… These are some dark times.
Right now, I am in a bit of a dark place. Even then, I just enjoy the little things in the dark and remain in a calm state with the resources I have. You could say that I go with the flow when it comes to this course; if anything goes wrong and I start to crumble under the pressure, I will always do it with a grin and a laugh at the danger! It’s never the end of the world for anyone, so it’s okay for you to also slow down and take the time to orient yourself before moving on…
…Welcome back to the blog, by the way!
From the featured image I drew, I’m going to be doing a short dive into the chaos that becomes Semester 2 for Electrical (it’s been 4 weeks after all!). In TL;DR terms, it basically takes concepts we get from Semester 1 but put it through an OPAMP (aka Amplifying it) to a crazy degree!
Before the Semester started, I took the time to read through all the courses featured for this specialisation, including a choice of 3 electives shared amongst Electrical, Softeng, and Compsys students. They are all very straightforward and I’m sure my fellow bloggers have also shared their piece on what Semester 2 offers, so I will do that as well… but I am an artist by hobby, so I will also doodle a bit (If you don’t mind).
(Spoiler alert, I didn’t even know that I would be the only one currently talking about Semester 2 courses until I saw the other blogs!)
ELECTENG 204
| Electromagnetism |
Out of all the ELECTENG courses this year, this course is something that I never thought I would consider to be one of my favourites. But hey, here I am! It’s another step into the world of everything tied to what we already know about Electric Circuits and an intro to Magnetic circuits.
The pacing is immensely manageable and the content is really easy to digest! The practice problems given out are also really insightful and plays into deepening my understanding of the material. It helps that the first test I’ll be taking this week has content which will never appear in the exam!
If there was a course where it was easy to write absolutely everything in a smaller 50 page notebook, it’d be this one!
ENGGEN 204
| Professional Skills and Communication |
This is a course that every Engineering student will be taking. So far, it’s been a very chill ride! Because you are in a random group of 7 others in different specialisations (or depending on your luck, you could end up with 2-3 people from your spec, who knows) for the rest of the semester, it’s always interesting to chat with them and see their perspective on their courses so far.
In fact, a fellow Blogger, Zlata Voronina, is in my group! The first thing I will always ask whenever we have our fortnightly meetings is, “So how is your blog?” and we just chat a little about what we are writing.
Communicating with other people is a really important part of what makes us Engineers, after all; we are all collaborating for the same goal, with a unique set of skills. This course is one I really appreciate since it also gives me time to pace myself amongst the chaos!
ELECTENG 209
| Computer Systems Design |
Apparently this is one of those subjects where it gets worse over time… I can’t exactly blame them; there’s no exams for it (it’s completely project based), but you bet there are materials in this course which get more and more confusing over time.
There is no time for slacking in communication either! After every lab (6 altogether, spread across several weeks), you are interviewed by a TA and they will ask about your understanding of the material for the lab, which are what we learn in the lectures. It’s a lot for 2.5% every lab!
Only advice I can give here is that you should always ask the TAs. They are more than happy to sit down and explain everything you need to understand in greater detail.
A friend of mine even said some ‘good news’ about this course: “Even William Lee didn’t like this course when he studied it!” They exclaimed with a sigh of relief that it wasn’t just us or the peers feeling left confused with everything happening at once.
“If even the lord and saviour William Lee didn’t approve of a course that’s Electrical based, then you know it’s gonna be a rollercoaster.” I laugh back, continuing to write more notes for the next course.
I love it for the collaboration you do with your teammates throughout the entire course, but staying so late for the labs is a little much for me!
ELECTENG 292
| Electronics |
Opamps… Opamps… and more Opamps for the first couple of weeks. This is a continuation of 291 from the first semester! Though we briefly touched on Opamps for the first weeks in S1, this semester is practically full of them!
Just like 291, there are labs every fortnight and so far, they have all helped with my understanding of Opamps with not only this course, but for ELECTENG 209 as well!
I’d even say that most of what is happening in 292 is hand-in-hand with everything in 209 but in a more manageable scale. The only difference between the two is that they are lectured on different days; I have friends who strongly suggest to keep a book that has both subjects so you can see the connections between the two being weaved together (like wires on a circuit board, almost…).
All in all, this course is also really manageable to take! I do recommend writing down the equations though; there are even more of them!
That’s about it, folks!
There’s already a lot for the first four weeks, right? Not to worry! Though I do have the looming threat of two upcoming tests in Week 5, I’ve learned to just go at my own pace when it comes to studying the material; nothing hurts more than rushing through the content you don’t even know where to root to ground first. As someone who performs terribly under pressure, all I can do is the best! I never liked to aim high, so even just a tiny bit of effort to understand the materials we are given is a win for me.
General rule of thumb is to attend the lectures; it’s more than an obligation to attend the lectures and more managing the notes you are given for every lecture since it does take a while for the recordings to be put up, and next thing you know there’s a quiz for it in 3 days!
Also, if you’re a little confused at why the second post is already hurtling the Semester 2 stuff at you; I blame the past two bloggers before me, I didn’t even realize that my fellow bloggers were doing the Semester 1 stuff in the second post until I was reading the recent blogs!
I’m definitely doing a heavier dive into the life of an Electrical Engineer for the third blog! There’s a lot of interesting insights I have regarding those with the combined knowledge of first semester and second semester. Stay tuned for it!