A walk in the infosphere: Rethinking EE education in the wireless era

Do we need a new approach to electrical engineering education? Despite the obvious technological triumphs of the field in recent decades, enrollment in EE programs is flat or declining. I argue that today's students see EE-derived technologies at a higher, systems-oriented level, and that education should engage students at this level. In particular, new EE students are embedded in an "infosphere" mediated by a wide array of wireless devices, and this perspective can be used to engage them. I briefly describe two upper-division courses, in wireless sensor networks and wirelessly-networked embedded systems, that serve as a start in this direction, and furthermore as a basis for development of compelling introductory courses that integrate EE subdisciplines.