Software Engineering with Electronics with Foundation BEng Honours

Course summary

Our degree courses with foundation year offer the opportunity to prepare you for advanced study before you progress onto a full honours degree at the University of Westminster. Whether you do not feel ready for degree-level study, don’t have the right qualifications, want to change your subject specialism or return to study after an absence from education, we aim to encourage a broad range of students to undertake our foundation year in order to progress onto their full honours degree with us.

The foundation year is designed to give you the opportunity to explore new ideas, opening up new perspectives on the key debates within your chosen field. During the foundation year you will explore a range of creative disciplines and get a chance to develop in your chosen field, benefiting from workshops in our high end facilities and working with leading academics who will encourage you to become a confident and creative thinker. Core modules accelerate your academic and professional development and you will also take modules within your chosen field, giving you the chance to develop a cross-disciplinary perspective on your course.

On successful completion of the foundation year, you'll be able to progress onto the Software Engineering with Electronics BEng Honours where you'll study for a further three years.

Our new Software Engineering with Electronics BEng is designed for students who wish to enter the world of computer systems engineering, where a mix of hardware and software skills is highly advantageous in today’s job market.

The course will teach the physical realities and use of real-world electronic components, interfaces and systems in addition to developing the core skills required to write efficient secure code for machines and devices.

Jobs traditionally associated with software engineering or electronic engineering have changed significantly due to a number of reasons, including the increasing universal use of smart digital technologies. Today, engineers that can develop novel solutions using both software and hardware technologies are increasingly in demand across all industries. Successful completion of our course will allow you to do just this!

Our Software Engineering with Electronics BEng is focused on the implementation and programming of the underlying hardware and system layer that all computer systems run on, whether they are an Internet of Things (IoT) smart sensing device, an autonomous robot, a gaming system, a smart home hub or a medical imaging machine.

Through the course, you’ll develop and put into practice essential practical and theoretical hardware engineering know-how in addition to supporting software skills. With these skills and knowledge, you’ll be able to develop intelligent products that will sense and monitor properties of the real-world, develop sustainable engineering solutions or control hardware in a safe, sustainable, timely and power efficient manner.

Our practical Software Engineering and Electronics BEng will provide you with hands-on activities, including laboratory skill development sessions and work-based industry-inspired design projects.

Top reasons to study with us

• Choose your own path – Our flexible course allows you to focus your study to your interests, while still getting a broad education in both computing systems engineering and computer science. For Example, you can choose to specialise in robotics, deepen your understanding in digital electronics or broaden your software engineering know-how
• Get real-life work experience – Enhance your employability and put your skills into practice by completing a year in industry and participating in the many project-based learning modules during the course
• Excellent career prospects – Career prospects for students with coding and hardware engineering skills are excellent, potential graduate roles include robotics engineer, development engineer, systems engineer, software engineer or Internet of Things development engineer
• Path to becoming a professional engineer – Successful completion of this course will enable you to progress your journey towards becoming a proactive member of the professional engineering community

We aim to develop highly adaptable graduates who have both the knowledge and the technical capabilities to solve real-world problems. On graduation, as well as having a solid foundation in computer systems engineering, you'll also have one or more specialisms that will open up career pathways during your early years as a computing professional.

Graduates from this course will be able to operate within the field of embedded systems engineering. This is the backbone and the facilitator of many trending, emerging and enabling technological areas including smart cities, autonomous vehicles, robotics, gaming, hybrid energy, wearables and medical electronics such as Fit-Bit.

Career prospects for computer systems engineering graduates are excellent and typical career routes include:

• Robotics engineer – responsible for the design, building and testing of machines that will automate industries such as manufacturing, aerospace and medicine
• Computer engineer – responsible for the testing and evaluation of software either for computer systems and/or machines that are different from traditional computers
• Firmware engineer – responsible for integration of hardware and software and conducting system tests using near final hardware and firmware solutions
• Systems engineer – responsible for monitoring the performance of systems, controlling a variety of processes and continually assessing all stages of operation to ensure that a problem is solved. Such engineers may work in virtually any industry
• Embedded systems engineer – responsible for coding, debugging, testing and writing documentation, work largely with hardware and software, and often need to develop or configure a custom based operating system unique to a given hardware platform
• Internet of Things developer - responsible for the development, management or monitoring of IoT devices and systems, typically involving custom solutions that combine three main components which are hardware, software and data
• Hardware engineer – responsible for the research, design, development and testing of computer systems and components such as circuit boards and processors
• Software engineer – responsible for the design, development, testing and evaluation of computer software solutions whilst applying core principles of software engineering