Electrical engineers find innovative ways to use electricity, electronic materials and electrical phenomena to improve people’s lives. The field of electrical engineering encompasses a very broad spectrum of technical areas, including computers and digital systems, electronics and integrated circuits, communications, systems and control, electromagnetics and electro-optics, energy conversion and power distribution, robotics, signal processing, solid state electronics and photonics. Electrical engineers work at the frontier of high technology and are involved in research, the creation of new ideas and the design and development of new products, manufacturing and marketing activities. Electrical engineers work in a variety of industries: film and television, aerospace, automotive, business machines, professional and scientific equipment, computers and electronics, communications, medical technology. They work in public utilities, at NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense. As researchers, they study everything from fuel cells to nanotechnology. If it’s got an on/off switch, these engineers have studied it, designed it or produced it.
Electrical engineers learn to understand and use electrical power: make it, control it, transmit it, and tame it to design and run all kinds of traditional and advanced technologies. Students who enroll as Electrical Engineering majors at UK study at Kentucky’s flagship research institution, meaning you’ll be learning from top faculty looking to make the next big breakthrough in their field. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty are readily accessible both inside and outside the classroom and students have every opportunity necessary to grow personally and professionally. Courses cover all the essentials: circuits, power and energy, semiconductors, embedded systems, computer architecture and others. The undergraduate degree culminates in the capstone design courses where seniors work in teams to handle real-world problems outside the classroom and get a taste of real world engineering work.
Undergraduate certificates are also available in power and energy as well as nanoscale engineering.
Industries Looking for You
“Nigeria has poor power distribution and transmission systems, so I'm trying to hone my skills in the power sector so I can eventually go back and contribute toward solving some of the problems.”
Recent Electrical Engineering Graduate
The smartest, most talented engineers around the world are devoting themselves to tackling immense global challenges. As a First-Year Engineering (FYE) student, you get to join them!
In 2008, the National Academy of Engineering identified 14 “Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century”—opportunities to greatly increase humanity’s sustainability, health, security and joy of living. Themes include making solar energy economical, enhancing virtual reality, reverse-engineering the brain, securing cyberspace, providing access to clean water and more.
These ambitious goals demand engineers roll up their sleeves and get to work, which is why we put them front and center during your first year as an engineering student. We have designed the FYE program to inspire you. We want you to discover your passion. We want you to explore where you might make your unique contribution. We want you to get your hands dirty and make stuff that might, one day, lead to a breakthrough.
Why wait until you’re taking upper-level classes to figure out what interests you? Through real engineering classes taught by top faculty and exposure to engineering’s greatest challenges, the FYE program gets you into the game from day one.
Fall 2023 first-time freshmen: Automatic admission to the College of Engineering will be based on meeting the below requirements. However, if you cannot take or choose not to submit ACT or SAT scores with your admission application, a holistic review will be used to determine your admission to the engineering program.
Students may directly enroll as pre-engineering students; however, there are minimum admission requirements. Minimum freshman entry requirements are an ACT math score of 25 or higher (or a SAT math score of 590 or higher) and a 3.0 or higher unweighted high school GPA. Additionally, students must also meet the minimum Kentucky statewide academic readiness requirements for reading and writing. If you do not meet the initial admission requirements, please contact visit@engr.uky.edu for information about alternative routes to admission to the College of Engineering.
Admission requirements for transfer students can be accessed here.
The following curriculum meets the requirements for a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, provided the student satisfies UK Core requirements and graduation requirements of the College of Engineering.
Growth and learning also happen outside the classroom. It happens in labs working alongside professors and graduate students. It happens on student design teams in the capstone design courses. It happens on cooperative education rotations and internships with companies all over the country. It happens by competing in student robot competitions. There are also numerous education abroad programs. The Engineering Career and Co-op Center can assist you with developing job, co-op and internship search skills, participation in education abroad programs, participation in research endeavors and building career networks so you can secure a rewarding career in your chosen field of study.
Learning also happens in student organizations, on industry trips and on community service projects. UK students can get involved with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, the Society of Women Engineers, Engineers Without Borders, and others.
While there are endless ways to create an unforgettable journey as a Wildcat, we can only think of one that gives you the chance to step outside the classroom and into exploring new parts of the world around you: participating in an Education Abroad opportunity! Whether it’s in a study, research, service, or internship program, taking your UK experience international with EA is the most hands-on way for you to expand your global perspective while making yourself a more well-rounded, marketable candidate to future employers no matter your field. As you take these first steps towards investing in your future, EA encourages you to take advantage of all the opportunities UK has to offer. Take a look at some of the many suggested opportunities UK Education Abroad & Exchanges has to complement your major! #ukyabroad
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Electrical engineers learn to understand and use electrical energy: make it, control it, transmit it and tame it to design and run all kinds of traditional and advanced technologies. Electrical engineers also understand how to design and make the hardware that helps our newest intelligent tools, machines, houses and cars get smarter, smaller, cheaper, faster and safer. Electrical engineers work in every industry you can think of: film and television, aerospace, automotive, business machines, professional and scientific equipment, computers and electronics, communications and medical technology to name a few. They work in public utilities, for NASA, at the National Institutes of Health, at the Department of Defense, for consumer electronics companies, and much, much more. As researchers, they study everything from fuel cells to nanotechnology. If it’s got an on/off switch, these engineers have studied it, designed it or produced it.
Electrical engineers design, develop, test, and supervise the manufacture of electrical equipment.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics | Click the link for more info.
Median Salary
$101,780
per year in 2021
Number of Jobs
303,800
in 2021
10 Year Job Outlook
9,800
new jobs (average)
Electrical and electronics engineers work in industries including research and development, engineering services, manufacturing, telecommunications, and the federal government. Electrical and electronics engineers generally work indoors in offices. However, they may have to visit sites to observe a problem or a piece of complex equipment.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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College of Engineering
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
453 F. Paul Anderson Tower
Lexington, KY 40506-0046
(859) 257-8042
