Frequently Asked Questions

What is the subject matter of the course?

This class will serve as a broad introductory overview of the field of Electrical Engineering. Although Electrical Engineering is a very popular major, some students in the major do not take a single electrical engineering class until their third semester. Further, students outside of the major often do not understand or fully appreciate the excitement and thrill concomitant with electrical engineering. Thus this class will provide basic instruction in the fundamentals to engineers and non engineers alike. It will cover elementary circuit design, laboratory technique, and fundamental theory. Students will explore concepts such as voltage, currents, resistance, inductance, and capacitance from numerous perspectives in order to master these concepts both mathematically in equations and concretely in constructing practical circuits. For laboratory exercises, students will construct circuits using bread boards.

What are the key learning outcomes?

As this class focuses on the fundamentals of Electrical Engineering, students will emerge from this class with a deeper understanding of the foundation of Electrical Engineering. Such a foundation will prove invaluable to engineers enrolling in EE40 as their practical experiences with voltages, currents, resistances, inductances, and capacitances will provide them with a concrete framework from which to better understand the more theoretical sides to these devices. Also, Electrical Engineering students will be better motivated for their classes as they will have seen how basic theory is pragmatic and can be translated into exciting real circuits. Non engineering students will emerge with an appreciation of how the field of Electrical Engineering is truly not the mysterious and complex realm that it is rumored to be but rather a fun and logical course of study that is open to everyone. Non engineering students could apply this knowledge to other EE courses if they chose, or to better understanding everyday electrical engineering problems such as basic home electronics.

What are the methods of instruction?

The class is conducted in the IEEE student laboratory. Each class would be divided into two halves. For the first half, the course facilitator would lecture and teach basic theory. For the second half, students would work in small teams and perform collaborative learning as they immediately applied the lectured theory into building a small but practical circuit. Having theory compliment actual experience will reinforce the concepts better and underscore their significance.

How will student performance be evaluated?

Students will be evaluated based on attendance, participation, and completion of weekly assignments. Attendance is critical to performance as if students do not show up then they will not be able to complete the circuit design part of the class. Without this practical experience, the theory will be less meaningful. Students will also be evaluated upon participation. In order for students to learn from the circuit design component of the class, they must actively participate and actually construct the circuits. Finally, to ensure that students understand the weeks’ concept we will have them complete a brief assignment not meant to confuse them but rather to simply reinforce what they have already learned. Thus as long as students simply attend, participate, and complete the brief weekly assignment, they will receive a passing mark.

The course curriculum and lesson and lab plans are carefully reviewed by professors in the Electrical Engineering department.

Copyright © 2009 UC Regents. All rights reserved. Last updated September 25, 2009.