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MIT Introductory EE Goes Hands-On 325

Posted by timothy from the is-that-how-things-should-be dept.
pioneer writes "MIT is looking to replace its introductory core EE (electrical engineering) curriculum with more hands-on classes. MIT Professors Abelson and Sussman discuss the new class, which replaces equations with actual circuit building, tours of electrical plants, and classes taught by famous professors."
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MIT Introductory EE Goes Hands-On More

MIT Introductory EE Goes Hands-On

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  • Clever and much needed (Score:5, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) * on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:34PM (#6100212) Journal
    So MIT will be like a Japanese grade school now, right?

    =)

    PS: sciocchi dell'alberino del pugno

    • Tenticals? Wait, that shit ain't real? Um.. hm...

    • Re:Clever and much needed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by asynchronous13 ( 615600 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:47PM (#6100344)
      I thought it was normal to actually *build* circuits in electrical engineering since my school required it. It wasn't until after graduation that I talked to other recent graduates and found out that my school had been the exception and not the rule. It certainly helped me get a job when I could refer to specific problems I had designing and building say, a 100W audio amplifier (just one of many projects), rather than just talking about the theoretical aspects of such a design. I also discovered that my school held a high reputation in industry because of this. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts and a the retirement of a few key professors, it looks like they will (or possibly already have) abandoned many of these hands-on labs.
      • What school is this since you mention it?
      • Really? That's sad! (For the other people.)
        When I went to school, Computer Engineering was part of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, so we CEs learend a great deal about electronics.
        There was a circuits or electronics class for each sophmore and junior year semester and there was a separate lab class that was designed to parallel the lecture course. I thought that method was effective.
        I still haven't met another Software Engineer who had to design a 4th order Butterworth filter to gr

    • circuit building is important (Score:5, Informative)

      by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:00PM (#6100474)
      I took E.E. at Purdue in trhe late 60's and early 70's. The students were constantly asking for pratical applications for semester after semester of obscure math they were doing but getting little but promised o "that comes later"..... There was a story told of one Purdue EE grad who went to work and got a job designing military walkie-talkie radios. He designed a circuit that would work fine in theory, but fortunately someone else caught the problem before they started building them. He had done all the math fine, but one of the parts he calculated was needed for the walkie-talkie was a 1 farad 600 vold non-polar capacitor. Having no experience with actually building things, he stuck it in the circuit design and continued on. Back in the days this was done, such a capacitor would have weighed many times more than the soldier who was expected to carry the radio.

  • in related news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Red Warrior ( 637634 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:34PM (#6100219) Homepage Journal
    MIT's insurance carrier just raised thier liability rates...
    • Uh? Unless you are worried about the engineering students eating the components there isn't much liability here. The worst that happened to me breadboarding was sticking the legs of an ic into my finger when I wasn't paying good enough attention.

      All the beginner circuits run at 12volt with minimal current so they are quite safe.

  • insensitive clod! (Score:5, Funny)

    by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:35PM (#6100224)
    Why don't you just keep on rubbing in how cool the classes that I'll never get to take are?

    • Re:insensitive clod! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gerf ( 532474 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:32PM (#6100768) Journal

      Why don't you just keep on rubbing in how cool the classes that I'll never get to take are?

      Sadly, i don't find this funny. I'm a current EE student, going into my 5th year (i co-oped). We're on semesters, btw. Math is way too focused upon. Sure, it's cool, but 3 semesters of Calculus that we NEVER use, only to get to Differential Equations that we ALWAYS use. Personally, i think math/physics (i had to take 3 physics classes) classes could be condensed into 4 semesters, and improved, in focusing on matrices, and DE. And, i've talked to EE students from other schools (purdue included), and the programs are quite similar.

      What the problem is, is that during the Dot-Bust, everyone focused everything on computers. Sure, i like computers, they're great. But if i wanted to be a computer engineer, i'd go into Computer engineering. Alas, EE got so focused on computers that it really lost its overall focus on electricity, and its applications. And, when designing IC's, the work is almost all math. Blah.

      Some things that are lacking in EE: Motors of any kind, a focus on Controls, Real life transmission lines, rather than all microstrip lines, and more early EE classes. We didn't start circuits until Sophomore year. True, my university is changing the program, but this is a widespread problem that needs addressed in order to keep the world supplied with competent Engineers.

      • Re:insensitive clod! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thoth ( 7907 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:12PM (#6101095) Journal
        Math you never use... hehe.

        Funny, I used to say that when I was a student. What the heck to you really use Laplace transforms for I asked? Later in digital signal processing class as I was designed filters I found out.

