Would it be a good idea to change from ECE to CS&IT?

john1741

I heard when picking courses for the CAO form that ECE and CS&IT had a lot in common but ECE gave a more practical and hardware side to computers. After a few weeks Im finding that it's not really that much about computers. I'm thinking it could just be for first year they throw all the engineers together for the basics and then from 2nd or 3rd year the courses start to get more specified. Can anyone doing the course in later years tell me if it improves or if I should just see if they'll let me into CS&IT?

Skopzz

You have the right to transfer to another College/IT if you feel NUIG is not what it appears (which is often the case). NUIG exaggerates their courses on open day in order to attract as many students as possible. It is a difficult University to score well in your grades also (which screws your degree up).

There is a deadline for deferring in order to transfer course so you will need to find out when it is. You may be able to transfer without deferring but you will need to enquire about this first.

reap-a-rat

john1741 wrote: »

I heard when picking courses for the CAO form that ECE and CS&IT had a lot in common but ECE gave a more practical and hardware side to computers. After a few weeks Im finding that it's not really that much about computers. I'm thinking it could just be for first year they throw all the engineers together for the basics and then from 2nd or 3rd year the courses start to get more specified. Can anyone doing the course in later years tell me if it improves or if I should just see if they'll let me into CS&IT?

I'm pretty sure that if you do first year ECE then you can transfer into CS&IT for second year and the rest of the years. I'd like someone to confirm that though, as I'm not 100% sure. It doesn't solve your immediate problem but it's an option

john1741

john1741 wrote: »

I heard when picking courses for the CAO form that ECE and CS&IT had a lot in common but ECE gave a more practical and hardware side to computers. After a few weeks Im finding that it's not really that much about computers. I'm thinking it could just be for first year they throw all the engineers together for the basics and then from 2nd or 3rd year the courses start to get more specified. Can anyone doing the course in later years tell me if it improves or if I should just see if they'll let me into CS&IT?

I've been through ECE, so I know a fair bit about this.

All first year engineering has a lot in common with regards to Maths and the like, but at the same time you'll be doing labs and stuff with the ECE department. If you look at the timetable for next year you'll see courses like Microprocessor Systems (small chips that go into phones etc..), programming (shared with IT) which sound more up your street.

The first year and to a certain extent second year help give you the maths tools to tackle the difficult specific stuff that you come across later. It might all seem like a waste of time now, but some of it comes in in a big way later on, much of it doesn't, and it varies from discipline to discipline, but some of it does.

The course is Electronic and Computer Engineering, so think of it as teaching computers from the ground up, from the small components that go inside, to making the chips, to programming the chips, to how the operating systems work, to high level programming like Java etc. At the end of the day, you should have the knowledge of how pieces of silicon turn into full blown computers, as well as all how all the communication systems around them work.

Personally I think that much of the stuff you miss out on that the IT course does (which when it comes to 3rd and especially 4th year, isn't too much) is stuff you can without too much difficulty learn in your spare time (web development, databases), without worrying too much about the theoretical science behind it, which is where the focus lies for CS&IT.

If you're unsure about what goes on in later years in the course, by all means approach the lecturers, they're very happy to talk to students having problems. I'd recommend Martin Glavin or Liam Kilmartin just because I always found them to be helpful and approachable. Email asking to meet them and they should answer any other questions you have, otherwise I can answer anything.

Skopzz

Skopzz wrote: »

You have the right to transfer to another College/IT if you feel NUIG is not what it appears (which is often the case). NUIG exaggerates their courses on open day in order to attract as many students as possible. It is a difficult University to score well in your grades also (which screws your degree up).

There is a deadline for deferring in order to transfer course so you will need to find out when it is. You may be able to transfer without deferring but you will need to enquire about this first.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement, ECE is to a large extent about computers, so it doesn't apply in this case, so do you have any other examples?

Also, with regards to the fact that it's 'difficult to score well in your grades', having high academic standards is a good thing. The point of University isn't to come out with a 2.1 or 1.1, it's to get a good education in your particular area.

Your degree gets you an interview, what you learnt gets you the job. No point in having incompetent people walking around with 1.1's

Skopzz

Deleted User wrote: »

Also, with regards to the fact that it's 'difficult to score well in your grades', having high academic standards is a good thing. The point of University isn't to come out with a 2.1 or 1.1, it's to get a good education in your particular area.

Your degree gets you an interview, what you learnt gets you the job. No point in having incompetent people walking around with 1.1's

No, it's not. It just kicks the student in the face because of a conservative consensus among a small minority of people such as you. It serves to deter people applying if they know they will come out with a **** degree. In NUIG, there is barely no recognition for your hard work.

BTW, NUIG is not a drop in the water compared to other Universities like Harvard etc.

