Courses

UPCP Course Roadmap

The UPCP provides embedded engineering communication instruction throughout the ECE undergraduate curriculum, beginning in the first year. Senior Design is the final culmination in the development of engineering communicators. Our instructional approach relies on scaffolding technical writing and presentation experiences, increasing in difficultly and autonomy as our students grow in their communications skillset.

First-Year: ECE Discovery Studio
ECE Discovery Studio is designed to guide new ECE students through opportunities (social, academic, and professional) within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Throughout the course, students will work both individually and collaboratively with peers to explore ECE as a major, technical field of research, and a future career. Students will gain the knowledge, skills, and agency to define their individual roadmap with respect to the ECE curriculum threads and opportunities available during the undergraduate experience while building an understanding of who they are as emerging engineers and young professionals.

 

Sophomore Year: Digital Design Laboratory
Digital Design Laboratory: Introduction to Technical Communication in Engineering

Engineering communication is integrated into this semester-long series of hands-on laboratory exercises through lab summaries, project proposals, team design reports, and presentations. Students apply the engineering design process to communication by focusing on the needs of their users and then appropriately summarizing, organizing, and presenting the information.

Links

 

Junior Year: Technical/Professional Communication Requirement
Advanced professional and technical communication instruction.

ECE students are required to complete stand alone professional and technical communications course at the junior-level. This course is a prerequisite for Senior Design. Students have two options for satisfying the junior-level communications course requirement; (1) ECE 3005, a traditional in-class learning option, or (2) ECE 3005 CIR, an out-of-classroom option for students participating in approved co-curricular.

 

ECE 3005 ECE 3005 CIR
Instruction Classroom. Highly interactive, workshop-style learning environment. Structured schedule with hard deadlines to ensure that students complete all requirements within one semester. Individual consultations with the instructor outside of class. Online hybrid. Semi-flexible self-paced learning environment. Some hard deadlines to facilitate student progress and success. Individual consultations with the instructor required.
Credit 1-credit hour, pass/fail course. Register through OSCAR. 1-credit hour, pass/fail course. Register in OSCAR by permit during Phase I or Phase II registration for the upcoming semester. You must meet with Anna Holcomb to confirm your eligibility and receive the permit to register.
Expectations Attendance and active participation at all weekly meetings are expected. Only 2 absences (or late arrivals) allowed. Students work independently and must be adept in a self-guided, online environment with minimal supervision. Inactive students who miss deadlines and fail to make progress will receive a grade of “U” on their transcript.
Workload Students produce a comprehensive career portfolio, a proposal/workplan, a 5-to 7-page document, and a 10-minute presentation. Students have the freedom to choose the content, format, and end-user for the document and presentation. Required individual consultations. Students produce a comprehensive career portfolio, a proposal/workplan, a 5- to 7-page document, and a 10-minute presentation. The content, format, and end-user for the document and presentation are directly tied to the student’s co-curricular. Required individual consultations.

 

Students must receive credit for ECE 2031 before they are eligible for ECE 3005 or ECE 3005 CIR. Only students that completed ECE 2031 at the main campus or GT-Lorraine are eligible for the out-of-classroom option. Students can enroll for ECE 3005 (in-classroom option) on OSCAR.

Sign-ups for ECE 3005 CIR (out-of-classroom option) are facilitated by the UPCP faculty member, Anna Holcomb. For more information on enrollment opportunities, eligibility requirements, and the sign-up process, students must view the video below:

ECE 3005 Virtual Info Session

 

Senior Year: Senior Design
Students are required to take ECE 4011 and ECE 4012, which constitute a two semester culminating design sequence to satisfy the major design requirement for EE and CmpE majors. ECE 3005 or 3005 CIR is a prerequisite to the Senior Design sequence.
ECE 4011: ECE Culminating Design Project I

First semester of ECE culminating design sequence. Design tools, financial principles, project management, probabilistic and statistical techniques, team forming. Requires formal reports and group presentations.

AND
ECE 4012: ECE Culminating Design Project II

Second semester of ECE culminating design sequence. Team project in ECE incorporating engineering standards and realistic constraints. Requires formal reports and group presentations.

Click here for more information on Senior Design

 

UPCP Teaching Assistant Practicums
More details coming soon.