FAQs

General FAQs

Starting your freshman year, you will be taking a lot of classes that give you the foundational tools to necessary to be successful in Electrical Engineering. These include, but are not limited to: Introduction to Engineering I and II, Calculus I and II, and Composition I and II, and a least one science electives.

During your Sophomore year, you will start taking classes in Electrical Engineering. Along with other classes, you will take the two most important classes of you undergraduate career. These two classes (Circuits I and Circuits II) are the foundation for almost all of the classes you will take for the next three years.

During your first two years, you will be taking classes with experts in the field of Electrical Engineering. After these years, you will be ready for classes which will prepare you for your career in Electrical Engineering. You will also have the option of working on undergraduate research in world-class labs

The four-year curriculum plan lays out the entire plan of study.  For a complete list of classes see the course descriptions.  The Interactive Flow Chart is a visual tool to guide students through the flow of pre-, co-, and post-requisites.

As part of our commitment to you, our program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org/. As such, we have incorporated student outcomes which are aligned with the mission of ABET. It is our desire that when you graduate you will (at a minimum) have

  1. an ability to identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics
  2. an ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors
  3. an ability to communicate effectively with a range of audiences
  4. an ability to recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts
  5. an ability to function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives
  6. an ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusion
  7. an ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies.

Retention and graduation data is for first time, full time, new freshmen cohorts who enter the College of Engineering in the fall of the reported year.  All new freshmen are enrolled in a common first year experience and do not declare a major until mid-way through the spring semester of their freshman year. The College of Engineering table tracks cohorts over a six-year period for the entire college. The Department of Electrical Engineering table below tracks retention and graduation data rates, starting when those new freshmen join the department in their sophomore year.

View the Retention and Graduation Information

Scholarships are available for up to $8,000.00 per year for four years. There over 27 different scholarships for the Electrical Engineering department alone. The University of Arkansas’s Honors program also provides fellowships for those with exceptional grades and test scores. There are several scholarships for minority students and several financial aid programs. For more information, read about scholarships. For other programs, visit University wide Scholarships and Financial Aid. Learn more about the Honors Fellowships.

The Electrical Engineering Department will provide advisers and peer mentoring services. The University of Arkansas also has several different physical and mental health facilities at student’s disposal as well as several options for campus housing. For more information, check out our list of student resources.

If you are transferring to the University of Arkansas and wish to transfer credits from another school, they must comply with the Transfer Course Equivalency Guides. In most cases, mathematics courses and humanities courses can be transferred. Physics courses only transfer if they have calculus as a prerequisite. Engineering courses only transfer if you took them in a department who's Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering is accredited through ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), and they have calculus as a prerequisite.

These rules are general. They do not guarantee that a course will transfer. The final decision on whether a course will transfer will be made by the Associate Department Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering.

If this information has been helpful, or you are thinking about attending the University of Arkansas, we are ready and willing to have you come on campus. We enjoy showing prospective members the wonderful facilities and beautiful campus. if you would like to visit us, schedule a tour!

The jobs and salaries available for an engineer are constantly changing. For this reason, the best place to find the information is on the Bureau of Labor Statistic's website.

 

Graduate FAQs

Admissions

A: A student must have a grade point average of at least 3.0 (based on a 4.0 system) on all undergraduate work, or a 3.0 average or above on the last 60 hours of undergraduate coursework. Also, the sum of a student's verbal and quantitative GRE scores must be at least 302. A GRE score is required for all students, except those graduating with a B.S. from the University of Arkansas.
A: The first step is getting accepted by the Graduate and International Admissions Office. All students apply through the Graduate and International Admissions Office, whether domestic or international. Apply online at https://application.uark.edu/. Do not send application materials to the Department of Electrical Engineering. The Graduate and International Admissions Office evaluate a student to determine if he or she meets admission requirements. If all requirements are met, the application is forwarded to the Electrical Engineering Department.
A: Application deadlines are published on the Graduate Admissions website. International students may need to apply much sooner than the deadline to allow enough time to receive a visa.
A: In addition to the Graduate and International Admissions requirements, the Department of Electrical Engineering requires a resume, a statement of purpose, and three letters of recommendation. All of these requirements should be uploaded in your Student Center.
A: The statement of purpose is a one or two-page document which explains why you want to pursue an M.S. or Ph.D. It should also describe the research areas in which you would like to specialize. The research areas pages of this website describe common specialty areas and list the faculty doing research in each area.

