Electrical Engineering

Career potential

Electrical engineers design electrical and electronic systems in computers, household appliances, televisions, communications equipment, automobiles, airplanes, missiles, sub munitions, satellites and the space shuttle. This requires understanding of electronic circuits, measurement systems, digital and analog signal processing, control systems, computer-aided design, microprocessors, video and image processing, and wireless communication. To be qualified as an electrical engineer, you will need at least a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. A master's degree is desired for your professional career.

Upon graduation, you will have basic design, experimental and communication skills needed for continued study at the graduate level or for positions that require knowledge in electrical engineering. You will also have a broad liberal arts background to help you with your personal development. You can pursue advanced degrees in careers other than engineering, for example, in law, medicine or business administration.

Electrical engineers have rewarding careers in industrial and government or government-related sectors with job responsibilities in design, research and development, operations, maintenance, marketing, sales and administration. Electrical engineers may work in companies that are developing sensors and instrumentation, semiconductor integrated devices, computers, telecommunication systems, wireless networks, audio and video home entertainment systems, consumer electronics, aerospace and aviation systems, medical electronics, imaging techniques, and others.

The Dallas-Fort Worth region has been attractive and rewarding for electrical engineers in recent years. Numerous local, national and international high-tech companies offer excellent career opportunities for undergraduates and graduates in electrical engineering.

UNT's Career Center can help you prepare to pursue your career. The center has information about jobs and employers, and the staff can assist you with resume and letter writing, job search strategies, and interview preparation.

Majoring in electrical engineering

UNT offers an innovative project-oriented undergraduate program leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. The program integrates concepts, analysis, design and development of state-of-the-art electrical and electronic systems with strong industrial and relevant content. Through your course work, you will gain the knowledge and skills needed to solve real-world electrical engineering problems. Also, a one-year sequence of business and marketing courses will help you achieve a global outlook for your profession.

The electrical engineering course work covers electronics, control systems, communication systems, computer systems, very-large-scale integration (VLSI) design, electromagnetics and signal processing. The design projects are integrated into the course work so you can learn how to solve practical engineering problems in a creative and relevant setting. In addition, the course work ensures that you will have an opportunity to solve multidisciplinary engineering problems, to foster leadership by working in teams, and to develop effective oral and written communication skills.

You will also study art, business, management, humanities, chemistry, social sciences, engineering ethics and professionalism, which fulfill objectives appropriate to the electrical engineering profession.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering is a new program designed to meet the ABET criterion. ABET accreditation for this degree is being sought.

Laboratories

UNT's Electrical Engineering department has state-of-the-art instructional and research laboratories to provide introductory and advanced hands-on experiences for students.

Analog, RF, and Mixed-Signal Design Laboratory

This laboratory will support teaching, research and development of RF and microwave systems, integrated circuits, and devices. Researchers in this laboratory will design, fabricate, and test new microwave circuits including printed circuit boards (PCB), Silicon Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (Si-MMIC), RF-MEMS and Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC). They will also be able to design and integrate antennas with MMICs and RFICs.

Autonomous Systems Laboratory

Research in this laboratory focuses on information assurance, decision making, and video communications aspects in autonomous systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). This laboratory consists of infrastructure and simulation tools necessary to develop protocols for autonomous systems and analyze their performance. The laboratory also includes several indoor and outdoor robots to develop and test decentralized decision making and task scheduling algorithms. The infrastructure also includes a wireless video sensor network platform suitable for simulating applications such as video surveillance.

Communications and Signal Processing Laboratory

The Communication and Signal Processing Laboratory (CSPL) focuses on design and development of advanced communication techniques to provide efficient and robust information transmission over wired and wireless networks. Working in concert with academia and industry partners, CSPL is dedicated to research on coding, information theory, encryption, wireless networking, and software defined radio.

Computer Aided Design (CAD) Laboratory

The CAD laboratory will support teaching and high-quality research activities related to Analog, Digital, Mixed signal, VLSI/SoC (System-on-a-chip) design, Test and Test verification. The laboratory will support teaching and research activities by providing state-of-the-art software tools such as Cadence, Xilinx, LabVIEW, MATLAB, MultiSim, Advanced Design Systems, Mentor Graphics etc.

Speech, Music, and Digital Signal Processing Laboratory

Different acoustic aspects are studied experimentally in this laboratory. They include speech (production, perception, transmission, analysis and synthesis, recognition, speaker identification), ultrasound, hearing prosthetics, music (analysis, synthesis and transcription) and management of acoustic signals with applications of digital signal processing methods and devices.

Vision, Robotics, and Control Systems Laboratory

The main goal of this laboratory is to support research in the areas of pattern recognition, image processing, computer vision, computational intelligence, robotics, and allied areas. This laboratory consists of infrastructure and simulation tools for computer vision and pattern recognition applications and control systems design.

Wireless Systems and Sensor Networks Laboratory

This laboratory focuses on system-level issues that are critical to the design of high-performance wireless networks and intelligent sensor networks. Current research topics include energy efficient networking protocols for distributed sensor networks, experimental and theoretical study of wireless system performance, statistical and real-time signal processing, measurement and modeling of wireless channels, optimum network deployment and connectivity, and development of sensor networks for environmental monitoring applications.

Scholarships

Scholarships for electrical engineering majors are available through the Department of Electrical Engineering. For scholarship requirements and deadlines go to www.ee.unt.edu/scholarships.htm.

Preparing for UNT: High school students

If you are a high school student, you should prepare for college by becoming computer proficient and taking:

• Association for Computing Machinery
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• IEEE Computer Society
• UNT Robotics Society
• UNT Amateur Radio Club
• Council of Engineering Organizations
• Society of Women Engineers
• National Society of Black Engineers

Taking Advanced Placement courses in high school will enhance your ability and qualifications and will advance your college performance and progress.

You will need to take courses in most of these subjects under the university core curriculum required for all undergraduates, in addition to your major courses. While in high school, you need to take Algebra I and II, geometry and trigonometry for your mathematics requirements, and take chemistry and physics to meet your science requirements.

You need to talk with your high school counselor about preparing for college, including the entrance exams (SAT Reasoning Test or ACT) that you should take during your junior year.

Preparing for UNT: Transfer students

As a benefit for transfer students, UNT participates in the Texas Common Course Numbering System, which makes it easier to transfer credits for general academic courses from one Texas institution to another.

If you are attending a Texas community college, you should consult the UNT Transfer Guide, the UNT Undergraduate Catalog and an academic advisor/ counselor to discuss your degree plan. Proper planning will help you receive the maximum amount of transfer credits.

You may declare a major in electrical engineering immediately upon enrolling at UNT.

Charting your path with academic advising

Faculty members in the College of Engineering will help you select courses necessary to earn your degree. They can also provide you career guidance and advice. The department office is at Discovery Park, Room B270, 3940 N. Elm St. (Hwy. 77) in Denton.

Curious about courses and other features of this major?
See the current catalog.