23 December 2002 Jim Fawcett FawcettHome.xml,

The Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has three programs: Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering. Of these, the two Engineering programs require completion of a Master's Project as a final step in your academic experience. For students who perpare a Master's Project under my direction, these projects may take any of the forms: Software project on some interesting topic, submitted with a comprehensive report. Survey paper on a significant technology that you may not have addressed in your program, but is something you want to learn about. White paper that explores some technical area in detail. The primary difference between the survey and whitepaper options is a matter of breadth versus depth. I have two main requirements for this work: You should explore some area that is new enough to you that you learn something significant. Pick a topic that interests you. The project should involve about as much work as any of the class projects you do in my courses and must also be documented by a report that, for software projects, is structured much like a software Design Document. I prefer students to select their own topics, rather that have me assign one. I have too many students concurrently working on projects to give each one a unique topic. By this point in your program you should be able to easily identify an interesting topic.