<p>^ I’m pretty sure he’s at Stanford for grad school. You might want to PM him and tell him you bumped his thread; he probably doesn’t check this forum that often anymore.</p>
<p>easternboarder - I can’t thank you enough for all the information you shared throughout this thread. It has helped IMMENSELY.</p>
<p>Hi Roderick, I am always glad to answer questions 
(I am subscribed to this thread via e-mail)</p>
<p>“It seems that the OP did a grad school track vs getting a non academic position since there was a mention of GRE. Is this true, OP? If so, why did you (and those others that you mentioned in the thread) opt to go into academia to pursue advanced degrees?” </p>
<hr>
<p>Getting an advanced degree (MS and/or PhD) is quite common in my field of interest is the systems area (communications/networks/signals/control) because the mathematics is just so extensive that you can’t really get a thorough enough treatment with an undergraduate education alone to understand it completely. In other words, there still is plenty left to learn, even with a BS. I have no interest in becoming a professor and I am not completely sure if I will stay the course for a PhD yet, but I look at my current status as graduate student in terms of deepening and (and to a lesser extent) broadening my knowledge of systems-related areas in EE. </p>
<p>There is also the “political” perspective, which is more altruistic, but realistic at the same time. And that is, an advanced degree <strong>seems</strong> to be a prerequisite for getting a higher starting salary and moving up the ranks in the workforce for many areas of EE. I put asterisks around seems because this varies by fields and that ultimately, your ability to stay current and adapt with the changing tides in the technical world is significantly more important than whatever degree you have. Moreover, if you are in grad school without any financial aid, then that is another financial burden that can take time/effort to offset. If you get a chance, check out the book Chips and Change: How Crisis Reshapes the Semiconductor Industry–there is data on hiring and salary trends in Silicon Valley that supports this claim. </p>
<p>"Was it poor pickings for gainful employment about now, or is it the case that your long term goal is to work in academia possibly?</p>
<hr>
<p>During my Junior year (08-09), the recession struck. At the same time, I knew that i was interested in communications theory, so I felt that going to grad school was a necessary path for me. The opportunities for employment were still there, even during and after the worst of the recession. By “there”, though I mean that my peers were still able to find internships and full-time positions. But there were definitely fewer opportunities and companies (notably the finance companies, not surprisingly) were no longer coming to campus and going through outlandish lengths to recruit engineering students. </p>
<p>“I also wondered what kind of work (non academic ) can an ECE compE major expect to fit into post UIUC graduation?”</p>
<hr>
<p>I think CompE / CS is the “exception” to everything I mentioned earlier about going to grad school for $$$. I am not saying that going to grad school as a CS/CompE major is a bad choice. But right NOW, it’s not hard to notice that the opportunity cost for a CS/CompE major going to grad school is the highest it will probably ever be. Companies like Facebook, VMware, Google, SalesForce, Microsoft etc are offering relatively high salaries to CS/CompE students to work for them. At Stanford, it’s obvious that the startup environment there is dominated by SOFTWARE companies that will <em>fight</em> to hire any CompE/CS major from a top school like UIUC. Search around the news and you’ll read stories about the starting salaries for software engineers at these companies. </p>
<p>Now will all CS/CompE students work at Silicon Valley? No. But it seems that CS/CompE students have the most “gainful” (in the sense of starting salaries) and “versatile” job opportunities right now among all engineering students as the focus on software deepens in various industries (consumer, defense, finance, etc). Many of my peers in CompE are now working at companies like Microsoft, Nvidia, and finance companies like JP Morgan. </p>
<p>I have only taken a few CS/CompE courses at Illinois. I’m sure someone else can answer your question about job opportunities for CompE majors much better than I can. See the following article written by my friend, who basically double majored in EE and CompE: </p>
<p><a href=“https://sites.google.com/site/hknden/articles/ee-compe--i-havent-even-taken-ece-500-yet[/url]”>https://sites.google.com/site/hknden/articles/ee-compe--i-havent-even-taken-ece-500-yet</a></p>
