Experiences with a laboratory-intensive curriculum in electrical engineering

The Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Arkansas implemented major changes in the curriculum in the Fall 1997 semester. A part of these changes was an increase in the number of laboratory hours and the method of delivering the laboratories. Prior to making changes in the curriculum, there were four semester hours of laboratory associated with the required courses and two required courses with a small laboratory component. Under the new curriculum, all of the required core electrical engineering course, with the exception of electromagnetics, have a one-semester hour laboratory associated directly with them. Some of the topics discussed in this paper are: (1) motivation for increasing the laboratory hours, (2) initial and resulting laboratory requirements, (3) increased demands on faculty time, (4) maintenance of the laboratories, (5) logistics of physically accommodating the increased number of laboratories, and (6) positive/negative aspects of the changes made in the laboratory portion of the curriculum.