Intro to Logic Design

Course Contents:

• Binary representations & arithmetic

• Signed numbers, 1's & 2's complements

• Boolean simplification

• Standard sum of products & product of sums

• Minterm & maxterm expansion

• Karnaugh maps

• Prime implicants

• Multi-level logic circuits

• Gate delay & hazards

ECE Undergrad Questions:

1. At what point does "it" click and you figure out what in ECE is right for you, and if ECE overall is right? I'm also thinking a lot about needing resilience as a COE major vs ECE simply not being a good fit

By sophomore year end of fall quarter, after you've taken 10A, you'll definitely know whether or not you hate ECE. A decent chunk of students often drop at this point, many of which switch to CS because they didn't like the hardware aspect of ECE (and still could graduate on time). But by the end of winter quarter, after you've taken 10B (which in my opinion is the hardest part of the 10 series) is the time to decide whether or not ECE is for you. You're right it does require a lot of resilience, but if you can handle the workload it pays off in your upper division classes. Junior year is when it felt like my major really clicked and I knew I wanted to do this as I got older. 

2. Is it always just horrid workload and understanding things is the longest process of all time?

Sure feels like it sometimes huh. I'll be honest in that the workload doesn't really get any easier, but you learn to manage it better. Hard work and balancing deadlines is always going to be apart of this major, but starting assignments early and proactively asking questions to your Professor/TAs can save you so much headache. Also having some solid ECE friends can't hurt cause misery loves company.

3. Why are the 10A-10B-10C classes so hard?

The material itself is hard! Maybe you have some experience with Ohms law in high school physics, but for the most part this is the first time the whole class is learning something completely new. So there's a steep learning curve for everyone. There's also just a ton of stuff to cover each quarter that professors (who know this stuff like the back of their hand by now) don't really have the luxury to take it slow. Circuit fundamentals are incredibly important if you want to do anything with hardware, so the courses are designed to teach us the baseline knowledge that's expected in the field. Unfortunately, it's just a lot of shit to learn.

4. How do you usually go about improving your resume? I think my best way to improve would be to get some personal projects under my belt, but I'm not sure where to start with them. Any advice?

Although it feels like cheating, school projects can be on your resume! Especially if you're a lowerclassmen. In the same vein you can also put down your coursework (engineering focused) Like college apps, an eagerness to be involved is appealing to recruiters, so definitely add the orgs/clubs you're a part of and your position held if any. I cannot stress this enough but have multiple people review your resume like an upperclassmen or someone who works in the career center. By sophomore year you should have most of your highschool accomplishments off of your resume with exception of  your highschool's name and any outstanding awards given upon graduation. As far as personal projects I recommend mentioning only stuff that you were passionate about. As in you didn't do them just for the sake of putting on your resume. Things like hackathons, beginner Arduino/Raspberry Pi kits, programming a silly mini game using PyGame, etc. are all solid examples of feasible personal projects you can put on your resume if you're a lowerclassmen.

5. Do the upper division ece classes get more interesting the more specialized they get? Im not sure if i really like the material covered in EE thus far but a lot of people have said that you should wait until upper division classes before you make that judgement. 

I agree with said people 100%. Freshman, and especially sophomore year you kinda feel like you're just another cog in the ECE grinding away your required courses, but junior year is when you start getting more of a say in what you want to learn about. Don't feel pressured to know exactly where you want to specialize in, but start classes and course series that sound cool or interesting. If you have know clue where to start with upperdivs ask your MS/BS TAs or fellow ECE upperclassmen about their favorite classes. Another great thing about upperdivs is that some of the project requirements are more flexible, so you end up working on stuff that was your idea in the first place. Which inevitable students are much more passionate about. 

6. When would be a good time to start looking/applying for internships/research opportunities/stuff like that?

Short answer is; early!! Personally I didn't start looking for internships until after my sophomore year. The more popular tech companies like to have their recruitment season wrap up by the end of fall quarter (keep in mind semester school start earlier than us), so if you'd like an offer from one of them I'd suggest you start interviewing fall quarter. Despite this smaller, but still great companies (especially local ones) are looking for interns well into winter and spring quarter. For internships, I recommend attending the fall quarter career fair (it's mainly only engineering companies so take advantage of that ;) ) and as many of the company info sessions as you can. Go for the free food, stay for the possible resume handoff. You can find these recruiting schedules on the engineering mailing lists or often on the bulletin near the engineering career office.

As for research, there's less of a structured way to get opportunities compared to internships. I think your sophomore year is a solid time to start looking into the various work that each ECE professor does and what you might find interesting. Office hours are a great time to not only ask course questions to professors, but also ask about their research and if there are any undergrad opportunities in their lab. But definitely junior year is when you're going to start meeting so many new professors and if you end of loving a class of theirs, it might be a sign you'd enjoy doing research under them. Especially if it's a special topics course (ECE 594BB). Plus, if you're interested in the MS/BS program talking with your professors regularly can lead to a sweet letter of rec.

7. In terms of internships, what is it like working with a company vs regular school?

I found it to be much more fulfilling, since often times you'll be paired with a mentor who will sit down and explain necessary background info before you're assigned a project. I really recommend getting a notebook for each of your summer internships to take notes in for anything and everything. Questions you have, diagrams of the products you're working on, scratch paper for debugging, and even your daily todo lists for work. It helps having those memories written down when trying to recall what exactly you did to prepare for future interviews. Also the company is incentivized to make this a good experience for you as much as you want to do well for them. Where you might be hoping for a return letter, they ideally want to hire you as a full-time employee down the line. This is why engineering majors are amongst the few who have paid internships over the summer, cause believe it or not you're a high value asset. 

Another thing that makes an internship way more fun is you don't have any work to do into the evening, and you get weekends off. Except for maybe the occasional grind time when a deadline looms. The company usually will plan activities and socials for all of the interns, and as cringe as they might be, go to them! If not to network to make a friend or two, or to just get practice interacting with people from different backgrounds. Also try not to judge the marketing and sales interns too much for having to come in business casual. Pro tip I wish I knew: the first day of work all the interns show up in business casual/semi-professional clothing. I'm talking at least a collared shirt, like what you'd wear to church. My first internship I showed up in ripped jeans, felt awkward, and then proceeded to wear them the rest of my internship cause I was an engineer. If you get the chance to intern in a new city I encourage you to take it! Facebook groups are a great place to look for housing if your company doesn't already try to connect you with other interns as potential roommates. I think the end all be all of college internships is they really what you make of them, so be proactive in your curiosity, be accountable for your work, and have a ton of fun :) Also, getting paid rules!