Just a few words about Signal & Info Processing Specialization in Electrical Systems Engineering since I’ve been getting a lot of queries about it.
1. Is it more difficult than E&D specialization?
Easy or difficult is a matter of perspective,prior experience, interest and sincerity. What is difficult for one may be easy for the other and vice-versa. The source of so-called-difficulty may be the fact that most subjects in SIP are highly mathematical; so even if you just intend on “getting-by” your degree, you’ll still have to wrestle with a good level of mathematics (a.k.a Probability Theory, Statistics,Linear Algebra and/or frequency domain analysis techniques). But I might also add that some subjects in E&D are also quite mathematical and in any case if one intends to do a bit more in E&D specialization , I’m not too sure if dealing with a good level of mathematics can be avoided (Old E&D guys: Correct me if I’m wrong here). Another “difficult” aspect may creep in from the fact that some professors may not be seen as lenient.
2. What kind of strategy to choose for studying here ?
Best way: Study regularly.(It’s also a lot more fun if are into the concepts,you can really learn a lot.)
Less-than-best way: Start studying at least 3 weeks prior to your exam(full time study here, nothing else),almost as good as the best way.
Sure-shot-way to fail : Start studying 2/3 days prior to your exam.
3. Do you have to program a lot?
For the compulsory subjects, you may have to work with Matlab sometimes but that may be avoided as for some of these subjects, Matlab exercises are just tutorials(and not assignments) which are not graded ( avoiding tutorials are not recommended though; these programming tutorials do teach a lot sometimes). Apart from that, you will have to program should you choose optional subjects like Digital Image Processing. I don’t think you can avoid programming in your projects and thesis. (Programming environments I’ve seen used here so far : Matlab, C++ and sometimes Python). My personal opinion is that you can’t expect to learn or do anything worthwhile with SIP as your specialization if you don’t program.
4. Is it possible to complete in 2 years? Yes , It is. But you’ll have to work for it.
5. Job Prospects with SIP : I’m afraid I’m not yet in a position to do a good analysis of this aspect. Will share my experience myself once I get a job. About on-campus-placements, NO, you don’t have companies coming to campus for recruitment. Once in a while there are company fairs where you can talk to the company representatives and try to get an appointment with them for an interview later on. So basically, you’ll have to look for a job yourself.
