Reengineering the curriculum: design and analysis of a new undergraduate Electrical and Computer Engineering degree at Carnegie Mellon University

In the Fall of 1991, after approximately two years of development, the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) implemented a new curriculum that differed radically from its predecessor. Key features of this curriculum include: Engineering in the Freshman year, a small core of required classes, area requirements in place of most specific course requirements, mandated breadth, depth, design, and coverage across ECE technical areas, a relatively large fraction of free electives, and a single integrated Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. In this paper we review the design of this curriculum, including a taxonomy of problems we needed to address, and a set of general principles we evolved to address them. The new curriculum is described in detail, including new data from an ongoing analysis of its impact on students´ curricula choices