The ECEi program is right for you, if:
You are a prospective undergraduate student
You know you want to study Electrical or Computer Engineering and are ready to get a head start in your discipline in first year
You dream of becoming an entrepreneur with a world-class engineering background OR
You want to pursue an engineering career in industry and want to acquire additional business and communication skills that will give you a step up in your career
ECEi, or Electrical and Computer Engineering Innovation Stream is an undergraduate program option for ECE students who are interested in learning additional entrepreneurship and innovation skills.
Enhanced Curriculum
The ECEi program includes ALL core BASc Computer/Electrical Engineering courses + four Commerce courses in entrepreneurship/innovation + 2 electives. Students graduate with a BASc in either Electrical or Computer Engineering and can take advantage of all the opportunities that the department has to offer, including the QUIP internship program, graduate studies, and the 4+1 program that combines BASc and MASc degrees.
Direct Entry
Our students know that they want to study in ECE when they apply to Queen’s! ECEi is the first and only program in the Faculty of Engineering And Applied Science to accept first-year students into a department directly. ECEi students still get to enjoy the variety and the benefits of the common engineering first year and take courses across disciplines during their first year of study. However, the first year course APSC 100 Engineering Practice offers ECEi students an enhanced curriculum and innovation-oriented design projects to prepare them for their upper years in the program. This combination of a common engineering first-year and a headstart in your discipline offers the ECEi cohort the best benefits of both worlds!
Experiential Components
ECEi students are encouraged to pursue their own business projects and to experiment and learn outside of the classroom. There are multiple resources on campus to help them do so. ECEi students are offered a free membership to SparQ Makerspace, a makerspace in Mitchell hall offering a variety of equipment, mentorship, and workshops. ECEi students are encouraged to participate in the many initiatives by the DDQIC, including the summer innovation accelerator program QICSI. First year ECEi students get access to the Bain and Annex computer labs in Walter Light Hall.
Community and Support
ECEi is a small cohort of students. The program accepts up to 50 students a year. The small community ensures that our students get to know their peers across the program years and build a strong network with current ECEi students and program alumni. For core program courses, ECEi students attend labs and lectures with the rest of the students in the Department. In ECEi - specific courses students study in separate course section with only their cohort. For more information on curriculum structure, please visit the Curriculum tab.
Looking for more information?
Contact Alisa Darbinyan at alisa.darbinyan@queensu.ca
The ECE Innovation Stream from Queen's Engineering on Vimeo.
ECEi is the first direct-entry program in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. Prospective students can chose to apply to it under a separate category in OUAC. First year ECEi students take the same common first-year curriculum as the rest of FEAS frosh students, with special course outlines and projects in three core first-year courses:
APSC 100 Engineering Practice l FW
APSC 143 Introduction to Computer Programming for Engineers F
APSC 114 Electromagnetics W
Upper year ECEi students are required to take the following four courses offered by the Smith School of Business:
COMM 201 - Introduction to Business for Entrepreneurs – F
This course introduces students to the language of business, as well as the main functional areas of business, and demonstrates how these areas interact to produce and market products and/or services in an economically viable manner. An emphasis is placed on both strategic and tactical development and execution in entrepreneurial contexts. The course also assists students in developing an understanding of the nature of the modern entrepreneurial enterprise in Canadian and international contexts, and of the tasks, practices, and responsibilities of its leaders. Of particular importance is the use of a capstone simulation – like the Capsim Strategy Simulation, but one geared towards entrepreneurial ventures – whose focus lies in the development and application of fundamental strategic management skills and financial analysis interpretation for decision-making purposes. The approach of the course is to challenge students to strive to develop a base-level competency in business principles which they can effectively transfer to their future entrepreneurial venture.
COMM 301 - Funding New Ventures – F
This course provides a detailed examination of the fundamentals of a financing strategy for new ventures, and the specific financing alternatives for obtaining capital to launch new ventures. The financing alternatives include crowdfunding, angel investing, and venture capital, and thus cover the entire financing spectrum from start-up to growth capital.
