welcome from the department chair

Dr. Kevin Barnett chairs the department of electrical and computer engineering.

I would like to congratulate you on your decision to continue your studies at this level. It is an exciting time to be an engineer and an exciting time to be an engineering student. As the "high-tech" revolution sweeps through the world's economy, electrical engineers and computer engineers are key players in creating the new ideas and products which are rapidly changing our world.

The engineering faculty at Mercer University are dedicated and committed professionals who are focused on providing you with the best engineering education possible. If you attend Mercer, I am certain that you will find them to be both accessible and supportive as you seek to develop into a competent player in the fast-moving engineering environment which new graduates in electrical and computer engineering are encountering. There are a lot of factors to consider when choosing a college or university. Among them are such considerations as faculty qualifications, student to faculty ratio, accreditation status, computer and laboratory facilities.

At Mercer University, undergraduate education is the central purpose of the institution. Although a master's degree in engineering is available at Mercer, and other schools at Mercer offer graduate degrees in law, medicine, business, and pharmacy, there is no engineering Ph.D. program at Mercer. Faculty are focused on teaching and teaching-related activities. Faculty advancement is determined more by teaching success than by any other factor. All of the electrical and computer engineering faculty members hold the Ph.D. degree, and most have significant industrial and/or consulting experience.

The breadth of the fields of electrical engineering and computer engineering is not well understood. There are over 30 societies in IEEE, the professional organization of electrical and computer engineers. Each of these deals with one or more specialties within the field. Mercer, like most electrical and computer engineering programs, builds its curriculum around five to seven of the key subfields. Specifically, required and elective coursework will be found in the Mercer Electrical and Computer Engineering programs which address the following major areas: communications/telecommunications (includes AM/FM modulation, wireless communications, digital communications), computer engineering (includes hardware and software for real-time applications), automatic controls (both digital and analog), digital signal processing, electrical circuits and electronics, electric power, and electromagnetics (includes antennas, microwaves, fiber optics, electromagnetic compatibility).

I extend my best wishes to you as you continue your educational process. We are proud of the performance of current and previous students in the Mercer engineering program, and hope to be able to say that we are proud of your performance in the future.