An understanding of networking is vital for computer engineers in today's market. To meet that need, Dr. Lundrigan will be teaching a new networking class tailored to fit the needs of ECE students.
BYU recently announced that they will be emptying carts and postponing registration until July, which gives students the opportunity to make room in their schedules for EC EN 493R, a networking class making its program debut this upcoming fall semester. “There are a lot of different principles that come out of networking that I am excited to teach,” said Dr. Lundrigan, who is currently designing the curriculum.
It will cover a wide range of topics within networking. To paraphrase an iconic movie, ‘Networks are like onions...Onions have layers. Networks have layers.’ The class will cover every layer of a network, starting with the physical layer and moving up to the protocols the internet uses to make its magic possible.
As an outcome, students will learn how to protect data through encryption and how to send data reliably. They will understand the principles that go into making web requests possible so they can innovate and fix web-related problems and come up with new solutions. They will gain hands-on experience in building things on Linux and testing them out.
Although networking is by no means a novel concept in the academic world, with similar classes taught at other universities and even in BYU’s own computer science department, Dr. Lundrigan will tailor this course to computer engineers’ expertise and interests. He explained his vision: “I’m hoping to bring my own unique perspective to it and make it feel more at home in our department, so I’m going to be covering more of the system-level networking...My class is going to be much more application based, where you build something that talks to a computer or your partner’s computer or another computer across the internet.”
At a more niche level, who in this program would benefit the most? “I would say everyone. Anyone,” said Dr. Lundrigan. “Networking is such a huge topic. Everyone should know about it. It could apply to everyone. Even if you are never going to do networking, it brings up good principles - security, reliability.”
For students interested in web programming, app development, or the internet of things, it could be invaluable, giving them the tools they need to understand errors and fix them themselves. For more information, check out this link: http://ecenetworking.byu.edu/welcome/