This class was really important to me because it served as an introductory course to the discipline of Electrical Engineering.\u00a0 Upon returning to school I had made the decision that I needed something more than a traditional Computer Science degree and this was when the idea of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) started to come together.\u00a0 However, it was a very long road from my first semester of General Chemistry<\/em> and C++ Language Programming <\/em> to Electronic Circuits and Devices<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, there were five Mathematics courses, two Physics courses, four Chemistry courses, one Biology course, two English courses, two Programming courses and History and Public Speaking courses thrown in for good measure, all of which I had to complete before getting here.\u00a0 This represents a really long stretch of time to wait before finally having the opportunity to begin studying this new subject directly–a subject which was mostly but not entirely unfamiliar to me.\u00a0 I was confident in my decision to pursue Engineering, but there was a rather large question mark in my mind for five semesters about Electrical Engineering, which is now an fascinating thing for me to consider after having completed the course.\u00a0 Second semester Physics served up a small taste, but this course is dedicated specifically to the fundamentals of linear circuits and devices.\u00a0 This is an Electrical Engineering course.<\/p>\n On a sidenote, I think that the above highlights the unique resolve some people must have in order to commit themselves to the more ambitious majors:\u00a0 there is so much preparation required before a student can even get started with certain subjects.\u00a0 In these cases it certainly helps if you grew up around people who had already successfully traversed these paths because, whether it is realized or not, a personal roadmap of some kind is already in place.\u00a0 The reasons for spending two or three years completing preparatory courses is more clearly understood if one is already somehow familiar with the trials and tribulations that are to come along the way.\u00a0 However, whenever a person must forge his or her own path alone it is much easier to become dissuaded by the great number of new challenges that are to be encountered along with the difficult and sometimes hostile academic experiences that will at some point exist–each of these received together in concert may prove to be overwhelming and cause a well-intentioned and capable student to falter.\u00a0 Something that has concerned me over the last three years is the sheer number of people at community college that say “I want to be an engineer” or “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be a nurse” after they have just enrolled in Intermediate Algebra<\/em>, General Chemistry I<\/em>, or a non-transferable Biology course.\u00a0 In each of these cases a journey down a long and challenging road has only just been started, but do most of these people understand this?\u00a0 From what I have seen many of them do not and some are in fact clueless as to what it is they are attempting.\u00a0 Yet for some reason these sorts of decisions are made by green college students and would-be university transfer students all the time.<\/p>\n In my case, of the people in my family who have completed college, nearly all have become elementary school teachers.\u00a0 Needless to say, math and science certainly do not run in my family and so the prospect of pursuing Electrical Engineering was a new one.\u00a0 My only means of navigating this path come from a genuine appreciation for Mathematics and the sciences, and an inherent understanding of computing.\u00a0 As such, I do not wish for my studies to be restricted only to the software level, which is what a typical Computer Science degree would get me.\u00a0 I desire to know everything about how a computer functions, from the circuit board to the monitor and all of the parts in between.\u00a0 That said, the last three years of my life have been filled with many of the aforementioned “challenging and unfamiliar academic experiences” and I have had to figure out how to persist in and simultaneously adapt to some very new spaces.\u00a0 Having someone to turn to at these times–a family member or mentor of some sort–who is familiar with these rigors would have helped immensely.\u00a0 There are real obstacles that exist for a student who takes a unique academic path on his or her own.\u00a0 Following this idea, it is my opinion that a great deal of respect should be given to first generation college graduates, especially those who have successfully pursued a science.<\/p>\n Getting back to\u00a0<\/em>Electronic Circuits and Devices<\/em>, the prerequisite classes are Differential Equations<\/em> and Electricity and Magnetism<\/em>, which means that a lot of people don’t take this course at the community college level because it occurs later than many academic schedules will allow.\u00a0 I had arranged my previous semesters in such a way that I still had a full load of 15 units while taking this course, but oftentimes students are ready to transfer before they get here.<\/p>\n The class itself was unique.\u00a0 Our professor was a physicist who, naturally, brought a physicist’s approach to the material (which I subsequently learned is incredibly different than an engineer’s approach).\u00a0 I could not hone in on the teaching style and struggled with exams and the class as a whole even though I understood the material.\u00a0Apparently my efforts were enough to earn the grade I wanted, but I know that it wasn’t my test scores alone that caused this to happen.\u00a0 UC Berkeley required me to take its version of the course so I was expecting to have a more complete and satisfying experience with it the next time around.\u00a0 Also, I would like to take a moment to point that our book we used for this class was horrid.\u00a0 I have had to deal with some poorly written textbooks since going back to school, but The Analysis and Design of Linear Circuits<\/em> by Roland E. Thomas, Albert J. Rosa and Gregory J. Toussaint should only be used as a last resort supplementary text or, preferably, as toilet paper. On second though, just avoid it like the plague, as I suspect that something terrible would happen to your arse if you tried the latter, and I know that your brain will be as upset with you as mine was if you attempt the former.<\/p>\n – Forthcoming<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ENGR17 — Electronic Circuits and Devices This class was really important to me because it served as an introductory course to the discipline of Electrical Engineering.\u00a0 Upon returning to school I had made the decision that I needed something more … Continue reading Exams<\/h3>\n