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The School of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering at the
University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban offers degree programmes in
Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electronic Engineering. These
three branches of engineering have much in common and offer interesting and
rewarding careers. The distinction between them is Computer Engineering is
concerned with the use of computer based systems to manage and control
information, Electrical Engineering is concerned with the generation,
transmission and control of electricity in power applications, and Electronic
Engineering is more concerned with the use of electricity in information
handling.
To obtain admission to this School, you need to have a good school record in Science, Mathematics and English. It is
obviously also beneficial if you have an interest in computers and in how
electrical devices work and are constructed.
During the first two years of study all students take the same courses except for a single course
difference for the Computer Engineering programme. All three degrees rely
heavily on mathematics, physics and chemistry and the first year is devoted
mainly to these subjects as well as engineering drawing and the use of
computers. In addition, the course Engineering introduces students to all
the different engineering disciplines showing the type of work they do and how
they all contribute to a large project like the design and construction of a
hydroelectric power station. The scope widens in the second year with the
introduction of the basic applied sciences in preparation for the final two
programme-specific years, by including courses in Electricity, Computer
Methods, Physical Electronics and Design. Students are also made
aware of the fragile nature of the environment and the responsibilities they
will have as an engineer in its preservation. It follows that all students in
the School are free to change their registration between computer, electrical
and electronic engineering during their first two years of study. Many students
are not sure of which branch they wish to follow, and this two-year period helps
them to make up their minds.
On an average day the students attend no more than five 45-minute lectures
chiefly in the mornings, with the afternoons being devoted mainly to design,
private study, library research and laboratory work. In the senior years, there
is a move towards self-study courses emphasizing library research projects on
which the students present seminars to their colleagues and staff.
Engineering design is the one subject that is common to all four years of
study, playing an important role in introducing our students to creativity
skills and an independent and critical approach to problem solving. Design
projects occupy progressively greater proportions of a student’s time in each
year of study, and in the second semester of the final year curriculum, design
work constitutes approximately 45% of the student’s effort.
Objectives
The prime objective of our degree programmes is to ensure that graduates
leave this University with an enduring and effective capacity for self-education
throughout life. The continuing rapid growth of the electrical sciences has made
this objective more important than ever, and the students have to learn to keep
up with current knowledge if they are to survive as professional engineers in
the future.
Our second objective, which is of equal importance, is to ensure that our
graduates possess the basic knowledge of, and are professionally competent in,
their discipline. It is for this reason, therefore, that engineering design
plays an important role in our curricula.
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Electrical Engineering
Computer Engineering
Electronic Engineering