE 212, you will simply need a permission number. Please reach out to Kristina Martin to obtain that number.
- If you have not taken ENGL 202, you will need to take ENGR 207 the same semester you take ECE 212. Also, since ENGL 202 is no longer a Foundations of Social Sciences (FS) course, you may need to take a second FS to satisfy your general university requirements.
- If you have already taken ECE 212 and did not complete ENGL 202, you will need to take ENGR 207 and a second Foundations of Social Sciences course. If this is your situation, schedule an advising appointment so you can determine if you have other classes that will satisfy the FS requirement.
ECE 180 and ECE 245
- These courses are required for any student using the 2020-2021 catalog or later.
- If you are on the 2019-2020 catalog, it may benefit you to switch to the 2020-2021 catalog – especially if you have AP, dual-credit, or transfer credits that will satisfy both of your Foundations of Social Science requirements. Run a What-If report for the 2020 catalog or meet with an academic advisor to see if this option will benefit you.
- If you are using the 2018-2019 catalog (or earlier catalog years) you will not need to take ECE 180 or ECE 245.