Handbook

Engineering degrees offered by UNSW Canberra aim to provide an outstanding engineering education to future leaders in the Australian Defence Force and to civilian students to pursue excellence through contributions to research, the profession, industry and the community.

The Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Electrical Engineering is of four years duration and the degree may be awarded at Honours Class I, Honours Class II, Division I or Honours Class II, Division II.  These Honours levels will be displayed on the final testamur. Candidates who do not achieve Honours Class I or II will receive a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Electrical Engineering with no honours level displayed.

The Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Electrical Engineering program at UNSW Canberra has been granted full accreditation by Engineers Australia and has been recognised by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

The Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in Electrical Engineering is built on a foundation of mathematics, computing science and physical science. A small component of electrical engineering is introduced in the first year, with progressively larger components in second and third year. The final year is devoted exclusively to electrical engineering courses. Each year of the program comprises a number of discipline-based courses and courses taught by other discipline areas. Most courses in the first three years of the program are common for all electrical engineering students. In the fourth year students have the option to select specialty topics in areas such as communications, surveillance and radar, computer engineering and guided weapons electronics.

Electrical Engineering is one of the newer branches of engineering. It has its origin in the turning to practical use of the discoveries of Faraday, Ampere, Maxwell and a number of other eminent 19th century physicists. It has remained the most strongly science-oriented branch of engineering.

At first it had its major impact by providing the means for the generation, distribution and utilisation of electric power. However, while this remains an important sub-area of the whole discipline, the last few decades particularly have seen a rapid and extensive diversification into the fields of computers and control as well as electronics and communications, and beyond them into such areas as biology, medicine and space technology. It is now true to say that there are very few areas of civilised activity that have remained untouched by the ideas and products of modern electrical engineering. The absorption of recent scientific development has been very rapid and has demanded a fully developed scientific outlook on the part of electrical engineers for a proper understanding of the problems involved. Many devices, scarcely more than laboratory prototypes a decade ago, are now in widespread use as fully engineered hardware.