Well Pavan I am a graduating senior here at Texas Tech and looking for someone to replace me. We just stared a FIRST team(1817) here and will need someone to help, what better to replace a 118 alumni is another 118 alumni. The team was stared in the EE Department by Robonaut alumni and we have alot of good resources here for a FIRST team, our team uses CNC mills from the ME department. Mills and lathes from the IE department, professors from the CS Department, and shop room from the Engineering Technology Department. But the bulk of the building is done in the EE department with the help of EE professors and students.
About Texas Tech. First I would like to dispel any thing about a 33% female percentage. I can tell you for a fact that number is incorrect.
2005 Fall Fact Sheet That is one of the things Texas Tech is known for. Pretty women. Though as in all colleges male to female ratio is skewed to more males in engineering there is a simple solution to that. Get a life outside of engineering. Make friends from the Business college or Mass Comm. It is healthy to talk to other people outside your major about things other than uniform plane waves traveling through free space (AHH Finals!!!).
In all seriousness Texas Tech and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE) has alot of good programs. The one of them being the 150 hour program. This allows you to graduate with multiple degrees in 5 years such as Electrical/Computer Science Dual or Electrical Engineering Bachelors and Masters in 5 years, 150 Hours. I am graduating Saturday with a Dual degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics, and I did it in 5 years.
Another program Texas Tech has is Project Lab. With most engineering schools, many classes in your major are 4 hours (3 hours lecture 1 hour lab) theses labs are where they try to teach you how to use the technology. At the ECE Dept. Classes are 3 hours lecture and all the labs are grouped together in what we call Project Labs. Project labs are a 3 hour course where you are assigned a project at the beginning of the semester. You work on these projects from the beginning of the semester till the end giving presentations on your progress and meeting with an advisor every week. These labs teach you communication skill, presentation skills, project management skills, and how to find information on your own. An EE degree has 5 project labs with the last 2 being like your Senior design project. The projects I worked on were building a car that used GPS and micro-controller to navigate around the EE parking lot. Building a 300v 10 Amp battery charger. Building and designing from the ground up a wireless communication system for a robot (to replace the BEST robotics current system). And using GPS and a Pocket PC PDA to display a heads up display with backup instruments for a pilot. (Senior Design, and i got to go up in Cessna and test it out).
Project Lab also stresses service to the engineering community and passing the FE Exam (the professional licensing exam for engineers). For service to the community in each project lab you have to do 10 hours of engineering service, whether it be joining and attending meetings of professional society or some kind of engineering community service. Mentoring a Best team in the Fall and FIRST team in the spring can knock those out quickly. Now for passing the FE Exam, by the time you finish with project labs, you would have completed and passed a practice version of the FE 3 times or passed the real FE. This contributes to the ECE's high pass rate on the FE.
There are only a few universities in the nation that have a similar program, and that sets Texas Tech's ECE department apart from any of those in Texas.
I will go into more depth about the City of Lubbock Later. Since I'm graduating I probably will be able to make it to the Roboanuat Dinner and could anwser any question about Texas Tech.