Interested in Transferring to ECE at UVA?

Thanks for asking! For Virginia community college system students, we have a transfer guide for EE and CpE. 

We recommend students at other universities to start from the list of UVA classes from this transfer guide, using the transfer credit equivalency matrix to find equivalent courses at your institution. Please reach out to us if you plan to transfer as a third-year from an institution outside of the Virginia community college system. 

Check out the transfer matrix here: https://engineering.virginia.edu/undergraduate-study/future-undergrads/transferring-uva-engineering/transfer-credit-equivalency 

If a course you have taken is not on the list, it may still transfer, especially if you are coming from outside of Virginia. Please follow the instructions on the transfer credit equivalency page to request a review of the course. 

ENGR 1010 and ENGR 1020 are typically taken by first-year engineering students at UVA in their fall and spring semesters respectively. These two courses are jointly known as the "engineering foundations sequence." They cover the basics of engineering design, teamwork, and communication. 

If you are a Virginia community college system student and earn your associates degree, you will enter with credit for ENGR 1010 and ENGR 1020. This sometimes takes a while to show up officially in the system because we have to wait for your official associate's degree. 

Transfer students can elect not to take ENGR 1010 and ENGR 1020. 

• To make up the credits for ENGR 1010, you must complete an additional 4 credits of engineering. These may be any disciplinary engineering credits that are technical in nature. This could be broken up with a 3 credit engineering elective and a 1 credit independent study or it could be a 4 credit class. If you are entering with credit such as "CS2000T", those credits can be used toward the ENGR 1010 requirement. STS, APMA, and EBUS mnemonic courses, courses that fulfill the science elective, and courses that fulfill the engineering business minor do not qualify.
• To make up the credits for ENGR 1020, you must take an additional 3 credits of writing in the college or complete an STS elective (besides the required STS 2600). Check with your advisor before enrolling in a college writing course to verify that it will count toward the requirement. You will be given credit for ENGR if you received an associate’s degree and you completed a College Composition II course. Oftentimes we do not have your final transcript with your degree conferral when doing credit evaluations. In this case, send your official transcript with your degree conferral to Jesse Rogers at jr7up@virginia.edu.

If you are transferring in only 2 or 3 credits out of the required 4 credits for ENGR 1010, you can make up the missing 1 or 2 credits by completing an additional engineering elective. We typically recommend an Independent Study in these cases since most of our courses are 3 credits. 

Most of our students use linear algebra (APMA 3080) to satisfy the math/science elective. However, credits transferring in as APMA 3080 will by default count toward your unrestricted elective (UE) credits. You can email your advisor or Jesse Rogers jr7up@virginia.edu to count this course toward your math/science elective requirement. 

You are welcome to use a different course to satisfy this requirement. The math/science elective requirement must be an elective chosen from: BIOL 2100, BIOL 2200, CE 2001, CHEM 1420, EVSC 2800, EVSC 3200, EVSC 3300, MSE 2090, PHYS 2620, or an approved 2000-level or higher APMA course not already required by a student’s major and does not duplicate material from another APMA course.

Yes, many of our students are able to complete their BS degree in two years after entering with an associates degree. Other students decide to take longer, often because they are working part-time, pursing an extra degree such as a minor, or are switching majors. Whichever path you decide is fine! 

Here are some suggestions for increasing your chances of finishing your UVA degree in two years if you would like to do so:

1. Use the sample schedules at the top of this page to help you plan all your semesters. You do not need to select specific electives, but you should see how many credits you need to take each semester.
2. Talk to your advisor! We know which courses tend to take more time and can share strategies for balancing those with courses that tend to be lighter.
3. Consider taking an independent study for ECE/CS elective credit. Independent studies look very different depending on which faculty member you work with. If you are interested in working with a faculty member on their research or a project you propose, reach out and see if they are open to an independent study. Many faculty will ask you to draft a proposed syllabus, including learning objectives, deliverables, and how you will be graded. A huge benefit of independent studies is that they offer flexibility; you can often start the work over the winter or summer break to make your workload during the semester a bit lighter.
4. Consider taking one or two summer courses. Oftentimes removing just 1-2 courses from your main schedule can make the difference of feeling comfortable in your courses and succeeding at UVA. 

If you transferred in 3 of 4 required credits for either APMA 2120 Multivariable Calculus or APMA 2130 Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE), you can make up the missing credit by completing an additional 2000-level or higher math or science course not required by your major. You cannot use an engineering course for this requirement. We do our best to accommodate this missing credit during transfer credit evaluations. For instance, many times we are able to move 1 credit from Calculus 1 to satisfy the missing credit for APMA 2130.

APMA 2501 is often offered as a 2 credit special topics course and is a popular option to make up the 1 credit. 

If you transferred in 3 of 4 credits for CS 2130 Computer Systems and Organization 1, you can make up the missing credit by completing an additional 2000-level or higher computer science course. We are sometimes able to count other transfer credit toward this requirement; this will be the case if you see one of your courses coming in as CS 2000T, which denotes general 2000-level CS credit that does not directly match to a course at UVA. 

If you plan to be a teaching assistant in the CS department, the CS Educational Practicum course, CS 2910, counts toward this requirement. 

Talk to your advisor if you need to make up this 1 credit and we can help you arrange an independent study. 

This is a really common question to have! Many students are interested in electrical engineering (EE) or computer engineering (CpE), but need more time to decide which is their primary interest. The curriculum for both degrees overlaps significantly and allows you time to decide the best fit for you. Overall CpE has a more rigid schedule, so, if you are uncertain, start planning for a CpE degree and it will be simple to chage to an EE degree if that turns out to be a better fit. 

We highly recommend ECE 2330 Digital Logic Design (DLD) and/or ECE 2300 Applied Circuits as introductory courses that will introduce you to the world of electrical and computer engineering. Both assume no prior knowledge and are welcoming to first-years and non-majors.

If you only have room for one of those courses, pick the one that is more interesting to you. DLD concentrates more on the software side of ECE, and we often get computer science majors in the course who are curious about computer engineering. Applied Circuits focuses more on hardware and will provide a hands-on experience. 

Read more about the courses and see what our students say about both courses on the ECE core curriculum page.