What it’s like to study Electrical and Electronic Engineering MSc

Introduction

Take a glimpse into the world of an Electrical and Electronic Engineering MSc student.

What I learnt on the course

I chose to study Electrical and Electronic Engineering MSc at Coventry University as the course focused on utilising electrical components for the production of electronic circuits, as well as embedded development, a widely used technique in many electronic devices.

The most enjoyable thing about the course was getting hands-on experience and training working with electronic equipment such as oscilloscopes, multi-meters and soldering equipment.

I have learnt how to do programming in both high-level and low-level programming languages such as Python3, C and C++ low-level programming languages such as assembly YASM and NASM respectively.

I’ve learnt how to use and utilise different electrical components such as resistors, transistors and Inductors to design and create circuits on bread boards and printed circuit boards. I’ve also learnt how to operate hardware using software by programming embedded systems to carry out certain operations based on the data received by sensors.

Electrical and Electronic facilities available to students

Coventry University provides many useful facilities to carry out electronic and electrical activities. The facilities involve technical labs that contain necessary electrical equipment such as digital oscilloscopes, and power supplies that can be utilised to create and analyse electrical circuits.

There are soldering station rooms that can be utilised to create physical circuits as well as debug circuits if any faults or short circuits exist. Computer labs that can be utilised to perform research on different electrical components, their documentation and suppliers. All the rooms are well maintained and contain all the necessary features required to get from a circuit design to the final physical circuit.

My most memorable moment studying at Coventry University

The most memorable moment was the group projects. They involved working with other engineering students from different courses to construct devices such as a conveyor belt counting system.

The projects combined the different areas of study that had been taught into singular projects that were an extreme test of skills. They required us to program embedded systems, construct circuits on breadboards and PCBs, as well as utilise design simulation software for prototyping and checking that the designs operated as intended.

The projects allowed us to utilise all that we had learnt to produce physical and tangible devices.

My work placement experience

During my work placement, I obtained hands-on experience working with industrial machinery. I Learnt how electrical motors operate and applied the knowledge to program a prototyping unit for model-based applications to operate the motor in both a clockwise- and anti-clockwise direction at varying speeds.

I learnt about the AGILE methodology, a project management methodology which involves sprints and reflections to analyse the positives, negatives and improvements of the project. It was great to apply knowledge in an engineering environment and work with different types of engineers such as software designers and mechanical engineers.

My future career plans

I’d like to get into software engineering – programming and creating software-related products or systems such as web, mobile and desktop applications.