Repackaging signals, systems and circuits in the core ECE curriculum

For several years, we have been teaching DSP as a first course in electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech. Such a dramatic rearrangement of the introductory material requires a new organization of topics and courses when teaching circuits and systems. In addition, the use of computer-enhanced course materials has a profound impact on the systems courses, which are quite mathematical and abstract in nature. This paper addresses some of the issues encountered when adopting a signal processing first approach.