GalwayFencer

I am currently in Final Year (4th Year) ECE at NUIG and I know that only last year did someone switch from ECE to IT, it was probably not the most usual thing to do but ECE do "nearly" all of the programming subjects that IT do.

Regarding the question about what they have in common, both groups do the standard first year and second year stuff with maths, physics, engineers do chemistry not sure about ITs. ECE follows all of programming 1,2,3 and distributed systems and co-operative computing in 4th year as well as software development, image processing (working with computer graphics). ECE don't do databases or programming paradigms (C# and some other languages). But ECE do a lot of Digital Systems, Analogue Systems, Communication Systems (how networks work at the lowest level), Digital Signal Processing, Electromagnetic Engineering (the equations governing radio waves and capacitors etc.). ECE also does 2 modules on VHDL for digital systems and every year a lot of labs around hardware.

ITs do have a games development project in third year while ECE do a different project, for example we built an app that communicates with a rowing machine performance monitor and allows blind and vision impaired users control a rowing machine and get feedback from it.

In final year ECEs get a choice to do a project (20% of final year grade (degree grade)) a la IT or with the Engineers.

Also I don't find it difficult to score high grades in NUIG, the lecturers are great, there's plenty of help available for the different subjects perticularly the difficult Maths and Maths Physics modules in first and second year through SUMS (drop in maths support) and if you are struggling with IT or ECE subjects there are tutorials available as well as DISC (Drop in support center for IT related undergrad subjects). If you work at all it is not difficult to achieve 75+ and get the 250 Euro NUIG gives students anually with average 75+.

ECE is a fantastic place to be right now, some guys from my year have already accepted jobs for next year and many are in interview stages. ECE and IT are fantastic for job prospects.:):):) Good times for us

GalwayFencer

Skopzz wrote: »

No, it's not. It just kicks the student in the face because of a conservative consensus among a small minority of people such as you. It serves to deter people applying if they know they will come out with a **** degree. In NUIG, there is barely no recognition for your hard work.

BTW, NUIG is not a drop in the water compared to other Universities like Harvard etc.

Speaking of drops in the water when we went on placement at Popcap games international they told us we were the best lot they had in years and they get graduates from everywhere, Trinity, UCD, UCC, CIT's dedicated games course. As Irish Universities go you'll find NUIG is at the top of the game in Engineering and IT. We have lecturers leading the field in many areas, Power electronics Research, the CAR lab, RemoteFPGA is being developed in NUIG.

And Recognition for hard work, if you do decent projects with ECE etc. you can get them published and go to competitions with them.

theintern

Skopzz wrote: »

No, it's not. It just kicks the student in the face because of a conservative consensus among a small minority of people such as you. It serves to deter people applying if they know they will come out with a **** degree. In NUIG, there is barely no recognition for your hard work.

BTW, NUIG is not a drop in the water compared to other Universities like Harvard etc.

It sounds to me like you're holding a grudge against a particular course or lecturer. NUIG gives out about an average amount of honours degrees compared with the rest of the country, according the the Irish Times last week (74% NUIG, 80% national average). According to the same figures, NUIG gives 13% of students firsts, about the same as UL (14%) and higher than somewhere like UCD at 11%. The national average was 14%.

It's pretty easy to see that NUIG overall, in actual numbers might be slightly harder than some other unis, but easier than others and very close to the average for firsts. Saying that there's no recognition for hard work is completely disingenuous, because it's just not true.

*Figures are from 2005 to 2010
Source - Irish Times

Skopzz

Folks, I really am not here to argue but supporting grade deflation is shooting yourselves right in the foot (if that's the degree you really want). At the end of the day, it is YOU who suffers just because the college has a silly cap on the number of 3.25 GPA's it decides to issue.

However, NUIG is not renowned internationally (as much as you might hope it is).

theintern

Skopzz wrote: »

Folks, I really am not here to argue but supporting grade deflation is shooting yourselves right in the foot (if that's the degree you really want). At the end of the day, it is YOU who suffers just because the college has a silly cap on the number of 3.25 GPA's it decides to issue.

However, NUIG is not renowned internationally (as much as you might hope it is).

No one is arguing that NUIG is world renowned, it's QS ranking clearly shows this.


I'm going to leave this discussion here, for one because we've strayed off topic, and secondly because this seems to be a personal crusade for you from reading your posts in this other thread. Each of your contentions with the NUIG system has been struck down by people more knowledgeable of the system than me.


You accuse people of jumping on the grade inflation bandwagon when several people with first hand experience of the matter refuted you. You attack others when it seems your reasons for believing in grade deflation are from personal anecdotal evidence. The final straw would have to be your assertion that

I would have zero faith in appealing my grade if I knew the external examiner was British (given the history between these two countries).

The mind boggles.

______________________
Back on topic.

Skopzz

theintern wrote: »

Each of your contentions with the NUIG system has been struck down by people more knowledgeable of the system than me.

