Programme Description

The programme provides academic and professional excellence for newly qualified as well as practising engineers who wish to extend their knowledge and skills in the fields of communications, embedded systems, and business management.

In the MSc student takes four compulsory courses and four optional courses from a pool of 11 over two terms (autumn and spring). The compulsory modules represent the advanced knowledge necessary for subject excellence and the options represent the individual's choice for other specialised areas.

Postgraduate Certificate students take a total of four courses only; Postgraduate Diploma students take eight courses and MSc students take eight course plus the project in the summer term.

THE PROJECT

The MSc project is a substantial practical exercise usually starting in January with preliminary work in the spring term, becoming full-time during the summer term and concluding at the end of August.

Your project will be supervised by a member of faculty who takes on the role of technical director. A second (minor) supervisor is also assigned to provide very occasional guidance and to give an independent assessment of the completed final report.

All projects are designed for individuals to excel in their personal professional development and consolidate the material covered in the taught courses. The projects normally arise from academic research associated with the research groups as well as from industry.

The Communications Research Group is one of the University's strongest research groups with close industrial links. Each year a number of MSc projects are available that involve working closely with a sponsoring company.

TEACHING & ASSESSMENT

There are eight taught courses in the full MSc qualification, plus a major project.

Courses are taught by a combination of lectures, workshops and practical laboratories, as well as a wide variety of practical projects related to research and commercial applications.

Postgraduate Diploma candidates take eight taught courses throughout the autumn and spring terms. Postgraduate Certificate candidates take four taught courses which can be taken within one term or over two terms depending upon the student's choice and course timetabling.

* The taught courses are assessed by laboratory reports, coursework, project reports, essays or unseen examinations. There are normally two such assessments on each course.
* The major project for MSc candidates runs through two university terms and is assessed on the final report of about 12,000 words.

FACILITIES

The Department is housed in three buildings on the University of Sussex campus. The campus is set in one of the most beautiful parts of England, midway between the lively coastal resort of Brighton and the historic county town of Lewes.

The Department carries out high quality research activities over a broad range of topics within several research centres and groups. The research fields encompass mechanical engineering, automotive engineering, electronic engineering & communications and electrical engineering.

Engineering and Information Technology at Sussex was awarded a grade 5 rating in the UK government's 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, in recognition of research of international excellence.

The Department is equipped with fully modernised laboratory facilities including PCB and SMD facilities, high performance PCs/workstations, and the latest development kits. Laboratories dedicated to MSc students have specialist hardware and software tools including MATLAB, network simulation tools, embedded and micoprocessor systems, CAN development tools, Bluetooth/WLAN, GPS, DSP/FPGAs.