Programming for Electrical Engineers: MATLAB and Spice - Softcover

Squire Ph.D., James C.; Brown Ph.D., Julie Phillips

Softcover

ISBN 10: 012821502X ISBN 13: 9780128215029

Publisher: Academic Press, 2020

Synopsis

Most programming textbooks teach you to code. This one teaches you to code like an electrical engineer.
 
Programming for Electrical Engineers: MATLAB and Spice was built for students who need to solve real circuit problems, not generic exercises borrowed from a computer science course. Every example comes from electrical and computer engineering — mesh and nodal analysis, Fourier transforms, phasor analysis, signal processing, filter design. You learn MATLAB the way you'll actually use it: as a tool for the problems already on your problem sets.
 
The book pairs MATLAB fundamentals with a dedicated chapter on circuit simulation in Spice, so you finish the course fluent in both. It also builds in the professional-practice material ABET reviewers look for — engineering ethics, professional development, lifelong learning — as part of the coursework, not an appendix.
 
Written by James C. Squire, P.E., Ph.D. (Virginia Military Institute) and Julie Phillips Brown, Ph.D., and refined over two decades of teaching students who arrive with zero programming background.
 
If you're teaching or taking an intro programming course inside an ECE curriculum, this is the textbook built for that exact course — not adapted from a different one.

About this title

About the Author

James C. Squire, P.E., Ph.D., is the Jamison-Payne Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Virginia Military Institute, where he has taught circuits, programming, and signal processing since 2000. He is the first professor in Virginia's history selected twice for the State Council of Higher Education's Outstanding Faculty Award — Rising Star in 2004, and again in 2025 — and holds VMI's Distinguished Teaching Award.
 
Before academia, Squire graduated from West Point in 1989 and served as a military intelligence officer in the Persian Gulf War, earning a Bronze Star. He completed his doctorate at MIT, where he taught, consulted in patent litigation, and conducted biomedical engineering research. He holds 8 patents, with one pending, and has co-founded three technology startups: MATTS LLC, Tick Rover LLC, and VMIne LLC.
 
Co-author Julie Phillips Brown, Ph.D., brought two decades of classroom testing to the book's structure and pacing, shaping it into a course that students with no programming background can follow start to finish.

From the Back Cover

Learn to program like an engineer, not a computer scientist.

Programming for Electrical Engineers: MATLAB and Spice teaches beginning students to code using the problems they'll actually meet in an electrical and computer engineering curriculum — not exercises borrowed from a CS course.

Inside:

-MATLAB fundamentals taught through circuit analysis, not abstract examples
-Mesh and nodal analysis, Fourier transforms, and phasor analysis, solved in code
-A full chapter on circuit simulation in Spice
-ABET-required content on engineering ethics and professional development
-Built for students with zero programming background

Written by James C. Squire, P.E., Ph.D., and Julie Phillips Brown, Ph.D., and shaped by two decades in the classroom at the Virginia Military Institute.

If your program teaches circuits, signals, or programming to first- and second-year engineering students, this is the textbook built for that course.

From the Inside Flap

This book teaches MATLAB from the ground up — but not as a general-purpose language. As a tool built for circuit and signal problems.

Each chapter pairs a programming concept with an engineering application: variables and control flow through circuit analysis, functions through filter design, plotting through signal processing. Students move from writing their first script to running mesh and nodal analysis, computing Fourier transforms, and simulating circuits in Spice — all inside problems drawn from an actual ECE curriculum.

No prior programming experience is assumed. The book is built for the first or second semester of an electrical or computer engineering program, and includes the professional-practice content — ethics, professional development, lifelong learning — that ABET accreditation reviews require.

By the last chapter, students aren't just competent in MATLAB. They can open a new circuit problem and know where to start.

Edition details

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 012821502X
• ISBN 13: 9780128215029
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288