Engineering program support

A number of resources are available to help you formulate your study plan. You should start by referring to the relevant program course list which provides suggested enrolment plans:

• ITEE B.Engineering Academic Advising and Planning Resources
• UQ Bachelor of Engineering Program Information

This page includes a number of resources to help you plan your courses (including program mud-maps) . Refer to the information below as to how to choose elective courses.

If you need more help, you can make an appointment to see an academic advisor. However, you should make an attempt to formulate a study plan first, as this will help us to best help you.

All ITEE Bachelor of Engineering (BE) programs require the selection of Part B electives. These are typically advanced (i.e. Level 3 or 4) courses that you will complete in third or fourth year (although some programs will include some Level 1 and 2 courses in the Part B.

There is a requirement to do a minimum number of Level 4 courses – therefore you should carefully check the program rules to ensure the courses you select will meet these requirements. Part B electives are designed to allow you to study specific areas of your discipline in more depth. When deciding which part B electives you want to pursue, you should consider:

• Which courses you are most interested in
• Which courses best align with your future career aspirations

Some people may opt to choose a set of courses within a particular sub-discipline, whilst others may opt to choose a broad array, across a number of sub-disciplines. Both are valid approaches and ultimately, the best option depends on your own interests. You can find more information about these courses by:

• Reading the course catalogue entry
• Talking with students who are currently enrolled or have previously completed the course (student societies may be a good way of linking up with these students)
• Speaking to industry contacts in the fields you are interested in working in
• Meeting with the course coordinator to discuss specific details, if necessary
• Meeting with an academic advisor

If you are early in your degree program, do not stress too much about which Level 4 courses you are going to choose. In many cases, it will not be till you complete the pre-requisite Level 3 courses that you are really able to form an impression about which ones are right for you. You may be surprised which sub-disciplines you end up finding the most interesting!

Refer to the EAIT Faculty BE electives information on the faculty website.

School of ITEE pre-2015 BE single major programs in Electrical engineering and Software engineering require that at least #6 (3 courses) of the available #14 of electives must be courses which appear on the Bachelor of Engineering Program list; while the 2015 BE(Hons) single major programs in Electrical engineering and Software engineering the requirement is that at least #4 (2 courses), of the available #12 of electives, must appear on the Bachelor of Engineering Program list.

"BE list electives" refer to any course appearing on the program list of any engineering major. The complete list is available at: http://www.uq.edu.au/study/program_list.html?acad_prog=2342.

The only exceptions are the year 1 Part D courses (i.e. high school Level introductory courses CHEM1090, MATH1050, PHYS1171) which do not count towards your requirement for BE electives.

You are encouraged to use these electives to provide more depth to your BE major (i.e. more courses off the Part B or Part C lists of your specific major); or to provide breadth to your BE major (i.e. by completing courses listed in other engineering majors). For example:

• As a software engineer, you may like to broaden your knowledge to include signals & systems by completing MATH2000, ELEC2004, and ELEC3004; or you may have an interest in developing CAD systems for a civil engineering environment and therefore complete a stream of electives in civil engineering (i.e. ENGG1400, CIVL2330, CIVL2340).
• As an electrical engineer you might be interested in working in a mining engineering environment, and as such undertake courses from the mining engineering program list (i.e. ERTH1501, ENGG1400 and MINE2105); or like to improve your formal software skills by completing CSSE2002, COMP3506, and COMP4500).

If you are in first or second year, you may not yet have pre-requisites for some of the more advanced BE electives. As such, you may want to consider courses which appear on the year 1 or 2 lists of other BE programs. Some good options include: ENGG1400, ENGG1500, BIOL1040, CHEM1100, CHEE1001, ERTH1501, MINE2105, REDE1300.

If you are an electrical engineer, you may like to specifically consider courses on years 1 and 2 of the software engineering list: MATH1061, INFS1200, CSSE2002, DECO1400, DECO2500.

If you are a software engineer, you may like to specifically consider courses on years 1 and 2 of the electrical engineering list: PHYS1002, ELEC2003, MATH2000/2001, ELEC2004.

See “I’m in first (or second) year, and have an elective slot. I would like to do a BE elective. Can you suggest some that might be suitable?”

Almost all ITEE engineering plans have elective courses which do not have to be “BE list electives”, i.e. as listed in the relevant program rules: “balance from electives, being courses from the BE list or other courses approved by the Executive Dean”. In single major programs this may be up to a total of #8; in dual majors this is typically #4; and in dual-degrees this may be only #2, or in some cases, none at all. You are not permitted to complete more than #4 of Level 1 non-BE electives.

The EAIT Faculty website details what you are allowed to choose for these courses.

These electives are a rare opportunity to identify things that you are genuinely interested in learning about. Carefully think it through and choose courses that will enhance and strengthen your engineering degree, as well as ensure that it matches your needs.

You are strongly advised AGAINST taking a course as an elective because you have heard that it is easy. Ultimately you are going to be investing a significant amount of time and money in the course.

As such it is of utmost importance that you study a course that you are interested in and is of value to your intended career path. You will find it much easier to study for a course you are interested in, even if it is challenging, than an easy course that you might find boring!

Special topic courses are typically research projects where you (and possibly a small group of other students) are directly supervised by an academic. These courses are not routinely run and they rely on you identifying an academic that you want to work with and who is willing to supervise you in this task. Subject to the approval of the Head of School, enrolment is generally only approved for students with high GPA’s.

Further details are available on the Spcial Topics Courses page.

Where a course has both an undergraduate course-code (i.e. Levels 1, 2, 3, or 4) and a postgraduate course-code (Level 7), you must enrol in the undergraduate course-code.

In some circumstances, exceptional students (those with high GPA’s) may be permitted to enrol in a postgraduate course, subject to approval from the Course-Coordinator and Head of School. You would normally enrol in one of the special topics course codes (ELEC/CSSE/COMP3000/3001/4000/4001) to facilitate this.

Find more information on the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) / Master of Engineering.

Please see the faculty website for full details: https://www.eait.uq.edu.au/changing-be-behons

From 2015 onwards, all new students will be enrolled in the new B.Engineering (Honours) program. This change was required for compliance with the new Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) standards (see: http://www.aqf.edu.au/). In the new program, all graduating students will be awarded an on Honours degree. This is in contrast to the pre-2015 program where Honours was awarded on academic achievement (i.e. Grade Point Average).

New students commencing Year 1 of the BE from 2015 onwards, will only be accepted into the BE(honours) program.

Students enrolled in the existing BE program have the option of changing to the new BE(Hons) program, however, once enrolled you are not permitted to change back to the pre-2015 BE program. You will be required to complete a declaration to this effect.

Students considering changing to the new program should carefully review the program rules for the new BE(Hons) program, which are available at the UQ Study website . The major change affects students planning to complete single major programs in electrical and software engineering, where the requirement to complete ENGG4900. This reduces the number of electives to #12 from #14. It should be noted that there are no changes in the course list for ITEE dual major students. Dual degree students should carefully check their program’s rules.

New GPA thresholds for the grade of the awarded honours also apply - see https://www.eait.uq.edu.au/be-honours

The School maintains a Thesis website. Please pay note to the thesis topic selection process. This website will also direct you to the project database, which lists past and current thesis project topics.