N.C. State is known for many academic excellences among which falls the College of Engineering. According to U.S. News and World Report, NCSU’s engineering program is ranked 31st in the nation.
Beneath the engineering umbrella there is aerospace, civil, mechanical, nuclear, electrical, and several more giving students a total of 18 different bachelor degrees, 17 masters, and 13 doctoral degrees to choose from. In addition to the diversity of majors, there concentrations with in each major like microelectronics, telecommunications, networking, communication, signal processing, and computer architecture, which are only to name a few.
Why electrical engineering?
At NCSU there are many supporting student programs for engineers such as IEEE, a global professional association promoting technology, Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate Student Association (ECE GSA), and Eta Kappa Nu, an honor society for electrical and computer engineers. These groups provide not only education but an enriched atmosphere for learning, which includes community and opportunity.
Electrical engineers also have an advantage at NCSU because there is room to advance into deeper areas of study with both a graduate and a PH.D program. There are many perks to getting more than a four year degree. One is the increased knowledge on a subject, and two is something a bit more concrete.
“A master’s degree will bring definite monetary success in a career when compared to a Baccalaureate degree,” Director of Graduate Programs, Dr. Joel Trussell said.
Currently, there are over 580 graduate students are pursuing their master’s degree in electrical engineering. Trussell used to survey students on what helped them choose NCSU and he found that the largest factor was word of mouth or references, second was the school’s ranking and the third, and least determining factor was location.
Students have praise for the program and the classes that they take. Vijay Shanmugasundaram, a graduate student in electrical engineering said, “Most of the projects that we do are practical oriented and it is veritably interesting.” Shanmugasundaram also spoke on the many fields of research in computer architecture, nano and power electronics.
“[All the fields of research] give us a wide scope in our career search because it opens up availability of the global job market, which has beneficial pay,” he said.
What’s happening in the electrical world?
The size of the first computer nearly took up an entire room, but thanks to electrical engineers phones, laptops and media players are sized for human hands, which is considerably smaller than a room. When thinking about all the functions these gadgets perform it is hard to imagine them all encapsulated into the ounces of material that usually constitute their designs. With circuit designers striving harder to make their designs faster and more compact the question is, what’s next?
Communication has advanced leaps and bounds over the years and is probably where even more progress can be made. One thing made possible by electrical engineers is the minimal delay, noise and distortion on phones and webcams.
Another advancement and area of progression is the ability to transfer data. A few decades back, computers were networked manually. Transferring data from one entity to another required human intervention by physically carrying data over magnetic tapes. Of course today we use a mouse and a keyboard in conjunction with USB cables and flash drives.
Anand Parthasarathy, a graduate student in electrical engineering with a concetration in networking said, “The Internet is the by-product of marvelous minds and one of the best advancements is that of wireless networking.” In the face of so many options with in wireless networking like Bluetooth, Parthasarathy said, “I’m pretty excited about working in this field. “
Projects
Research is going on in almost all fields in NCSU. Some projects include work on high speed devices, which are built save power, and enhance battery life for things like cell phones.
Though electrical engineering may seem specific to wires and signals, a product developed by electrical engineers will incorporate many other disciplines. For instance, production of a GPS unit involves hardware design, signal processing, and networking. In summary, electrical engineering is truly interdisciplinary, especially in the realm of consumer products. Electrical engineers must work closely with others, like industrial designers for example, in order for technologic performance to match the devices form funtion.
