Magda Konieczna

ECE department responds to student survey

appeared on uwstudent.org April 22, 2003

The department of electrical and computer engineering is working on changes to deal with student dissatisfaction with the program. A student-run survey, conducted in March, revealed that many 3A computer engineering students are dissatisfied with the workload and quality of the program.

The survey was designed by 3A computer engineering student Ali Asaria. Asaria and program administrators attributed the problem to different issues, including the number of new professors in the department, the amount of leeway professors have with respect to how much work they assign, the amount of busy work in the program and the addition of new ideas to the curriculum which contributes to the workload.

All seemed to agree, however, that something should be done.

"Students are unanimous," Asaria said. "They seem frustrated about the amount of work and they don't feel like they're getting benefit. There's a general feeling of dissatisfaction?. Most people agree that the problem exists. Whether or not it can be solved is what most people disagree on."

ECE chair Dr. Tony Vannelli agreed. "It's clear that there are issues with this that we have to address," he said.

Vannelli said that curriculum review committees, which generally meet every five to ten years to look at the program as a whole, are now discussing the electrical engineering program, and will begin looking at computer engineering in about a month. The department is also organizing division meetings, normally held between the first year class and administrators, for upper-year classes starting this spring. This allows students to voice concerns to the associate dean for undergraduate studies and professors for their courses.

"This will alleviate some of the problems we're talking about," Vannelli said.

He said that dealing with the problems requires striking a balance, keeping in mind on one hand the workload issues and on the other the quality of the program. "I have a responsibility to make sure that the quality of the program and standards are maintained and at the same time address this issue."

ECE associate chair for undergraduate studies, Dr. George Freeman, said that he has been discussing the issues with professors. He reminded professors that each course should require no more than 140 hours of work to ensure that the workload it is doable by a B student. "[Professors can] forget that there's four other courses in the term," Freeman said. "[Professors can be] not aware of how much work they?re asking students to do."

Asaria said he believes the only way to ensure change happens is by constant efforts on behalf of the students. "If there's going be change, it's going to be lots of small changes. I don't think changes will happen unless the students apply constant pressure. They're the only ones being affected by this problem," he said.