Top 10 Reasons for Choosing ECE at CU
10. The quality of life in Boulder and Colorado.
| Boulder is located in one of the most spectacular settings in a state that is known for its beauty year-round. If you are an active, outdoor person, this is the place for you. Boulder's parks and open space are prized by residents and visitors alike. |
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9. The quality of our students, past and present.
A substantial number of graduates of this department have gone on to work in upper levels of high tech companies; many have started their own companies or have pursued highly-successful consulting careers.
| Our current student body has included such students as Ryan Patterson, a recipient of the Intel Young Scientist Scholarship Award, the Glen T. Seaborg Nobel Prize Visit Award, and other awards. Ryan, who graduated in 2006, chose the University of Colorado over many other top universities for its facilities and programs. |  |
8. Certificate programs.
The ECE Department offers three certificate programs which are available to undergraduate students: Embedded Systems, Power Electronics, and Software Engineering. Each certificate program consists of three specialized courses which provide in-depth education in areas of particular importance to high tech industries. These courses may be taken as electives and may not require additional credit hours above the standard 128 hours needed for graduation.
7. The concurrent BS/MS program.
Our BS/MS program makes it possible for qualified undergraduate students to begin work on a Master's degree while completing the requirements for a B.S. degree. There are several advantages including counting up to six credit hours toward both degrees, potentially reducing tuition in the last year, and access to teaching and/or research assistantships.
6. Study abroad programs
A special opportunity to broaden students' cultural and technical horizons is available through several study abroad programs.
| The Department works with students interested in attending foreign universities to make the courses they take fit into their CU curriculum. Programs have been established with universities in Australia, Chile, Coast Rica, Egypt, England, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey. Our students have also studied abroad in universities in France, Germany, and others. |
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5. Summer internships.
A large number of students are offered summer internships at local and national companies. Some start as early as the summer after their freshman year, but more opportunities become available the further a student advances in the curriculum.
4. The quality of our programs
According to US News and World Report, our Electrical Engineering program is ranked 29th nationally, 18th among public universities, and is the highest ranked EE program in the state of Colorado. Our Electrical and Computer Engineering program is ranked 35th nationally, 20th among public universities, and is the only ranked ECE program in the state of Colorado. The College of Engineering and Applied Science is ranked 18th among public undergraduate engineering programs nationwide (America's Best Colleges, 2005).
3. Our "hands-on" learning environment
The number of required and elective laboratory courses in our programs are
among the highest of any in the country. Even though labs are much more
expensive than strictly lecture courses, our students confirm that
the hands-on laboratory component, which reinforces concepts learned in
lecture, make a huge difference in understanding those concepts.
Industry recruiters who hire our students value the skills that those laboratory hours have sharpened and enhanced (see the comment from a recruiter in reason #1 below).
There are other college- and campus-wide programs in which our students actively participate. Many of our students receive UROP funds to support work in faculty research labs or their senior design projects. There are opportunities to work on multi-disciplinary teams through the Space Grant Consortium, housed in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. The College of Engineering sponsors active learning opportunities through its Discovery Learning Center for programs in research, service, or professional learning. All of these programs, and more, add valuable "real-world" experiences which enrich and enhance classroom learning.
2. The quality of our faculty and staff.
| Two of our current and emeritus faculty are members of the highly select National Academy of Engingineering. One of them, Prof. Frank Barnes, is one of only two recipients of the prestigious Bernard Gordon Prize, awarded by the National Academy. In addition, 11 of our faculty are Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and three are Fellows of the Optical Society of America. |
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The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is the world's largest technical society with over 360,000 members in 150 countries. Professor Michael Lightner was elected President of that organization and served as its president from January through December, 2006. |
Our faculty of 39 tenured or tenure-track members plus two full-time senior instructors and several lecturers provide a student to faculty ratio of around 10 to 1. All courses are taught by those faculty; TA's are employed only in laboratory sections.
1. Career opportunities for our graduates.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, electrical, electronics, and computer engineers make up the largest branch of engineering. Together, they hold about 366,000 jobs in the U.S. They are found in professional, scientific, and technical services firms, government agencies, manufacturers of computer and electronic products and machinery, wholesale trade, communications, and utilities firms. On the CU-Boulder campus, recruiters request interviews with electrical engineering and computer engineering graduates in numbers several times those of other majors, even other engineering majors.
The 2005 graduating senior survey reported that the average starting salary for B.S. graduates of this department was $59,062 -- the highest in the College of Engineering. The 2006 survey showed that our seniors had the highest percentage of interviews granted per job application.
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A corporate manager recently reported, "Currently I am in charge of new graduate engineering recruiting for the Boulder office. I have been able to tour many colleges across the US and view their engineering programs. When comparing CU-Boulder to the local universities, I can say that we have been very successful with recruiting at CU. On the other hand, we have given up recruiting from any of the other local universities. The main difference is that CU prepares the new graduates with real world experience, via labs, that more closely match what we need. Your main competition from our perspective is University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Purdue, University of Texas-Austin, and Michigan."
