How Under-Graduates Could Benefit from Graduate Courses in Electronic Engineering

Abstract

Micro- and nanoelectronics are extremely rapidly evolving fields, which involve interdisciplinary knowledge in such diverse fields as physics, chemistry, electronic engineering and computation. Hence, especially in under-graduate electrical engineering courses with a broad curriculum, future engineers are only poorly prepared to enter one of the world's largest professional markets. Therefore, it is desirable to involve undergraduates in activities offered by more specialized graduate programs in electronic engineering. Here the experience with a model developed at Purdue university is reported. Instead of written exams, graduate students develop educative computational applications about emerging fields in micro- and nanoelectronics to obtain their module grade. The developed applications could be used in under-graduate classes and could be even graded by freshmen. Both would serve to involve under-graduates in early stages of their academic career and would amplify the educator's reach. Examples of tools developed during an one semester microelectronics class are given.