        Surely nobody really uses complex analysis - I mean, what do trig functions of complex numbers mean? Later in grad school studying electromagnetics, I found that wave reflection/refraction with complex angles meant attenuation for the refracted wave, and it was a way to handle polarization of all waves involved.

        Humph. No way would I use conformal mapping... until I found myself mapping the integers onto a circle in order to solve a potential distribution.

        Aha, I know there isn't any real use of integration in the complex plane. I mean, tracing out paths and detouring around zeroes, slices and branches? One lecture started up with that exact chart, solving some antenna radiation pattern by integrating from negative infinity to infinity along the complex plane. I was lost ... and I never again asked "what possible use is this mathematics that I am learning"?

      • Re:insensitive clod! (Score:3, Informative)

        by Hal-9001 ( 43188 )

        Some things that are lacking in EE: Motors of any kind, a focus on Controls, Real life transmission lines, rather than all microstrip lines, and more early EE classes. We didn't start circuits until Sophomore year. True, my university is changing the program, but this is a widespread problem that needs addressed in order to keep the world supplied with competent Engineers.

        • Motors: Mechatronics (which includes electric motors) have more or less moved into the domain of mechanical engineering.
        • Controls: T

  • Innovative? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Poofat ( 675020 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:37PM (#6100246)
    "This is the third in a series of articles on educational initiatives that bring innovation into the classroom"

    Exactly how is teaching by example and using real-life situations innovative by any stretch of the imagination? Good Professors at other schools have been doing this for years...
    • I don't think you understood the article. I watched this class take place and it was drastically different than anything else I've seen... of course other classes at MIT related things to real world situations and provide examples, but this class is also about getting an *intuitive* understanding of the material...

      about the no-theory objection... theory comes much easier once you have a practical understanding of a system. it is much harder to learn theory (think, "why the hell do i need to know algebra" i
      • theory comes much easier once you have a practical understanding of a system.

        Not always. I went through a technician program before starting my EE (on the theory that maybe I could get a decent paying job to help me pay for school, but that's another post), and I don't think it helped me with the theory much at all. All the tech classes I took were very hands on, and I have a pretty good handle on building and even designing circuits, at least simple ones.

        When I took the circuits portion of the physics s

  • Hrmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

    by BWJones ( 18351 )
    Well, this sounds great and all for the production of folks with "practical" knowledge, but I would worry that the theory is taking a back seat. I mean this kinda sounds like the high school electronics courses I took where we would build electronic circuit boards without really knowing the theory. There is a reason that the US higher ed system is commonly accepted as one of the best in the world and that is that many schools concentrate on theory allowing the students to innovate after they graduate. If

    • Re:Hrmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not true. I know a hell of a lot of engineers that don't know a damn thing about the real world. How many freshman have a practical understanding of common use components before they sit down and try to do circuit analysis? - My guess is 1-5%. Theory doesn't mean anything if you don't know how to apply it to the real world.
      (Note that this is also an introductory class to EE, not Network Analysis.)

    • Re:Hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Abcd1234 ( 188840 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:48PM (#6100355) Homepage
      Well, this sounds great and all for the production of folks with "practical" knowledge, but I would worry that the theory is taking a back seat. I mean this kinda sounds like the high school electronics courses I took where we would build electronic circuit boards without really knowing the theory.

      OR, the point is to teach theory in the context of practical application. You know, kinda like using lab experiments to help teach physics or chemistry. After all, theory is all well and good, but at an introductory level, there's nothing quite like practical application to help demonstrate the theory (not to mention make the course material more interesting so students will be motivated to continue in the program).

      Besides, the higher-level courses will still require an understanding of theory, so if there are students who get by at the intro level without this understanding, they'll get weeded out in later years (kinda like the way it works today... usually :).
      • After all, theory is all well and good, but at an introductory level, there's nothing quite like practical application to help demonstrate the theory (not to mention make the course material more interesting so students will be motivated to continue in the program).

        I find that the theory and practical use work very well in completely separate classes. In the course of studying EE, I found that many people who did extremely well in labs because they had previous practical experience in the real world didn

        • Re:Hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

          by max cohen ( 163682 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:27PM (#6100719)
          However, those students doing well in theory classes would always do well in the lab (even if it took them a little longer, and a bit more work).


          Which costs employers extra money in the real world, and what the professors are trying to address. I like their idea of balancing the theory more than it currently is. I wish my professors had done something similiar when I was in school. I know I would've benefitted from it.

          • Which costs employers extra money in the real world, and what the professors are trying to address.

            Dude, it took them a little longer because they never did that type of stuff before. It means if they never had the labs, they'd still be able to do everything, but it'd take them longer and more work to figure thinks out when they went to the workforce, costing the employers money, you're right. But they did have the labs, thus this adaptation time in between theory and praticality happens in the school l

      • ...the point is to teach theory in the context of practical application.