COMM 302 - Launching New Ventures – W
This course will focus on the specific commercial activities required to launch new ventures into industrial markets. Students will gain an understanding of how to size-up industrial markets, apply lean principles to the new customer development process, align early-stage demand generation activities with industrial buyer behavior, and implement best practices to acquire, retain and grow their first industrial customers. This course will make extensive use of cases both historical and ideally from the Living Case Initiative.
COMM 405 – New Business Development – F
The focus of this course is to provide students with knowledge, skills, and tools that form the basis required to identify, analyze, plan, and execute a new venture activity. It also provides a depth of understanding of the practical realities of new ventures and growing a small business. This course requires a high degree of self-study as the major project involves the detailed analysis, planning and presentation of a business plan for a new venture proposal. Students are expected and encouraged to use this course to assess and plan actual new venture opportunities that they may seriously consider. Guest speakers, cases and concepts will be utilized to allow the student to better understand the exciting and challenging realities of entrepreneurship and managing new ventures.
ECEi students will need a total of three additional credits to complete their degree. Some students also take the opportunity to peruse their own innovation projects on the side, which can require time commitment. Overall, the ECEi schedule was designed to not be significantly more demanding than that of the regular stream students, while still providing a solid foundation in entrepreneurship.
Is the Innovation Stream only intended for students that want to go into business/entrepreneurship?
Not at all. The program is equally useful to students who chose to go the traditional industry route but want to enhance their CV with basic entrepreneurial, communication, and innovation skills. The ECEi-specific courses build up on the existing Electrical and Computer Engineering Curriculum, with no loss in technical engineering credits.
How does ECEi relate to other business programs/certificates available to engineering students?
Queen’s offers a broad range of certificate and/or international exchange programs to students who wish to gain business and entrepreneurial skills. Smith Certificate in Business, The International Innovation Term (i2TRM), and the Certificate in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Creativity (QEIC - ENIN) are all available options for undergraduate engineering students. Unlike any of these optional programs, the Innovation and Entrepreneurship designation for ECEi students is included in the undergraduate curriculum and requires no extra time to complete. The ECEi curriculum does not, however, prevent students from taking additional certification programs.
How will my experience as an ECEi student be different from that of my peers?
The main difference in student experience for ECEi students is the smaller class size. The ECEi program only accepts around 50 students each year and for ECEi-specific courses the students learn in a separate class section. This allows for a tight-knit community of ECEi students across programm years. It is common for upper-year and lower-year ECEi students to team up together for extracurricular projects, such as the programs offered by Queen’s Innovation Park and the DDQIC.
Experiential components of the program include speaker seminars, social events, and workshops organised throughout the year for the ECEi cohort.
Are there additional resources available to ECEi students?
Yes, our students are well taken care of! Starting from year one, ECEi students have access to undergraduate student resources at the ELectrical and Computer Engineering department, including help from the Undergraduate Program Coordinator and Undergraduate Chair and access to the Bain and Annex lab spaces. ECEi students enjoy free access to the SparQ Makerspace in Mitchell Hall.
The process for students wanting to get into ECEi is as follows:
For students already in the ECE program (i.e., years 2 and above). Students are asked to submit an academic change form request to the Department and then when all the requests are in, FEAS determines if there are available space in the innovation stream to accommodate students who wish to change from ECE to ECEi. Since ECEi is a direct entry program with limited spots (50 spots), students cannot just automatically change from the ECE to ECEi program.
For students in first year engineering but not yet in our ECE program. Since ECEi is not one of the options offered to general engineering, when students make their discipline choice, they would have had to choose ELEC or CMPE program. The next step is to fill out an academic program change form and request to switch into Innovation from Regular Stream ECE. Every year a certain number of ECEi students choose to drop into the regular ECE program and then that’s what leaves room for students wanting to move into the innovation stream.
For students accepted into engineering but not Direct Entry ECE (ECEi). This is handled centrally by the Queen’s Undergraduate Admissions Office. The ECE department is not involved in admission process. If applicants decide well before the OUAC deadline of June 1 that they want to change their choices, they can do it centrally through the OUAC system. They may also contact Queen’s admissions for more information.
