Computer Engineering “Prerequisites”

Based on my last post, I determined MIT’s OpenCourseWare project does not contain a desirable level of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering courses to fulfill a curriculum. Therefore to continue on my path to a free education I decided to look first at basic institution requirements for Computer Engineering and then look for other platforms that provide these courses free and online. I first searched for Computer Engineering School rankings and found the following:

Rank USNews Business Insider
1) MIT California Technical Institute
2) Stanford Massachusets Institute of Technology
3) UC-Berkeley Stanford
4) Carnegie Mellon Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

MIT’s and Stanford were the only two institutions on both lists so I compared both curricula and identified those mandatory, non-elective, institution requirements.

Stanford’s curriculum is here and MIT’s is here.

The requirements, in summary, were as follows:

Stanford MIT
Dept Course Title Dept Course Title
Math 41 Introductory Calculus Chem 3.09/5.11 Introduction to Solid State Chemistry
Math 42 Calculus Bio 7.01 Fundamentals of Biology
CS 103 Mathematical Foundations of Computing Math 18.01 Single Variable Calculus
CS 109 Introduction to Probability for Computer Scientists Math 18.02 Multivariable Calculus
Phys 41 Mechanics Concepts, Calculations, and Context Phys 8.01 Physics I
Phys 43 Electricity and Magnetism Phys 8.02 Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism
CS 106 Programming Abstracts CS 6.004 Computation Structures
ENGR 40 Introductory Electronics CS 6.005 Elements of Software Construction
CS 107 Computer Organization and Systems CS 6.006 Introduction to Algorithms
CS 110 Computer Organization and Systems 5
CS 161 Design and Analysis of Algorithms

There were some similarities, but not enough at the surface to identify a consistent curriculum of institutional requirements.