        Agreed. I have a BS in mathematics, and an long standing interest in electronics. Large systems of equations, complex analysis, etc. are not a problem. I even have some knowledge of FEM, SVD, levelset (very little), and other graduate level numerical methods. Combined with physics, introductory electronics courses, and self study, I should be a prime candidate according to the gradparent post.

        The biggest problem I've had in electron

    • Re:Hrmmm (Score:2, Informative)

      by neoptik ( 130091 )
      I can pretty much guarantee you that theory is not taking a backseat. I know people who took the class this semester (6.002x) and the regular version (6.002) and I believe that the finals were the same, and exactly the same content was covered. Some other MIT undergrad correct me if I am wrong. Also, in case you were wondering, 6.002 is a very very hard class. Drives most people away from course 6 (EE&CS).
    • This being MIT, there's plenty of time for that later. I TA some classes at Caltech, and they're obscenely intense. If MIT's are anything similar, and I expect they are, then the kids won't be getting shorted on "theory."
    • This is actually not at all "practical" knowledge, because circuits these days are exclusively done with CAD tools producing results which can only be seen with a magnifying glass (or very good vision). This is more like doing chemistry with plastic models, where you can actually see and touch the things you're talking about. You actually do build circuits out of wavy lines and parallel lines, not ceramic and metal.

      On the other hand, assembling a circuit out of macroscopic elements by hand gives you a valu

    • This is MIT we're talking about (Score:5, Insightful)

      by theLOUDroom ( 556455 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:40PM (#6100836)
      Well, this sounds great and all for the production of folks with "practical" knowledge, but I would worry that the theory is taking a back seat. I mean this kinda sounds like the high school electronics courses I took where we would build electronic circuit boards without really knowing the theory.

      As a recent (less than 1 month ago) EE grad from a top school, I have to say that I think this desperately needed.

      Right now it is possible to get a degree in EE without ever having picked up a soldering iron. Theory is important, but we're not talking about some shitty school here. Of course MIT is going to teach their students the theory.

      Let me give you some examples here:
      • My last semester I was taking EE488: RF Circuits. Our final project was to build a DDS. Out of the four students in my group, I was the only one with any clue how to use a spectrum analyzer. Out of that entire lab section, our group was the only one to use the spectrum analyzer, despite a project requirement that you couldn't proove you met, unless you did (or perhaps did something really creative).
      • I was also finishing up a project for a VLSI course. Our chips had come back from the foundry, and it was now time to test them. The prof. brought some logic analyzers in to the lab, and we had some Altera eval. boards we could use to produce whatever signals we needed. Better than 90% of the students had no idea how to use a logic analyzer, and no instruction was provided.
      • I also did an independent study last semester. I was designing a new development board for the microcontrollers class. It's a very simple board. The professor and I had originally batted around the idea of having the students build it themselves. No go. It would be a nightmare. I spent time that semester asking other students if they though they or their fellow students could handle it and every single one said no. Even if we taught everyone how to solder, there would still be an issue with them fixing any mistakes them made. It all comes down to this: most students don't have much experience prototyping their designs.

        IMHO, to be a real engineer, you need to understand both the theory, AND how to use it.

        There is a huge gap between paper and reality. There are all kinds of important details that need to be worked out when you're actually building something. Grads should have experience working out those details. Without it, they can be well suited to be researchers and academics, but not designers of things that someone is going to produce 100,000 of.

        There is a reason that the US higher ed system is commonly accepted as one of the best in the world and that is that many schools concentrate on theory allowing the students to innovate after they graduate.

        If they don't know how to apply this theory, all they're going to be able to do is create innovative new theory. A well-educated engineer should have an ample knowledge of the theory, AND how to use it is real-world applications.
    • Theory is nice but real-world experience is essential. Nobody wants a product that works only in theory. One of the most amusing things I watched was the other students in CS150 which, back when I took it, was a required course for both CS and EE students. You had to design and build small digital circuits. The pure CS track and the EE track students started out the same but there was a sharp split when they found the circuits they had assembled didn't work.

      The CS students started to anguish over their log

    • There is a reason that the US higher ed system is commonly accepted as one of the best in the world and that is that many schools concentrate on theory allowing the students to innovate after they graduate. If we don't teach theory, we are simply producing maufacturing monkeys, not engineers.

      I'd say if we only teach theory, we are simply producing theorists, not engineers. I remember taking a certain EE class where the professor informed us that the great thing about learning all the theory was that we

  • other factors (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oiuyt ( 128308 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:38PM (#6100263)
    Also doesn't hurt that they're bringing in all kinds of alumni and adjunct faculty to basically act as super-TAs to get 7:1 student:faculty ratios in intro classes....


