Digital Media Engineering

metrognome

Can anyone tell me anything bout the course? Interestin? What does it entail, and what kinda qualifications would you have after it? What kinda stuff you do on the course? How practical is it? Any help would be mucho appreciatedo!!

Raz

Well you do a lot of the same subjects as electronic engineering (My course. DME is part of the School of Electronic Engineering). Not the electronics mainly but more the programming classes and maths, that kind of thing. The maths in first and second year is tough and if you don't put the effort in there it takes a lot of effort in the last two years to stay on top of some of the things they throw at you.
The subjects you do are here,
A brief summary of the main ones ...
Software Engineering 1 & 2 = C programing
Soft Eng 3 = Assembly Language programing
Soft Eng 3 = Operating Systems (Unix really)
Engineering Maths = Basically a bit harder than leaving cert honours, lots of differentiation, integration and matrices.
Electronic Fundamentals = All about current and voltage and the different ways of analysing circuits
Electromagnetism = This gets tough later on in the course ... lots of equations - integration mainly.
Web Communication = Design a website basically (HTML)
Physics = Again basically a bit harder than leaving cert honours touching on topics like springs and elasticity that isn't covered in leaving cert.
Digital Electronics = If you've done LC Physics then you should know about And gates and Or gates etc. This subject is a recurring theme throughout the course.
3-D Computer Graphics & Object Oriented Programming 1 = Java programing.
Circuits and Systems = lots of differential equations if I remember rightly.
Digital Circuits and Systems = an extension of Digital Electronics iirc.
Maths 2 = Crazyness!!! This ones a tough but not impossible, lots of s and z transforms.
VLSI Design = designing Integrated Circuits (ICs), basically how to make transistors and that kind of thing on a silicon chip.
Digital Signal Processing = Processing audio in digital format to make changes to the piece.
Image Processing & Analysis = Isolating specific features in an image using software designed in the Electronic School.
Digital Media Project = This is a huge year long project where you have something you research or design and build. You write a huge report for this, mine was about 60 pages long but it's not unusual for these to go into the hundreds.


I've skipped a good few there, mainly in year 3 and 4 where the courses deviate a bit more. You can click on each of the subject titles in the link above and get a more accurate description but some of it may go over your head if you've not heard of the subject before. I know it did with me.

Whatever you choose just make sure it's a well informed decision. There's nothing worse than finishing second year and thinking "I really don't want to be doing this" when your only real option is to continue.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the qualification you come out with is a Bachelor of Engineering in Digital Multimedia Engineering. The first class to complete all four years have just finished this year. I've known a few of them and they seem to have enjoyed the course.
If you've good logical reasoning you'll be good at this course. If you enjoy Maths and Physics that's a good indication that you might enjoy this stuff.

metrognome

Thats really Helpful raz, thanks a mil. But what kinda job would com after? Like, what is a digital media engineer?

Raz

That's a bit of a grey area I'm afraid as this is the first year of graduates, so we'll have to wait and see what kind of jobs they get. As a bit of a guide, one of the guys I know worked with one of the DCU campus companies, I think he did some software testing at first and then redesigned their website.
The other guy I know got a placement in the engineering school itself. His job was to rewrite the practicals (lab session instructions) for one of the subjects, Digital Electronic systems I think.
Here's something I pulled from this page,

Career Prospects:

Digital Media Engineering needs skilled graduates. Many employers want to recruit graduates with the specific skills and specialisations learned on this programme. Graduates will find uses for their skills in such diverse areas as:

* user interface design for web-TV set-top boxes
* service creation for tomorrow's mobile networks
* system development for database-backed web services
* web-interfaces for delivery of content to diverse environments
* technology development for the computer-animation industries
* development of virtual reality and tele-presence applications
* systems for e-commerce applications
* development of state-of-the-art audio-visual systems
* developing archival or browsing systems for retrieving multimedia content.

The following are some of the companies associated with this programme as graduate and industrial training employers: Intel, Parthus, Massana, Xilinx, RINCE, Ericsson, Mentec, 3Com, Informix, Philips, Motorola, IBM, Eircell, BT, Eircom, Esat, Meteor, Logica, Microsoft, Symantec and Silicon & Software Systems.

steveland?

I finished second year of DME yesterday \o/ (not including repeats )

The course is the exact same as Electronic Engineering, Common Entry Engineering, Information Communication Engineering for the first year (common year, don't let the points difference fool you... if you put down them all you can choose to go into whichever for second year)

They differ in second year though.

