EECS program Overview

Along with the generation and control of electrical power and its applications, electrical engineering with computer science is responsible for meeting the ever-increasing need to create, access, and manage information that characterizes modern societies, and for providing the devices, tools, and communications networks these functions require. The electrical engineer, the computer engineer, and the computer scientist work on separate facets of the same problem, that of creating and utilizing electromagnetic devices to improve the quality of life, and assure global access to information in all its forms for this purpose.

Using the laws of electromagnetics, the electrical engineer designs devices and systems for the generation, transformation, transmission, and control of electric energy, and for the creation, acquisition, transformation, and transmission of information. The electrical engineer also investigates and develops materials and techniques that are potentially useful for this work.

The computer engineer applies the techniques of electrical engineering to the specific task of designing devices and systems for creation, acquisition, transformation, and transmission of information in digital form. The devices and systems extend beyond digital computers and include digital audio systems, microprocessor control systems, and digital communications mechanisms and networks. The computer engineer often finds that software is as crucial a component as hardware in a good design.

The computer scientist uses the computers developed by the efforts of the computer to generate, organize, augment, and present information in an understandable form, and studies the procedures by which these tasks can by performed. The work involves writing and analyzing programs, developing large-scale software systems, utilizing parallel programming, investigating the underlying limits of computation as a technique, and understanding the interplay of space and time requirements for an algorithm.

The department offers degree programs in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science for students in the College of Engineering, and a major in computer science for students in the College of Liberal Arts. Minors in computer science and biomedical engineering are also available.

The department offers courses in computer programming, data structures, software engineering, operating systems, artificial intelligence, algorithms, the theory of computation, digital circuits and systems, very large-scale integration, computer architecture, linear circuits and systems, electric power, signal processing, microwaves and microwave devices, electro-optics, communications, automatic control, and biomedical engineering. Design is integral to the engineering degree programs, each of which culminates in a senior design project. A number of introductory courses are without college level prerequisites.

By careful selection of course work students who follow the standard curricula listed below can satisfy admission requirements for professional schools of medicine, dentistry, business, or law. Students in the College of Liberal Arts should see the section on Computer Science in this bulletin.

The College of Engineering requires students to take one engineering and technology half-course in each semester of the freshman year. Each half-course must be taken from a different department. All department majors are required to take Electrical Engineering 97 or an appropriate design course selected from a list approved by the department.

Tufts Electrical Engineering and Computer Science