    Lots of hands on exposure to role models is probably more valuable than the hands on exposure to circuits. Most of my friends that ended up at MIT HAD plenty of playing with circuits in their free time in high school and earlier.


    -B

  • people in these classes have not bothered to do any work on there own.

  • This is an excellent idea (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gyorg_Lavode ( 520114 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:39PM (#6100271)
    This is an excellent idea. As a recent student I can attest that most students don't understand anything of what goes on in their first circuts class. A hands on approach of building circuits would really help. (All of my second tier electrical engineering classes included a lab where we really saw how things worked).

  • Had a sociology teacher who taught EE hands on (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikosullivan ( 320993 ) <miko&idocs,com> on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:42PM (#6100307)
    A sociology professor of mine once gave the following example of Skinnerian Conditioning...

    Jack (the professor) said that one of his greatest fears as a new parent was that his child would stab a knife or scissors into an electrical socket. While the kid was an infant the situation was manageable, but eventually the kid was big enough to work around the little plastic plugs and other baby protectors.

    So Jack rigged up a wall socket so that it was hooked to a battery instead of the house current. Then he gave the kid a knife and told him to stick the knife into the wall socket. The kid did as he was told and received the mildest of electric shocks. Thereafter the child had a healthy fear of electrical sockets.

  • MIT has the right idea here. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schematix ( 533634 ) * on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:44PM (#6100323) Homepage
    This sounds like a good idea to me. As a soon to be 3rd year EE major, I definately think this is the way to go. All of my memories from basic circuit design classes are well...nonexistant. The classes were so boring and theoretical that it was pointless to go to class...so i didn't. Learning circuits from a theoretical standpoint is difficult and often times the math is more complicated than what you'd reasonably expect from university class (I remember a 25 page homework solution for a 1 week assignment - 10 problems). There is also a lack of practical applications being taught. There is only so many times you can apply Kirchoff's voltage and current laws and Ohm's law to a box of lines and numbers and still be sane. Looking at schematics that mean nothing to you all day is pointless. I know I would have been far more interested in EE if we were building a transister radio or something useful rather than just tinkering with simple low/high/band pass filters and verifying Ohm's Law. Granted these are worthwhile skills, but you don't get the full picture of electrical engineering from crappy textbooks.
    • As an MIT CS major who was forced to take this class (6.002), I definitely agree that this is a much needed change.

      6.002 was basically hundreds and hundreds of circuit diagrams where you would use loop rules and differential equations to solve for whichever value they didn't supply in the diagram. There was no talk about what the circuit was actually doing, or why you would want such a circuit. A more real-world approach would bring some much-needed balance to the class.

      Actually, the other reason this ne

    • This isn't just an EE thing, but The Ohio State University claims to have the best freshman engineering program [ohio-state.edu] in the country.

  • Abelson and Sussman (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pinball Wizard ( 161942 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:44PM (#6100324) Homepage Journal
    are also the authors of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs [mit.edu]. One of the very best books on CS ever written.
  • You can major in an image viewer [rl.ac.uk] at MIT?

  • Good hacker approach to EE (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:49PM (#6100368)
    the new class, which replaces equations with actual circuit building

    Math version of the class : "Class, now calculate the impedance of that condenser, connected to an AC generator, generating 110 volts with a frequency 60Hz (generator considered perfect, without internal resistance). Also, please note on the diagram that the condenser is polarized : can you explain why that circuit isn't correct ?"

    Hand-on version of the class : zzzZZZ *BANG* Hey shit what's that goddawful smell ?!

    Guess which class will remember that particular lesson best ? go MIT !
  • > which replaces equations with actual circuit
    > building, tours of electrical plants, and classes
    > taught by famous professors."

    So MIT EEs no longer need to know Kirchoff's laws?

  • Sorry, but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:50PM (#6100371) Homepage Journal
    How does anyone of the caliber required for MIT even get this far without having done this before?
    • How does anyone of the caliber required for MIT even get this far without having done this before?

      I believe that MIT looks for evidence of high intelligence and high energy in their applicants. Although building your own circuits in high school or before may certainly serve as this evidence, it is not really required.

  • UNBELIEVABLE! (Score:3, Redundant)

    by MicroBerto ( 91055 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:52PM (#6100397)
    Wow - a hands-on introductory course at MIT in 2003! They must be so ahead of the curve because they're MIT!

    Oh wait, they're not. Hands-on courses like this have been widely available at many public schools for over a decade.

    But of course, MIT undergrad actually did something, so we HAVE to post it. Very unimpressive.