<p>To summarize there are many software-development/software engineering opportunities available at the various levels of abstraction. At the low-level, they may work with software that interfaces with hardware (i.e. DSPs/FPGAs, GPUs). Going up a level of abstraction, they may develop operating systems. And then even higher, if you are more mathematically inclined, you might design algorithms based on machine learning. There is a ton of stuff that they can do. </p>
<p>“another question: how long did it take for you to earn your bachelor’s at UIUC? what about your peers? did you graduation with everyone you started with freshman yr?”</p>
<hr>
<p>I graduated in 4 years. Most of my peers graduated in 4 years as well. But I had academically talented peers who were able to graduate in 3 years. On the opposite end, I know of many friends who graduated in 4.5 to 5 years. </p>
<p>Retention is an issue with ECE–I would say, from a very rough estimate, that certainly less than 45% of my freshman class stayed in electrical/computer engineering. Typically, students decide to switch after taking the sophomore-level core courses (ECE 190/210/290). At the end of the day, ECE at Illinois is very rigorous–but you really are getting a SOLID engineering education from a program that is HIGHLY regarded (the profs and students here at Stanford certainly speak highly of ECE at Illinois). </p>
<p>"
Since now is the time for thinking about housing, OP, *where did you reside during your yrs at UIUC? My son is trying to figure this out now. Is it most important to be closest to the engineering quad / classes, reside with fellow engineers, reside in a centrally located area - closer to the main quad ?" </p>
<hr>
<p>I lived at Illini Tower during my first two years. Your son’s best choice for housing will depend ultimately on his personality/social goals. There are many threads about the dorms out there, and 4 years later, the consensus about the dorms hasn’t really changed. </p>
<p>I consider myself to be outgoing, so I opted to live at Illini Tower. Personally, looking back I would have preferred to live at the Six Pack dorms, which are more social. I gained a lot by making lifelong friends out of students outside of engineering; in fact, I would say that this was THE most rewarding aspect of my undergraduate experience. </p>
<p>The most engineering-friendly dorms are Hendrick House and ISR (Illinois St. Residence) because of (a) their proximity to the engineering campus and (b) the number of engineering students who are residents at these dorms. Your son will have the lowest likelihood of having to deal with the distractions associated with typical college partying at these places. </p>
<p>“I saw your comments on study abroad - duly noted. DUring your UG at UIUC, did you do study abroad, internship, or both?”</p>
<hr>
<p>I did not study abroad and I did internships in the summer. </p>
<p>Always glad to answer questions
-JC</p>
<p>eastern, THANKS a whole bunch for the thoughtful reply to my questions. Gives us much to chew on and to digest. Your posts show that at least one engineering student knows how to get his or her thoughts out in writing, too.</p>
<p>This prompts another question:</p>
<p>In your engineering UG career at UIUC, how much of an opportunity did you have to write and to do presentations? This question of course applies also to compE students, too.</p>
<p>While I am at it, does UIUC engineering do anything special for First Years as NU and UMich do (for example). I believe that these two schools have a group project for the freshman to get used to ‘the engineering way’.</p>
<p>“In your engineering UG career at UIUC, how much of an opportunity did you have to write and to do presentations? This question of course applies also to compE students, too.”</p>
<p>Students overall do plenty of writing–all incoming freshman are required to take Rhet 105 (unless they have credit for it via the ACT or the AP English exams), which is a liberal arts course on writing essays/composition (more or less). Engineering students will also do plenty of writing in the form of reports for certain lab classes. Within the ECE department, there are many project-oriented classes in which students will propose a project via a report and presentation and then give another final report and presentation at the end of the semester. In fact, seniors in ECE need to complete either a project OR a thesis and then give a presentation on it to graduate. </p>