To reitterate what Raz said there:
First year:

Software I, II: C Programming Maths: Horrible, horrible module. Lecture notes were all over the place but it's easy enough to fluke a pass in it (hey I did it...) Physics: Quite similar to leaving cert for a lot of it... Electromagnetism: This is the one I failed but since I was going into DME (started off in CECE) I got in. You don't do it after first year in DME. Web Communications: Basically just a subject where you have to make a website on a specific subject. Looking back at the site I made last year (on peer-2-peer filesharing, just to give you an example of what the module entails) I'm ashamed of it If I did it again this year it'd be a PHP, CSS fest as opposed to real basic HTML... Digital Electronics: Seems like a really horrible module in lectures/labs but the exam is grand if you put a little work into studying it Electronic Fundamentals: Fairly alright course but it needs a bit of work... don't miss the lectures is my only advice on this, also the lecturer is the head of the EE school so if you miss lectures he will know about it and if you fail and need to compensate, him knowing you missed lectures is a baaad thing... Electonic Engineering Design: Grand subject... do a bit of soldering etc...

Second year... a lot more interesting than first year imo:

Circuits and Systems: Again... don't miss lectures for this... it's really one you can't cram for... The assignment is only worth 15% for DME and it's a whole load of work but it does help you learn for the subject Software III: Assembly Language/Machine Code using an simulator of a Motorola 6809 chip Software IV: Software optimization and Unix... a real crammable course... I didn't really bother with it and still reckon I did well in the exam Data Communications: Hard subject, lots of learning off but it's do-able Digital: Same as first year only a little more complicated Database Systems and Software Analysis and Design: Easy in class... a bitch to do the exam... cram like hell before hand... involves doing SQL and UML, aswell as some definitions and hte like TCP/IP: Easy enough but a lot of learning off... doing tutorials and past exam papers is the only way to learn for this subject Maths II: Seems damn easy in class, first year mainly partial differentiation and vectors, second year LaPlace transforms, Z-Transforms, fourier series etc... Seems easy but the exam f*cked everyone up this year... Object Oriented Programming: C++, Java... easy enough if you know what you're doing. Final project for this in my year was to make a paint applet in Java 3-D Computer Graphics: VRML (a tiny bit) but mainly Java 3D... 100% on project work/labs... project this year was to make a working 3D solar system using Java. I enjoyed this module because we actually got to make something in it...

Anyway that's about it... I hated the course in first year but it grew on me in second year...

Good thing too is you don't have to do maths after second year in DME...

Hope this helps

Raz

steveland? wrote:

Software IV: Software optimization and Unix... a real crammable course... I didn't really bother with it and still reckon I did well in the exam

I wouldn't be so confident about Soft Eng 4 if you had Paul Whelan as the lecturer. I had to repeat that one and I thought I did great in the repeat, I was sure I'd get upward of 70%. When I got the results I'd barely scraped a pass. In short Whelan is a git for marking papers, he won't give anything unless it's perfectly right. There's no such thing as attempt marks in his world.

Also you don't specifically have a maths class after 2nd year but the amount of maths in other courses was huge for 3rd and 4th year. I'm not too sure about DME but that's how it was for EE.
And Liam Barry is a nice guy, wouldn't worry about missing his lectures, he probably wouldn't have noticed anyway.

steveland?

We had Gabriel Miro Muntean for the first few weeks and then Barry McMullin (McMullin had broken his leg so Gabi took over for a while)

We did Unix seperately this year and had a practical test on Moodle which I've got a guaranteed 13.7/15% for so I don't need that much in the exam..

I'd be happy just scraping a pass tbh, I only went to two lectures during the year and studied for it the night before

Edit: oh yeh, it was Jim Dowling I was talking about missing lectures for... I had to go to him to plead my case after failing electromag and he had a record of the amount of his fundamentals lectures I had been to that year 30% or something it was

Raz

Ha! 30% That's some goin! I think Liam Barry is the head of the EE course and Dowling is the head of the school. It gets so confusing, who's head of what. McCorkrel was/is head of something aswell. Maybe that's the Engineering School, cover all the manufacturing stuff etc.
Anyhow, with your results in the practical I'd say you're right in not having anything to worry about. Never had either of those lecturers tho.

steveland?

Noel O'Conner is the head of DME too, but I haven't had him for any lectures as of yet...

Yeh Jim Dowling is the head of the school in general, very scary man

Although we were once in a lift with him and he was making jokes and all... I'm still terrified of him though...

alantc

J.D. is head of ES too. All 9 of us. (between 3rd, 4th, 5th)

Raz

So is ES being done away with or has it just not got any applications in the last 2 years?

alantc

Raz wrote:

So is ES being done away with or has it just not got any applications in the last 2 years?

Its part of the common entry now but there are no 2nd years that
i know about. 2 started, one nver showed up and the other went into ee i think.

steveland?

No-one doing it in my year (second year just over) but in first year there were a few people trying to get others to transfer into it... No-one bothered so I don't think there's a class for it this year