  • In other news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:52PM (#6100398)
    In other news, freshman biology students at Cal Tech will actually use microscopes this year, introductory computer science classes at Berkeley will involve computers, and students will be given chemicals to do their chemistry lab work this fall at Harvey Mudd. Furthermore, the English department at Yale is considering making it a requirement to read a book before earning the undergraduate degree.

    • Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sparrow_hawk ( 552508 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:15PM (#6100619)
      You might be surprised. In my Advanced Placement biology class this year, I used a microscope exactly twice: I used a dissecting scope in a lab to sort fruit flies, and I looked at a plant leaf for fun under a slide microscope on one of the last days of class.

      I learned more about plant cells (and paramecia :) on that one for-fun day than I did the entire time I was learning the names and locations of all the parts. It was really a little disheartening, and I have no idea why we didn't even look at them when we were studying them, since it made it so much more understandable. I wasn't even sure you *could* see individual cells with a light microscope. And I must say I had a blast examining them, watching the chloroplasts circle around the cell, and looking at the different layers.

      Theory is great, but seeing is believing.

  • Class of 1922? (Score:4, Funny)

    by krisp ( 59093 ) * on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:55PM (#6100426) Homepage
    Hal Abelson, the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, agreed.

    Ok, most students graduate at the age of 24, and engineering is generally a five year study (not sure about MIT, but it is elsewhere).

    1922 - 24 = 1898
    2003 - 1898 = 105

    This guy is old!

  • A balance of theory and practical is best (Score:5, Insightful)

    by djh101010 ( 656795 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:56PM (#6100438) Homepage Journal
    One of the biggest problems I've seen with EE grads, is that some of them don't have any real-world experience. Sure, they can tell you the noise characteristics for a carbon resistor, but ask them to pick a 1/2 watt carbon resistor of a given value out of a bin, and they can't recognize it. A lack of hands-on experience, in my opinion, leads to them coming up with bad designs - either unworkably over-precise, or using non-standard parts, and so on.

    While understanding theory is important, it's only half of the job; if one doesn't have a way to apply it, they're only half-educated.

    I think the best engineers are those who have spent some time being technicians first.
    • Bad boys r... (BBROYGBVGW)

      There was a mnemonic for resistor stripes that one of my TAs taught. Couldn't use it today w/o getting in major hot water.

      I too wish there had been more interjection of practicality when I got my EE. The vast majority of instruction was theory with the occasional "... and then a miracle occurs".

      Kudos to MIT.
    • One of the biggest problems I've seen with EE grads, is that some of them don't have any real-world experience. Sure, they can tell you the noise characteristics for a carbon resistor, but ask them to pick a 1/2 watt carbon resistor of a given value out of a bin, and they can't recognize it.

      Why would he need to? Or do you suggest that MIT trains people to work on assembly lines?

      While an understanding of design for manufacturability is required for good design engineers, laboratory skills is not. Illustr
      • you must work in a wierd place where EEs design stuff but aren't expected to debug it and make it work once the board/chip comes back from the fab - us real engineers have to make stuff that not only works in the lab but yields at manufacture and works in the real world ... of course we know how to solder, and hack a few resistors around when stuff doesn't work as expected
      • While an understanding of design for manufacturability is required for good design engineers, laboratory skills is not.

        Yes they are. Ever hear the word "prototype" before?

        After all almost nothing is visible unless you use an instrument.

        Right, so students need to know how to use these instruments. This falls under "laboratory skills".

        Approaching design with a technician mindset is in my opinion the wrong way.

        Just because someone knows which end of a soldering iron to hold, doesn't mean they d

      • Approaching design with a technician mindset is in my opinion the wrong way. You do not want to fix somthing so it work, you want to find an optimum solution. No offence to technicans but design isn't the same job.

        If your "optimum solution" design doesn't work in the real world, it's useless. An EE should be able to produce a (final) design that works and meets specifications. Period.

    • ask them to pick a 1/2 watt carbon resistor of a given value out of a bin, and they can't recognize it

      I have worked at a company where each junior engineer is paired with a technician or two - the engineer keeps the design on track and manages the project, and the technicians stop the poor graddie from electrocuting himself.

      Seems to work pretty well, means the EE grad can get on with what he is paid to do (thinking) and the prototype actually has neat enough soldering that no one has to spend 6 months
    • You can always tell the engineers with no practical hands-on experience. Its not just the inability to solder, drill, or read color codes, but complete lack of clue about components in general.

      Like the circuit I once was told to build which had a few 1.2 MegaFarad capacitors sprinkled throughout. I put together a proposal to purchase futures in capacitors to ensure delivery of the whole output of all component manufacturers for the next few decades, so that we would eventually be able to build a single one
  • Never bet against the affleck!
  • Hal Abelson, the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering...

