Before you contact the coordinator with a question, please make sure that it is not already answered here.
What are the official prerequisites required for enrolment in the fourth year project?
- The pre-requisite is 4th year status which is 1st, 2nd, and 3.5cr from 3rd year.
What are the different course options when choosing a Capstone project?
- For EE and CSE students, ELEC4907/SYSC4907/ECOR4907 are in the program and any one of these courses will satisfy the program requirement without any approval from DoE.
- For Engineering Physics (EP) students ELEC4908/ECOR4907 are listed in the program, they would need approval from Associate Undergraduate Chair to take SYSC4907. A manual audit amendment (by Engineering Academic Support) would be required for them to graduate.
- For SREE A students SREE4907/ECOR4907 are listed in the program. An approval from the Associate Undergraduate Chair is required to substitute SYSC4907.
- For SREE B students MAAE4907/ECOR4907 are listed. Approval to substitute SYSC4907 would be required from MAE and SCE, where students will have to demonstrate that they have sufficient background to undertake a SYSC project.
Can SREE students take their projects at the Department of Electronics?
- Yes, some projects offered at our department qualify for the SREE program. These projects should have a strong energy-related component. SREE students should identify such projects from the list of offered projects and contact the corresponding professor.
Who marks a student’s project work?
- The proposal and the progress report are solely marked by the supervisor. The poster presentations are marked by two or three professors (not including the supervisor). The Oral presentations are marked by all multiple faculty members. The final reports are marked by two professors and the project supervisor, with different weightings.
Is a professor obligated to take an interested student?
No. A professor may form his project group from many applicants based on his own criteria. However, students are highly encouraged to contact potential project supervisors starting winter term end and summer term to secure their priority selections to the projects groups.
Is a professor obligated to approve an application within a specific period?
- No. Some professors may promise a student or a group of students as soon as they find they are approached by the right applicants. Some others may prefer to wait and evaluate all applications at a later time. Nevertheless, all 4th-year students should eventually be offered a placed in a project group.
The project group allocations is not finalized irrespective of any agreement with the potential supervisors, until it is formally announced by the capstone co-ordinator.
Do professors prefer applicants with higher GPAs?
- Not necessarily. Professors usually consider other qualifications, such as the background and motivation of an applicant, beside the GPA before making a decision.
May Electronics Engineering students take their projects from other departments?
- Electronics students are only eligible to register in the project courses offered by the Department of Electronics (ELEC 4907, ELEC 4908 and SREE 4907) and Department of Systems and Computer Engineering (SYSC-4907). They are also allowed to register for ECOR4907 (Multidisciplinary Engineering Project). See more details here.
Involvement in projects offered by other engineering programs, provided that it is of electronics nature, has to be approved by the coordinator.
- Irrespective of the department (except SCE), students interested in pursuing their Capstone project outside DoE must
- provide the name of proposed faculty supervisor from other department;
- submit a detailed project description clearly identifying the electrical engineering component in the project comparable to typical DoE projects and detailed assessment criterion (to be received directly by the proposed faculty supervisor and not by the student);
- find a DoE faculty member (co-supervisor) who agrees to oversee the project with the following role:
- to review the proposed project, to confirm if there is sufficient EE role in the project and make recommendation to the capstone co-ordinator,
- to oversee the project (but not necessarily access it or be involved in regular project meetings etc) and act as an intermediary between the host department and DoE;
- to gather and submit the final grades to the DoE Capstone Project Co-ordinator at the end of the project.
- These requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and students should not commit to the projects unless a formal permission is provided by the Capstone Project Co-ordinator.
- Deadline to submit such requests is the same as that of the overall project application deadline (typically August 31st). No requests will be entertained after the deadline.
May Biomedical-Electrical Engineering students take their projects from the Department of Electronics?
- Yes, but the projects have to be approved by the coordinator of the Biomedical program to make sure of appropriate Biomedical contents. These students should register in SYSC-4917
How are the projects funded?
DoE provides some financial support to cover costs of components and specific project related costs, in addition to providing any equipments and lab setups, depending on their availability. Students and their project supervisors are encouraged to explore other funding avenues through various channels such as CSES or other engineering societies such as IEEE.