<p>In addition, the ECE department offers “independent study” courses in which students may work with a faculty members in the department to do undergraduate research. There is also a program called PURE (Promoting Undergrad Research Opportunities) in the ECE that does an excellent job enabling undergraduates to help grad students and faculty members with their research projects. </p>
<p>I did a lot of presentations through my extracurricular activities–I started a skateboarding club, and I was also active in the electrical engineering honor society, Eta Kappa Nu. *<em>I think one of the biggest strengths of ECE at Illinois is the ECE student organizations–it’s a great way for students to learn important interpersonal skills through giving presentations, managing groups, working closely with corporate representatives to do marketing, meeting with professors in charge of academic affairs to improve the department, etc–I really don’t see that level of activity among the student organizations in the EE department here at Stanford. *</em> In fact, the student organizations in the college of engineering in general are quite active. So to answer your question, there are many opportunities to give presentations inside and outside the classroom. </p>
<hr>
<p>“While I am at it, does UIUC engineering do anything special for First Years as NU and UMich do (for example). I believe that these two schools have a group project for the freshman to get used to ‘the engineering way’.”</p>
<p>Most of the introductory engineering classes have some kind of project that teaches freshmen the “engineering way”. In the ECE department, the introductory ECE class, ECE 110 actually has a lab component in which students work in pairs to build an autonomous moving vehicle with sensors. The follow on sophomore/junior core courses in ECE will have labwork in two categories: circuits (ECE 210) and programming (ECE 190). </p>
<p>Again, outside of the classroom there are many technical hands-on opportunities for students. A major event held each year is the Engineering Open House in which the college of engineering shows off many projects in all of the departments. Within ECE, the IEEE (basically the main electrical engineering society) has a TON of projects for ANY students (yes, even freshmen) such as: Battle Bots, touch screens, guitar effects pedals, etc. When I was first a materials science student, a component of my introductory level class was preparing a materials-science related project for Engineering Open House. </p>
<p>-JC</p>
<p>eastern,. thanks again for the good reply. I all really appreciate the link to that article your friend wrote on ECE/comp E and to the book, too, in the previous post.</p>
<p>EDIT (I determined that HH is PCH; I assume that PCH has guarantees)
ANother question on housing: for univ housing at least, in this case, ISR, isn’t it the case that a student isnt guaranteed his or her first choice in housing? If so, then how does a student ensure getting housing that is suitable for the student’s needs?</p>
<p>anothger question: eastern, or any other EE / compE person: did you minor or major in anything? DId you feel that you had enough time to either minor or major in something other than engineering and still get out in 4 yrs?</p>
<p>my son has a pretty strong interest and talent in econ, for example.</p>
<p>I could not find the req’s for a minor in econ, but here is the link for a major - for our info .
<a href=“Course Explorer”>Course Explorer;
<p>I found out that there is no minor in econ at UIUC. the Econ people said that a dual degree is possible , but they would have to see the individual’s load to know how feasible. </p>
<p>My logical question is - how often does dbl majoring occur at UIUC engineering?</p>
<p>So, out of curiosity, how are the Stanford EE quals in your opinion?</p>
<p>“Stanford EE quals” - what are quals?</p>
<p>I am not sure it was asked already, but I was wondering to what extent , if ever, the generous UIUC grad (or any other UIUC person with experience) had any English language/communication problems with TAs (or Profs) at UIUC. I have heard that this happens , at least occasionally.</p>
<p>As far as teaching goes, I guess it is bad enough if the classes sizes are huge and the teaching is led by TAs , but when I heard about problems communicating in english effectively, that was not exactly endearjng.</p>
<p>Hi GShine_1989, </p>
<pre><code>I read somewhere that you work at the Micro/Nano lab at UIUC. Did you enjoy working there? Also, do you have any comments on the bioengineering dept. at UIUC? I know it’s fairly new so I’m trying to get more information from students at UIUC on it.
</code></pre>
<p>This thread is fantastic and has made my decision that much tougher.
