Undergraduate Program Highlights

Two-Semester Senior Design Experience: ECE 4950 & ECE 4960: The capstone senior design experience is a team-based competition where small groups of students use state-of-the-art equipment to build and program mechatronic systems for a given task. There is a progression in difficulty in projects from the first semester (ECE4950) projects to the second (ECE4960). 

Creative Inquiry Projects: Creative Inquiry is the imaginative combination of engaged learning, cross-disciplinary interactions and undergraduate research that is unique to Clemson University. Team-based investigations are led by faculty mentors and typically span a year or more. Students take on problems that spring from their own curiosity, from a professor’s challenge or from the pressing needs of the world around them. These invaluable experiences produce exceptional graduates. For other current Creative Inquiry Projects in ECE, visit the current projects Web site.

Computer Organization Laboratory: In the Computer Organization Laboratory, students receive instruction on programming and laboratory experience developing applications for various devices. These applications and devices will be used in future labs.

Biomedical Elective Technical Track: The focus on health-related issues is increasing the demand for better medical devices and equipment; hence, electrical and computer engineers are increasingly selecting job opportunities at hospitals, medical research corporations, equipment manufacturing firms, and government regulatory agencies. To address this need, the ECE department offers a biomedical elective technical track that focuses on the areas of organ replacement, bioinstrumentation, and bioimaging.

Renewable Energy Elective Technical Track: As the nation works to break its dependence on carbon-based fuel and increase the use of renewable energy sources, the potential widespread use of renewable resources represents a major paradigm shift for the electric power industry. To address this need, the ECE department offers a renewable energy elective technical track that focuses on the areas of solar power, wind power, and grid penetration.

Electric Vehicle Elective Technical Track: As vehicle electrification expands, the automotive industry’s need for electric vehicle savvy engineers is growing, hence creating increased demand for the associated electronic and software engineering education.  To address these issues, the ECE Department has created a new undergraduate-level elective track focused on key engineering skills for the development of electrified vehicles.

Entrepreneurship Programs: An Entrepreneur Minor is available to undergraduate graduate students in engineering and science disciplines across campus. This set of courses is intended to serve those students who desire to supplement their undergraduate engineering degree with expertise related to accounting, finance, management, new product development, and commercialization of inventions. In addition to the Entrepreneurship Minor, ECE students can also substitute ELE 3010 - Executive Leadership and Entrepreneurship I or ELE 4010 - Executive Leadership and Entrepreneurship II for one of the required Humanities Electives.

Honors Program and Research Opportunities: The ECE department has one of the most extensive honors programs in the college, consisting of six honors-only courses, taken during the sophomore and junior years and a senior honors thesis research project. In addition, students can gain valuable research-related experience by working under the supervision of an ECE faculty member on a Summer or Academic Year Research Project.

IEEE Student Competition Project Course: In this student-led course, ECE undergraduates work together to plan, build and program a robot to meet a challenge set forth each year for the IEEE SoutheastCon Robotics Competition, where they compete against teams from universities across the Southeast. Students are able to participate in this project course multiple times, gaining hands-on experience and leadership skills.

Summer Online Courses: All required courses in the undergraduate electrical engineering program and most of the required courses in the undergraduate computer engineering program are now offered online during summer sessions. These online courses allow students to take classes to stay on track during Co-op experiences, get ahead in the curriculum track, or retake a course while off-campus during the summer. The online lectures are also available as an additional resource for students taking the courses during the fall and spring semesters.

ECE Plugged In: The Electrical and Computer Engineering Plugged In Program at Clemson University is aimed at connecting current CU ECE students with ECE alumni or strong ECE advocates who serve as mentors.  The ECE Plugged In Program mentors contact their mentee students throughout the academic year to help keep them motivated and excited about electrical and computer engineering.

B.S. to Graduate Degree Program: The ECE Department allows undergraduates to use a limited number of courses to satisfy some of the requirements of a graduate degree program while completing their Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree. Specifically, undergraduate students who have an overall GPR of 3.4 may use up to nine semester hours from an approved list of 6000-level and 8000-level ECE graduate courses to simultaneously satisfy undergraduate technical elective requirements for the B.S. degree and some of the requirements of a graduate degree. For more information on this program, see the ECE Graduate Handbook.

Combined B.S. in Computer Engineering/M.S. in Biomedical Data Science and Informatics: Information on this program can be found at https://computing.clemson.edu/bdsi/. Refer to the undergraduate announcements under academic regulations for further explanation on either of these programs.