    Abelson obviously [mit.edu] ain't 99 years old, what does this title mean?

  • As a former 1st year EE student... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by raehl ( 609729 ) * <(moc.oohay) (ta) (113lhear)> on Monday June 02, 2003 @04:59PM (#6100463) Homepage
    More lab time is a good idea. Touring factories, I'd expect, COULD be useful if the tour is targetted at 1st year EE students and isn't just some lame "look, we make stuff, isn't this cool" deal. Famous professors are probably worthless.

    But back to the lab - absolutely essential. When I went to school at University of Illinois, and I believe this is still the case, all first year EE and CompE students have to take a freshman lab class. At the time the class project was to build a car (the digital logic and sensor portions thereof mostly) that could navigate a course consisting of white tape on a black surface.

    In one semester, you started with simple logic gates and gradually built up something "useful" from those parts.

    If you were the kind of person who was able to and wanted to do digital things for the rest of your life, you liked that class. If you were the kind of person who did not want to do digital things for the rest of your life, or were simply unable to pull it off, you hated that class and switched majors before investing thousands of dollars in a major you ended up hating.

    For those who kept on with their EE/CompE, it was a great "frame" for the rest of the education - most things after that you could say "yeah, I can see how this is actually useful somewhere".

    And it also prevents having lab-newbies show up in 300-level lab courses - a big drain on instructor and fellow group member resources alike.

    If MIT hasn't been doing this until now, I'm only happier I didn't waste an extra $120,000 going to school there.
    • Famous professors isn't automatically worthless. Being famous does not keep them from being poor teachers. That's very true. But when the professor is a good teacher and in the back of your mind you're thinking "wow, this guy won a Nobel Prize." you may pay slightly better attention.


      On the other hand lots of these guys are so full of themselves that they don't care to teach undergrads and only view grad students as cheap labor.


  • When I was younger, I had plenty of "hands-on" experience. I think I got my first Radio Shack "XXX-in-one" kit at about 7 or 8 years old, and started building circuits then - both those in the books, and those of my own.

    In high school, I took 2.5 years of electronics, which was partly theory, mostly hands-on. So far, so good. But it wasn't until I took some incredibly dry, boring, theoretical classes filled with lots of equations using calculus that I really made a big jump in my understanding, a
    • Why do people assume it's either one or the other? This is not theory XOR practicality here, folks. What they're doing is combining the two, teaching the theory but placing it in a practical framework so students understand what they're learning AND why. How can this possibly be a bad thing? The way it's done now is like teaching CS without having students write programs, or teaching chemistry without doing lab experiments... it's ridiculous!
      • Why do people assume it's either one or the other? This is not theory XOR practicality here, folks. What they're doing is combining the two, teaching the theory but placing it in a practical framework so students understand what they're learning AND why. How can this possibly be a bad thing? The way it's done now is like teaching CS without having students write programs, or teaching chemistry without doing lab experiments... it's ridiculous!

        I completely agree, and having graduated as an EE less than a m
  • Oh good, we were being overrun by a bunch of no-names like Abelson and Sussman.... ;-)
  • Whatever happened to years of abstract theory and grueling, obscure homework assignments before earning the right to do anything interesting? :)

    Geeze, next they'll be dropping scheme in favor of VB!

  • Now that MIT is depleting the nation's supply of Magic Smoke with their hands-on classed, we may need to go to war with Taiwian and take all of theirs.

    I know they have it, there was tons of it in my old motherboard...

  • Um. Yeah. My non-famous professors sucked. Really, what does being famous have to do with the caliber of the class? If a professor is good, they are good, even if no-one has heard of them and they are fresh out of graduate school. The worst math professor at my college was the most highly acclaimed and published of the math faculty. The best math teacher I had was an instuctor, he taught Discrete Math and some others, wasn't allowed to teach 3000 level classes until he finished his PhD....
  • When I took EE, I actually took optics as an elective since I was interested in photolithography (the process by which microchips are patterned). Unfortunately, the class consisted mostly of theoretical aspects of Maxwell's equations and electromagnetic field theory. The prof just touched on the lens equations and matrix approaches. At the end, I could tell you the boundary conditions at a air/reflector interface, but I couldn't tell you where the damn mirror actually focused the light. Not a terribly usefu

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:35PM (#6100798)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Thank god (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Hal-9001 ( 43188 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @07:13PM (#6101505) Homepage Journal
      At the end, I could tell you the boundary conditions at a air/reflector interface, but I couldn't tell you where the damn mirror actually focused the light.
      For your information, the focal length of a spherical mirror is half the radius of curvature.

