BME 3310

#tCFF23
Like me, you may be wondering, "what is this class even about?" Well, I'll tell you: electrical engineering. Dolatshahi (Dough-lot-shah-hee), a super intelligent professor, has a EE background and that's what the course feels like.

The first half of the course, you will look at different systems (ie a circuit, a mechanical system, a chemical system...) and learn how to relate the inputs to the outputs. You'll learn how to transform signals and the different kinds.

The second half of the course is where the real meat is, and what 95% of the final tests you on. You will learn about the frequency domain, use Laplace and Fourier transforms, do Bode plots, identify and design filters (low-pass, band pass, etc), and learn about sampling and truncating signals. If you're wondering, "what?" here it is: imagine the data you get from an ECG, an ultrasound image, or even a sound recording. Now imagine how real-world data is noisy (not a perfect line), there is grain in images, there's distortion in sounds. This is where this part of the course comes in. You'll learn how to make this data go through a system that will make the output data super nice and readable.

This class is conceptually pretty difficult, at least for me, because what the heck is a frequency domain? But Dolatshahi is a super nice professor, she gives you two drops on your homeworks (which are weekly), and her UTAs have pretty extensive office hours. Don't be worried to ask Dolatshahi or her TAs any questions you have because they truly will answer very thoroughly and kindly.

Tips for success:
- go to class
- read the textbook and look over example problems
- ask questions/go to office hours
- start the homework early

Dr. Dolatshahi is such a nice professor and good person, but the course is still very hard and math heavy. There is weekly homework that help reinforce topics learned in class, but honestly I mainly learned how to do the problems with the help of TAs and office hours. I would say that the problems are do able but require you to do a lot of practice problems. One thing I found super unnecessary was the group project. The instructions were unclear and the guidance from TAs and the professor were not useful. The project didn't help my understanding of the class at all. I do recommend taking this course with Dr. Dolatshahi over the spring professor though.

This class isn't as bad as everyone says it is. If you have a brain cell and actually pay attention and remember stuff from previous math courses, it is easy and manageable. The prof is super nice and knowledgeable. I will say she isn't the best lecturer, but like I said, if you actually try to pay attention, you will grasp the material. It truly isn't hard material at all once you try to connect the dots yourself. I believe this was the first semester this prof has taught this, and I think she did a good job for her very first time. Def room for improvement, but overall she's so nice and approachable. On the exams, prof provides all equations and anything that would need to be memorized. You only need to know how to apply eqns and the other stuff provided. I enjoyed the class overall.

Simply the worst professor I have had at UVA. I could never hear her during class, she regularly wouldn't post the lecture slides prior to class, and her way of "teaching" is just reciting everything she's writing on the screen and assuming everyone knows exactly what she's talking about. I don't know who else teaches this class but please dear god take it with them.