That I must dispute. You do not know anything about the posters here so please do not claim you do.

theintern wrote: »

You accuse people of jumping on the grade inflation bandwagon when several people with first hand experience of the matter refuted you. You attack others when it seems your reasons for believing in grade deflation are from personal anecdotal evidence.

It is not just me, there are dozens of online testimonials about NUIG and grade deflation (not grade inflation). In my experience, NUIG generally offers less credit for your hard work compared to another third level I have studied at.

The problem is that NUIG is full of quangos who are overpaid, inefficient and cannot be fired if they are not doing their job (but not all). There is no accountability at NUIG. How many staff have been fired over the past 10 years? I would imagine none.

aperture_nuig

Skopzz wrote: »

That I must dispute. You do not know anything about the posters here so please do not claim you do.



It is not just me, there are dozens of online testimonials about NUIG and grade deflation (not grade inflation). In my experience, NUIG generally offers less credit for your hard work compared to another third level I have studied at.

The problem is that NUIG is full of quangos who are overpaid, inefficient and cannot be fired if they are not doing their job (but not all). There is no accountability at NUIG. How many staff have been fired over the past 10 years? I would imagine none.

I'm sorry, but obvious troll is obvious. You've entirely derailed a thread from someone with a genuine question that 2 or 3 people have tried to answer with your own crusade against NUIG. In the NUIG forum. you plainly have a problem with the college, so instead of venting here and destroying good threads, why don't you contact the college and suggest the ares they could improve in?

OP, I'm in final year ECE, and first year does cover a fair amount of stuff that might seem irrelevant now, but I'm still using it in 4th year in some of my classes. If you have any more questions, give me a shout

Skopzz

aperture_nuig wrote: »

I'm sorry, but obvious troll is obvious. You've entirely derailed a thread from someone with a genuine question that 2 or 3 people have tried to answer with your own crusade against NUIG. In the NUIG forum. you plainly have a problem with the college, so instead of venting here and destroying good threads, why don't you contact the college and suggest the ares they could improve in?

OP, I'm in final year ECE, and first year does cover a fair amount of stuff that might seem irrelevant now, but I'm still using it in 4th year in some of my classes. If you have any more questions, give me a shout

Please don't backseat moderate because I was the first person to help clarify the OP's question. Simply exaggerating things about courses provides an unfair and untrue picture to enrollees.

aperture_nuig

Skopzz wrote: »

Please don't backseat moderate because I was the first person to help clarify the OP's question. Simply exaggerating things about courses provides an unfair and untrue picture to enrollees.

And you have proof that NUIG make exaggerations about their courses? can you give an example? the OP asked about swapping from ECE to CS & IT, your solution was to drop out of NUIG and then you proceeded to slate the college over your next 3 posts. Even if it was true, I fail to see how it's relevant to the OP's question.

MadYaker

Help clarify???? You completely misunderstood his question! He was asking about changing courses and you thought he was asking about changing to an entirely different college.

Skopzz

aperture_nuig wrote: »

And you have proof that NUIG make exaggerations about their courses? can you give an example? the OP asked about swapping from ECE to CS & IT, your solution was to drop out of NUIG and then you proceeded to slate the college over your next 3 posts. Even if it was true, I fail to see how it's relevant to the OP's question.

Every University exaggerates in order to attract as many students as possible. However, if the OP wishes to pursue the same course in another college, he/she has the right to transfer. This is not dropping out.

How you classify this as a ''drop out'' makes no sense.

john1741

Thanks for the replies, after hearing the stuff here and talking to the guy in charge of the course Ive decided to stay in ECE, As I thought and has been mentioned its just first year thats filled with maths and by 3rd year the course will be exactly what Im looking for, it's just the basics for now. Want to know about the hardware as well as the software so ECE seems the best out of the 2.

witnessmenow

I know this is a few days old and the op has made up his mind, but i thought i'd add my two cents. I'm an ECE grad who wonders would IT have been the better choice (still haven't made up my mind on that one!).

The reason I think IT might have been the better fit is I have gone into to software dev, and there are things covered in IT that are not covered in ECE e.g. Databases.
I also did not get on very well with the very electronic sections and they dragged my overall score down. I did really enjoy embedded dev though.

OP: Whoever told you Maths was just for first year was wrong, you have it again in second year.

When you say hardware, what do you mean? Like do you want to know how a PC works? AFAIK you wont learn much about that in either course.

My advise would be to go to career services and organise a sit down meeting with them, they will be able to guide you. You will be allowed move to 2nd year IT if you pass 1st year ECE so there is no rush.

john1741

I would like to go into a job that involves computers when Im finished, not sure if I want software or hardware yet though. Will probably meet with careers and see what they say but its good to know I have until the end of the year.