      In defense of the curriculum for your optics course, understanding the electromagnetic theory of light is vital for understanding the intersection of electronics and optics (fiber optic communication, lasers, photosensors, etc). In most of these equations, many of the same approaches used to analyze microwave and radio can be used, it's just that the wavelength is much shorter. In the case of photolithography, electromagnetic wave theory is needed to determine the resolution of an imaging system like a projection system for photolithography, which in turn limits the feature size. The theory behind this is directly analogous to the theory explaining the resolution limits of radar. To be honest, ABCD matrices and lens equations and such don't really need that much coverage--maybe a week or two of lecture and a problem set or two to get familiar with using them. If you ever need to use the ABCD matrices or lens equations, you can always look them up.

      If you really want to learn lens design or otherwise specialize in optics should go to schools like my alma mater [arizona.edu] or possibly our intellectual rival. [rochester.edu]

  • I wish it was a prerequisite in all EE courses (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:19PM (#6100654) Homepage
    I graduated in 1985 and at the time, I was appalled at the number of my fellow students had never picked up a soldering iron before (although one woman had when she did some stained glass). I can't count the number of graduates I have seen over the past 18 years that didn't know how to create a simple test circuit to save their lives. This is analogous to a doctor graduating without ever touching a patience while at school - would you want to be looked after by somebody that just used text books and computer simulations?

    From the student perspective, I've never understood how somebody could enroll in something like Electrical Engineering without actually having built a circuit before. To any prospective students: This is for the rest of your life - why don't you see if you are actually interested in it?

    Sorry, but I'm tired of explaining how an oscilloscope works to recent grads with a GP of 4.0.

    myke
  • Electronics education is a joke. Take the transistor. You can pretty well specify what it does with a handful of equations. But that's not how it's described in the books. No, they describe a multiplicity of different ways of doing things and write text which is basically a fairy story to describe how and what it does. If EE students where just taught some mathematics first then much of the rest of the course would be a breeze. Additionally the students would also be numerate - something of an advantage in
    • if you're serious as an electronic engineer then you had lots of hands on experience in your parents' garage

      You're the second person to post something like this and it bothers me. I'm an EECS grad and I never built circuits in my parents' garage. I grew up in a rural town and my parents know nothing about electronics, so there was no one to teach me; I didn't get any EE experience at all until the summer before college, and the intro classes were my first experience where anything made sense. Does this m
    • "lots of hands on experience in your parents' garage before you discovered girls."

      Sorry, I was reading Playboy when I was four. Also Hustler, Penthouse, Chic, Oui, Marie, and a few lesser-known mags. And by the age of six, I was playing doctor with the neighborgirl. I certainly never thought of using a soldering iron then though, those things can burn you.
  • Also you should read their book on Scheme [amazon.com]

  • Retaining Engineering Majors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HardCase ( 14757 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @05:43PM (#6100865)
    There are an awful lot of comments poking fun at MIT for some perceived paradigm shift - moving from theory to practice. But that's missing the point.


    I got my EE degree from Boise State University, hardly the technological powerhouse of MIT's caliber, but one thing that concerned the faculty in the College of Engineering was the need to not just attract students who wanted to major in engineering, but also to retain them once they started the program.


    It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or an engineer) to realize that two years of core engineering classes full of theory, math and seemingly non-applicable ideas is pretty damn boring to an awful lot of people. Although you may disagree, I think that it is not just important, but critical to see some sort of practical engineering examples. Sure, I got a lab with my physics class (I made a telescope, charted magnetic flux lines and measured acceleration, etc.) and there was a chemistry lab (oh boy, we made Slime). There was even a rudimentary circuits lab that taught us something about discrete passive devices. But the one class that was the "hook" that worked to cause most of the borderline (as in not sure if they want to continue in engineering) students to keep on was the Introduction to Engineering course.


    This was a course that featured a topic from a different engineering discipline each week: Electrical, Civil and Mechanical. The one hour lecture by a different professor from the field each week was followed by two three hour labs of projects related to that topic.


    Sure, we were just taking Calculus I at the time and no, we didn't know Kirchoff's laws. We couldn't describe a system with differential equations, but there are a ton of things that a student can do that involve intuitive engineering knowledge that don't require any more science than simply understanding how something works - not why it works...that comes later.


    At the end of the semester, the "capstone" project was, as I recall, a car that had to navigate away from obstacles using IR sensors. Yes, a lot of stuff was prepackaged, but the experience was valuable in that it showed the application of ideas and served as a way to tide us over those first couple of years when hours of math, physics and chemistry threatened to send us all screaming down the halls.


    I should point out that, at least at Boise State, the College of Engineering has a very high graduation rate. I don't recall any EE student who started their freshman year with me who didn't go all the way to the end and graduate. Obviously there is a lot that goes into a high graduation rate, including the dedication and determination of the student as well as the quality and committment of the professors, but it seems to me that something works at BSU.