A: The Letters of Recommendation for an applicant should be professional in nature. A LOR will directly relate to one’s potential to succeed in graduate studies and their professional future in the field. The letter may be written by anyone who can attest to your:

  • skills in the field of study
  • research skills
  • practical applications of the work
  • work ethic
  • capacity for success

This may be a previous professor, an employer, etc. It should be someone who is in a good position to evaluate your attributes in the above areas and your specific skill set.

A: You can make changes in your Student Center in UAConnect.
A: No, LORs and the GRE are not required if you received your BSEE from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Non-BSEE applicants are required to submit letters of recommeendation and a GRE score.
A: No. In fact, the Graduate School will not accept any transcript evaluations other than their own. Send all of the required documents, including all transcripts, to the Graduate School.
A: Applicants seeking regular admission whose native language is not English must submit minimum satisfactory scores on either the TOEFL or the IELTS. No other measures of English proficiency are accepted by the University of Arkansas for the purpose of gaining admission. For more information visit International Admissions English Proficiency Requirements.
A: If you’ve graduated from a university in the United States, or a university whose primary language is English, we can waive the TOEFL exam requirement.
A: We receive your application from the Graduate School. A complete application takes a few weeks for us to process. Delays occur when information is missing from your application. You may contact the department about your application at eleggrad@uark.edu.
A: Yes, you can defer one time, by one semester. In order to do so, you need to send an e-mail to Graduate and International Admissions and to the Electrical Engineering Department. You may defer either before or after your admission is completed.
A: The graduate committee votes on each applicant that comes through our department. Unfortunately, we have more applicants than we can accept and meeting requirements does not guarantee admission. Therefore, the graduate committee must choose which applications to accept and which to reject.

 

New Students

A: Yes, both the Graduate School and the department conduct a New Student Orientation the week before classes begin.
A: No, the student must find his or her own advisor. To find an adviser you should begin by visiting the Research page of our website. Look at the professors who conduct research in your area of interest and the work that they do. Choose one you would like to work with and send him or her an e-mail. Introduce yourself, explain why you want to work with him, and tell him what skills you can bring to his research team.
A: M.S.E.E. students may be admitted without an advisor, but Ph.D. students must have an advisor before they may be admitted.
A: Once you have an advisor, then you should form the rest of your advisory committee. Your adviser may suggest two other members, or if you know who you want on your committee you may suggest them. Once you and your adviser have selected two other members, send them an e-mail and ask them if they will agree to serve on your advisory committee. (The committee rates your final comprehensive exam or defense.) Once you have their permission, fill out the MS or Ph.D. Committee form.
A: The department does not have set plans of courses and the student decides, with advisor and committee approval, which courses to take. Courses available for graduate credit are listed in the graduate catalog. The student completes a written schedule for study form in his/her first semester to plan the courses for the degree plan.
A: Ph.D. students cannot transfer courses. Your advisor and committee will evaluate the work you did in you Masters and decide how much of it they will count towards your Ph.D. The hours required for the Ph.D. will be reduced by that amount.

 

Graduation

A: The MSEE comprehensive oral exam will follow the standardized format listed below. The entire exam will last about 45‐60 minutes. The exam consists of two parts:

1. Student PowerPoint presentation outlining (approximately ten minutes in duration):

  • Previous education: institution, major, special projects completed
  • Professional work experience (company, location, job title, brief description)
  • List the courses taken as part of the MSEE program including the course number, title, instructor, term and grade.
  • One or two slides describing how the MSEE program and curriculum would apply to your professional work (either at present job position or how the MSEE would in the future).

2. The committee will ask several questions of the student covering the student’s coursework.

A: The department requires an electronic copy of your thesis/dissertation. If you or your major professor want a copy (or copies) of your thesis/dissertation bound, the department will send that off for binding for you. You will need to provide the printed thesis/dissertation and pay for the binding cost for those copies.
A: No, because the grade of the incomplete course will affect the final grade.
A: You need to email the Electrical Engineering department and the Graduate School to let them know. You also need to contact the Registrar's Office and defer your graduation.

 

Tech Support FAQs

Contact eleghelp@uark.edu. E-mail is the best means to relay any request for help as it is monitored by multiple technicians and since the request is in an e-mail it is traceable and much less likely to slip anyone’s mind.

Yes. There are two application servers maintained by the ELEG department for this reason. ApertureScience is the Linux Application Server. Ctrix is the Windows Application Server and as long as you are affiliated with the ELEG Department you already have access. 

For more information on these servers go to the tutorial page.