Electrical Engineering involves the development and application of electronic and optical technologies for generating, communicating, and processing information. Our EE curriculum includes courses in electronic circuits, solid-state electronics, electromagnetics, optics, lasers, controls, digital signal processing, communications and networks. Individual engineers may work in one or more of a large number of functional capacities in support of a total engineering effort. For example, engineers may choose system design and specification, component design, research and development, university teaching and research, consulting, production and quality control, sales, cost analysis, or management.

Students may specialize in any of a number of areas, including:

Circuits and Electronics

Solid State Engineering

Electromagnetics and Photonics

Systems including Digital Signal Processing, Communications and Control

Premed compatibility
The Electrical Engineering curriculum is compatible with a premedical program of study. If you are interested in this option, please discuss it with your academic adviser.

The mission of our undergraduate program in Electrical Engineering

The Electrical Engineering (EE) program involves the design and analysis of electronic devices and circuits, photonics, electromagnetics, and analog and digital systems, including control, communication, and information systems. It encompasses several broad areas and a core of fundamental knowledge, as well as many subfields of specialization.
The goal of the EE undergraduate program is to educate electrical engineers in the fundamentals and applications of electrical engineering via a curriculum that allows sufficient flexibility to encompass graduates directly entering the work force and graduates pursuing graduate education. Graduates of the program should have a solid foundation in the theory underlying the field as it’s practiced, and be able to communicate effectively both in oral and written forms. A distinguishing feature of our program is the fact that the EE department at Northwestern is relatively small, which allows small class sizes and close interaction between students and faculty.

Specific Educational Objectives are for all students to satisfy the following:

Students should have a firm foundation in the basic mathematics underlying electrical engineering design, including calculus, linear algebra, probability, and vector calculus, and be able to apply this.

Students should be able to design and conduct experiments, and analyze and interpret data.

Students should have a sufficient foundation in the fundamental areas of electrical engineering to understand problems very broadly. These fundamental areas are Physical Electronics and Devices, Electromagnetics, Electronic Circuits, and Signals and Systems.

Students should also have a deep enough training in at least one of the fundamental areas to perform detailed design and analysis.

Students should have the interpersonal and other skills and general engineering knowledge necessary to function in a multi-disciplinary team.

Students should be able to identify, formulate, and solve electrical engineering problems.

Students should be exposed to the issues of professionalism and ethical responsibility through examples.

Students should be able to communicate effectively in written and oral forms.

Students should have a broad education that enables them to understand the impact of engineering in a social context

Students should have recognition of the need for and an ability to engage in life-long learning.

Students should have knowledge of contemporary issues.

Students should be able to use the fundamental tools of Electrical Engineering, including computer simulation, design and analysis software, and laboratory tools.

Background on Electrical Engineering Curriculum

In the year 2000, in response to feedback from our students, employers, and alumni, we designed a new electrical engineering curriculum.

The common themes in our EE curriculum are:

Reduced total number of required courses to allow more flexibility.Freshman/Sophomore level courses which provide broad overviews of the fields of electrical engineering and computer engineering.Several fundamentals courses to provide in-depth introductions to various sub-fields of electrical engineering; these courses would also form the pre-requisites for all subsequent advanced courses in those sub-fields.Exciting hands-on labs and computer labs to complement all our lecture classes.An exciting curriculum and courses relevant to current applications of electrical engineering.

Requiring students to do team-based design projects and encouraging students to do undergraduate research.

We offer two courses that are suitable for freshmen and sophomores and are required of both EE and CE majors and provide a one quarter overview of the fields of computer engineering and electrical engineering along with exciting labs involving the design of a robot and a CD player.

EECS 202: Introduction to Electrical Engineering
EECS 203: Introduction to Computer Engineering

We also offer five fundamentals courses:

EECS 221: Fundamentals of Circuits
EECS 222: Fundamentals of Signals and Systems
EECS 223: Fundamentals of Solid-State Engineering
EECS 224: Fundamentals of Electromagnetics and Photonics
EECS 225: Fundamentals of Electronics

These five courses are required of all EE students and provide fundamental knowledge in each field of electrical engineering. Subsequently, students will be able to take the rest of the technical electives from a wide range of choices in each field.

In addition all EE students are required to take one of the capstone design class projects and encouraged to take two 399 independent research units.

EECS 347: Microprocessor Systems Design Projects
EECS 392: VLSI Systems Design Projects
EECS 398: Electrical Engineering Design
EECS 399: Project

An overview of the electrical engineering curricular concept is illustrated in Figure 1.

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