A new interleaved Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Program

This paper describes a new four-year Bachelor of Electrical Engineering program being introduced in British Columbia (BC), Canada at the BC Institute of Technology (BCIT). The program addresses the need in industry for engineering graduates that have a solid practical focus as well as the expected theoretical depth and topical breadth of knowledge. The program works in tandem with a nationally accredited two-year diploma of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology. The program structure allows both the existing diploma program and the degree program to be optimized based on their respective priorities and market needs, i.e., there is no need to impose major changes on the diploma program in order to accommodate the degree program. The result is a pair of programs that allow students to graduate with either a diploma or a degree, and also to return after receiving their diploma to complete their degree later. This structure provides, in effect, a two-stage entrance evaluation process which allows the program to draw from a broader pool of prospective engineers, thereby providing a path to the profession to people that may otherwise have missed the opportunity. The programpsilas curriculum uses a contextual or spiral approach, where applications are introduced prior to theory, and then revisited once the theory is developed. While the program described here is designed to help address the shortage of electrical engineers in Canada, similar conditions prevail in the United States and elsewhere, and similar programs may be useful in addressing these shortages.