A freshman electrical engineering course and laboratory for all engineering majors

Real and relevant are two adjectives that should apply to any engineering course, but the traditional first course in electrical engineering often appears to the students to provide little reality or relevance. This is particularly true for students in programs such as ours in which other engineering majors, including civil, mechanical, environmental, and computer science are in the course alongside electrical majors. At Northern Arizona University, we have addressed this issue by implementing major changes in the first course in the electrical engineering sequence. In this paper we describe the structure, content, equipment, computer tools, and teaching methods used in both the lecture and laboratory sections of the course