[sdiy] Should GaTech go bananas?

[Matt Simpson]

I think a chunk of the malaise at tech comes from several sources:

1) Ga Tech went semester in 1999.  many professors who've been there
for ages are still adapting to the idea of spreading out work load.

2) ECE.  As much as I love my degree & school, the complete meshing of
EE & CompE schools seems to muck up a lot of focus.  I"m a whole hell
of a lot more adept with digital logic & DIY than I am classic EE.  I
notice it also seems to create a weird limbo for those of us who were
CompE, as our departments & the CS Departments don't quite overlap &
there's some rivalry.

It just seems to me that the ECE department is in this weird flux
state.  I got the education I did due to the options available that I
took rather than being lead in that direction; however, this seems to
be GaTech standard fare.  But that's a whole different discussion...

Matt Simpson

On 12/29/05, Aaron Lanterman <lanterma at ece.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
> > that sucks. i was thinking you were teaching people with an analog
> > electronics behind them. well... do the best you can with what you've
> > got, i guess.
>
> Oh, I should clarify lest I leave you with a totally negative impression -
> my comments were related to my experiences teaching sophomores. This will
> be my first semester teaching seniors and juniors, and they will have had
> ECE3040, which is our microelectronics class, so they will have seen op
> amps, diodes, and transistors, in addition to being more mature students.
>
> Also, this is an elective class (you have to have a certain number of
> senior ECE electives but there's a lot to choose from), so that will help
> the motivation factor. The students I've talked to who are taking it are
> very excited about doing so - a lot of students e-mailed me asking if they
> could take it even though they hadn't said ECE3040; I said no, since I
> really need that material, but I was excited by the amount of interest.
>
> The one snag might be that I didn't require ECE3041, which is our first
> lab class where students use oscilloscopes and such. But most of the
> students who haven't had 3041 will probably be taking it at the same time
> as my class, so by the time my students need to fire up a scope, they will
> probably have done so.
>
> Again, most of my negativity probably stems from having taught the same
> required sophomore level class for the 7th time (twice as a recitation
> prof, 5 times as lecturer). I'm really looking forward to teaching more
> advanced undergrads.
>
> - Aaron
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Dr. Aaron Lanterman, Asst. Prof.       Voice:  404-385-2548
> School of Electrical and Comp. Eng.    Fax:    404-894-8363
> Georgia Institute of Technology        E-mail: lanterma at ece.gatech.edu
> Mail Code 0250                         Web:    users.ece.gatech.edu/~lanterma
> Atlanta, GA 30332                      Office: GCATT 334B
>
>


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