@roderick - Eastern obviously didn’t go through iEFX as the program is new as of a year or two ago, but that probably the equivalent of NU’s Engineering First curriculum.</p>
<p>Eastern, one thing that annoys me about UIUC is the size of the campus. Is it easy to get used to having to take the bus everywhere or is that a pain? Also, how much of a difference do you think rank has? Would I have the same employment opportunities available to me at a school such as GT?</p>
<p>Eastern I am having a hard time deciding between UIUC and Georgia Tech ( computer engineering major)…can you please help me on this</p>
<p>ECE James Scholar - how hard to get an 3.65 GPA in ECE for James Scholar ? Is that like get everything above B+/A-?</p>
<p>Is it possible to change my major(Math and Computer science in LAS) to computer engineering ECE? What are the requirements? I am a freshmen and I am now making a decision which university to go.</p>
<p>@shivamchauhan:</p>
<p>I’m not too familiar with Georgia Tech, but I think many of its engineering programs are of the same caliber as those at UIUC You might want to consider visiting both campuses to get a better feel for the environment. Like I said before, my favorite aspect about UIUC was being able to be in a school with a solid engineering environment and a good party scene at the same time. I can say that UIUC’s CompE program is very rigorous–many CompE students in UIUC are highly sought after by the big-name companies in Silicon Valley and Wall St. So you can’t go wrong by pursuing CompE at UIUC. </p>
<p>@march10success2:</p>
<p>It depends on the individual’s interest, background, and luck (among many other things) . Looking back, I probably “could have” achieved a higher GPA, but maybe I just didn’t work hard enough. I received a C+ in one of my ECE classes junior year in an area that I was not interested in–that probably hurt. The point is that no one can reliably say how “hard” it is to get a certain GPA in ECE. I had a classmate who served in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years who graduated as one of the top students in our class. As I mentioned, some of my classmates had lower GPAs but amazing achievements in research. </p>
<p>@zzfan92 </p>
<p>Yes, it is possible–I switched from MatSE to ECE during my freshman year. [Transferring</a> to ECE Guidelines - ECE ILLINOIS | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign](<a href=“http://www.ece.illinois.edu/students/transfer/guidelines.html]Transferring”>http://www.ece.illinois.edu/students/transfer/guidelines.html) gives you the requirements. Most engineering majors take the same math and science courses for the first two years. To get accepted as transfer student, you will need to perform reasonably well (mostly A’s and B’s) in these classes and in ECE 110, the intro to ECE class.</p>
<p>Hey there, this is a bit of an odd question, but I was hoping you’d be able to offer some advice on it. I applied UIUC and got in to the College of Engineering, but not into the major I wanted (MechE) specifically. Is this a big deal? I’ve become more interested in ECE as the year has progressed, but I hear that part of the program is even harder to get into. I really would like to go to UIUC but if it means I can’t do MechE or ECE I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Thanks regardless!</p>
<p>dhatdudeguy,</p>
<p>It really depends on how confident you are in your math and science abilities. Most of my ECE classmates who were able to graduate in 4 years or less came in with advanced placement (AP) credit in calculus AB at the minimum. If you’re doing well in classes like AP calculus, physics B/C, and/or computer science, then you should be OK. </p>
<p>What areas of ECE interest you? Probably less than half of freshmen who are admitted into in ECE end up staying in ECE. The first year or two can be tough if you’re not prepared, let alone interested in math and science. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if you think you can do well (A’s and/or B’s) in the core math (calculus 2 and 3, differential equations) and science (chemistry, quantum and thermal physics) courses at UIUC, then you should be able to transfer into ECE.</p>
<p>Thanks for that. I’m in Calc BC and Physics C. Took Chem last semester, got a 5. The math and science classes have always been straight A’s for me, it’s the stuff like French and English that dragged my GPA down. I’m not really quite sure what I’m interested in yet, as all I know is that I find the E&M portion of physics C way cool haha</p>
<p>1.What is the maximum number of credits you can take without additional cost? I want to take as many classes as possible for the money I paid.
2.Are there any intercollege programs? Like, can I take online courses or classes from different schools and combine them with UIUC’s?
3.What is a good minor for ECE students? I’m interested in CS, Biochem, and econ. CS is probably the easiest since many classes overlap? I couldn’t find info on minors on UIUC’s website.</p>
<ol>
<li>Is a 5 on AP Government any useful?</li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks!!!</p>