A more cerebral application

Five years ago DIT Kevin Street's diploma in electronic and telecommunications engineering was modernised and renamed with the generic title of diploma in applied electronics.

In DIT, courses are reviewed every five years and the applied electronics course is up for another review this year. "Five years is a lifetime in electronics," says Christopher Bruce, head of the school of electronic and communications engineering. "Many people say that the title of applied electronics is a bit old hat and not terribly interesting, so we might even look at the name of the course again."

It is a three-year ab-initio diploma and Bruce explains that it would have the same analytical level as a three-year BSc. Those who get a distinction or achieve a high upper-merit can continue on to an honours degree - in DIT, UL, Trinity, DCU as one of a number of universities in Britain.

Subjects studied in first year are mathematics, engineering science, electric circuits, electronic systems, electronic devices, computer applications and programming, computer aided drafting, electronic workshop and a European language. There are, on average, 28 hours a week, 35 per cent of which are in labs. In the final year, exams are in February and this is followed by a full-time three-month project.

One of the problems, Bruce says, is that a lot of the wrong people end up on the course - people who think applied electronics is a more hands-on type of course. "It's quite an analytical, theoretical course and a lot of kids don't realise this, although we try very hard to tell them." He says that approximately 10 per cent give up quite early because they realise it is not for them.

"Unfortunately there is a very very high failure rate in the first year of many engineering courses, be they technician courses, diploma or certificate courses, so we get a quite high dropout rate in first year. Some of these transfer to a lower course and they come up on a slightly longer route."

In second year students make a choice between communications engineering and electronic engineering. Communications engineers are employed by companies such as Eircom, Esat and all the telecoms and data companies, mostly on the software side. Electronic engineers, he says, are employed more in the manufacturing industry. They learn how to make integrated circuits, whereas the former learn how to design using software.

Because all machinery is now software-driven, electronic engineering students do communications engineering in their final year, whereas communication engineering students do two years of communications engineering. They both end up with the same diploma at the end of the day, he says, but with a transcript showing what subjects they've done.

It is one of the highest-points diploma courses in the State. Last year the points requirement for the course was 295. Points for engineering courses, he points out, have fallen over the last few years and in general points for applied electronics has been in and around the 300mark. Between 50 and 60 students are accepted to the course every year. This year there were 42 registered students on the course and 53 will graduate with a diploma for applied electronics in 2000. The ratio of men to women on the course is 9:1 and there are, on average, three mature students a year.

Students who are going to do this course, Bruce explains, must find mathematics easy. "You must have a mind that questions things. How does that work? It is a more cerebral type of course than many courses that teach a skill." Although there is workshop practice and students must be able to do the practical things, Bruce insists it is not the type of course where people are pulling out the backs of televisions or computers or fixing things. Students simulate work on a computer and build it for real, seeing how it works. "We tend to try to simulate first because that's what kids like and then we put them into the real world."

As the course will be under review over the next six to nine months, Bruce hope that by the time the new people come in next year he will have a revamped course. One of the changes, he said, would involve more of an emphasis on the communications engineering option in the course.