Overview
Diverse, Creative City of Santa Cruz is Home to World-Class Computer Engineering Studies Benefiting Everyone, Everywhere
Santa Cruz, California is a very different kind of city, one with a long, storied and proud history as a center of progressive politics, education, social activism and community empowerment. Even before the first college at the University of California, Santa Cruz was founded in 1965, the coastal city had a reputation as the headquarters of independent thinkers, artists and scientists alike.
Santa Cruz is well known also for its active community of independent media creators as typified by the Santa Cruz Independent Media Center and other do-it-yourself media projects. A pirate radio station, Free Radio Santa Cruz, operated in Santa Cruz for a decade with the ongoing, active participation from a wide cross-section of city and county residents. Santa Cruz is an active outlet for print and electronic publications of all sorts. These publications are often the voice of the least visible members of the community.
For example, the Resource Center for Nonviolence, founded in 1976, is among the oldest non-profit groups in Santa Cruz County that is focused primarily on political and social activism. Firmly dedicated to "promoting the principles of nonviolent social change" as well as "enhancing the quality of life and human dignity," the Center has supported a wide range of educational, aid-giving and consciousness-raising activities for over three decades, giving a voice to the oppressed and marginalized. Other activists, both individual and in groups, cooperate on an ongoing, ad hoc basis to address quality of life issues for all county residents. Many powerful and effective relationships have been forged between local residents and the student community at UCSC, keeping students aware of their responsibilities as citizens aware of the importance of science and reason in the pursuit of social (and personal) goals.
Many non-profit organizations address various other issues in the community, too. The Homeless Garden Project, the Santa Cruz AIDS Project and Barrios Unidos are just a few of the many other groups that are contributing time, energy and heartfelt service to the community and its many diverse parts, in keeping with the longtime Santa Cruz tradition of tolerance, assistance and compassion. Graduate students at UCSC can easily find service opportunities, both within and outside their particular scholastic pursuits, and use the community as an important adjunct to their on-campus learning.
Computer Engineering Programs Emphasize Interdisciplinary Studies and Leading Edge Research, Both On- And Off-Campus
The Department of Computer Engineering focuses its research and teaching on interdisciplinary system design. In addition to the four primary areas -- Networks, Embedded and Autonomous Systems, Computer System Design, and Sensing and Interaction -- faculty are working on a wide range of research projects in collaborations that extend not only throughout the Baskin School and UCSC, but involve other industrial and academic partners from Silicon Valley and around the world. Graduate students that pursue MS and PhD degrees will participate in leading edge research in these critical areas and others.
Computer Engineering deals with the design, analysis and application of computer technology, as well as the use of computers as components of various other systems. The Department of Computer Engineering sustains its mission by empowering its faculty, research programs and research facilities to both inspire students and provide them with high-quality education in the theories and practices of modern computer engineering. Graduate degree programs presently include VLSI design and packaging, high-speed network design, Computer-Aided Design (CAD), network protocol design, image processing, computer architecture and other leading fields of architecture, circuitry, modeling and design.
Computer engineering faculty members have developed close working relationships with other faculty in applied mathematics and statistics, engineering, computer science and computational biology. Faculty members undertake joint research projects, cooperate in supervising student research and even teach certain courses outside their primary departments. Further, the faculty members have numerous close ties to regional, national and international industry, enabling graduate students to get practical research experience by working in state-of-the-art industrial laboratories.
This off-site research is complemented by the many fine on-campus research facilities, including the Autonomous Systems Lab, Biomedical and Rehabilitative Robotics, Computer Communications Research Group (CCRG), Inter-Networking Research Group (i-NRG), High-speed Networks Laboratory, Biomolecular Dynamics and Control Laboratory, Design and Verification Lab and other special areas.
Students are initiated into the program with core courses including computer architecture and algorithms, and then proceed to a thorough immersion in their chosen areas of specialization. The MS degree can be completed in one to two years, and a PhD degree in five to six years. After completing all course requirements, students must pass the oral qualifying exams and write their dissertations. For students wishing to work in industry during graduate studies, part-time study is available.