    Also, every one of those graduates who took the Fundamentals exam (a prerequisite for becoming a Professional Engineer) passed. Did EE120 make the difference? I can't say, but I do know that it was one of the courses that I took that really sticks in my mind because it showed early on that the things that we were learning and were going to learn had practical applications.


    -h-

    • You made slime? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by raehl ( 609729 ) *
      We had to identify a mystery cobalt compound and write up a 30 page document explaining how we knew we were right (or in some people's cases, why they still didn't know).

      I should have gone to Boise State!
  • The article implies that earlier generations of MIT students included lots of electronics hobbyists, whereas today that portion has been replaced with programmers and sysadmins. It makes sense for universities to arrange the curriculum to work with these backgrounds and try to fill in the gaps, without re-treading subjects most freshmen already know. Whereas before it made most sense to offer extensive programming courses (the electronics knowledge being assumed), now MIT makes the smart move of concentrati
  • Any EE student who arrives at the Toot without having worn-out one of these [tinyurl.com] or something similar is already a couple of years behind his peers.

    Of course, if Radio Shyster can't keep the farking things in stock, what hope is there for humanity?

  • Fantastic Change (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Xemu22 ( 168640 )
    Thank goodness.

    6.002 was one of my least favorite classes (I ultimately went 6.3, the comp-sci variant of the CS/EE degree at MIT) because, well, it's so disconnected from reality. I've found almost zero utility out of it. The other "core" 6-double-oh classes (6.003 = signals, 6.004 = build a simple computer) are vastly, vastly, more useful.

    An overdue change, if you ask me.
  • This shouldn't be news, this is how things should be. The reason I dropped out of college was because I coudn't learn anything in it because all they threw at me were equations and useless information and expect me to spit it back out on a test. The real world works much differently. As Morpheus says: Some rules can be bent; others can be broken.
    Case in point: How much time do the consultant admins among you spend cleaning up after MCSE's? Most MCSE's are prime examples of what happens when you unleash

  • Article glosses over some detail (Score:5, Informative)

    by pz ( 113803 ) on Monday June 02, 2003 @06:31PM (#6101245) Journal
    Disclaimer: I have tremendous respect for Hal Abelson and Gerry Sussman, having worked with both while teaching the MIT EECS core undergraduate curriculum, including 6.002.

    The article glosses over a couple of details which are important to understanding what Abelson and Sussman are proposing (as evidenced by many of the comments thus far). The course, 6.002 [mit.edu], is already a laboratory couse with required lab assignments. However, there aren't that many (4 or 5), and while one's lab grades are important, it is possible to pass the course (*pass*, not do well) without doing well on the labs. The course is reasonably heavy on theory, and somewhat light on practical knowledge. When I was TA-ing it, I was amazed at how many students did not already know how to solder.

    For many students, it was the first lab course ever, so things like oscilloscopes were poorly-understood tools. (As part of the first lab assignment, if I recall, one must prove proficiency with a 'scope.) As a result of this, many of the students don't really get a good understanding of basic parameters and values -- practical knowledge -- because there's so much to learn already, and because there are only 4 or 5 lab assignments and only so many lab TAs.

    What Abelson and Sussman are trying to do (and, by the way, they are the authors of what is widely considered one of the best, if not the best, course at MIT, 6.001) is shift some of the tutorial instruction, typically centered on going over lectures and recitations in more detail with an eye towards the homework assignments and similar problems, towards understanding specific real-world problems. They are, in effect, changing the syllabus where it has been previously poorly-defined, and where the student-to-faculty ratio is the lowest, so it can do the most good.

    (For those not familiar with the way such courses are structured, there are some number of hundreds of students per term taking the course, and three levels of instruction: twice- or thrice-weekly lectures by senior faculty to the entire class, supplemented by twice-weekly recitations by junior faculty or senior graduate students to sections of 15-30 students, supplemented by once-weekly tutorials by junior graduate students to sections of 4-8 students. This is a well-developed and powerful means of teaching a huge amount of difficult material in a short amount of time to highly-motivated students.)

    It will be very interesting to see how 6.002x develops. Very interesting. Might just go and volunteer to help teach next term right now.

  • Additional hands on is nice, but what's really needed is for the students to want to learn. What kept me studying EE was applying it to what I really liked to do at the time: make music & wierd ass sounds.

    While we were deep in the theory of opamps and such, I was pulling old ElectroHarmonix schematics off the web and attempting to breadboard some of them. Skip ahead to signal analysis, what's the deal with this transfer function stuff? Take some analog synth components and look at the filters, typic

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