ECE 2330

Professor Dugan is one of my favorite professors in the E-School. I like her teaching style of taking notes, doing independent/group in class problems, and immediately going over them. She does this at a high pace, so it does not get boring. Also, everything is straightforward. She tells you what you need to know for the test, and just does a little twist on the test to see if you understand the concepts. Definitely a worthwhile course, but unfortunately I hear Dugan will not always teach it in the future.

Professor Dugan is the one to take this class from. Her tests are very fair and the grading system is designed to ensure that your grade really does reflect your knowledge and growth in a way that best suits your GPA. The material gets pretty specific, especially near the end, make sure that if you ever don't understand something you go to office hours as EVERYTHING in this course builds on itself. If you don't have good grounding the later material is rough, otherwise you're fine.

If you stay on top of this class from day 1, even though it starts out very slow, you will succeed. It is easy if you keep up with the material. Dugan does not do a good job of teaching the class, so office hours are helpful and a lot of it is teaching yourself.

Dugan is an all around good professor.

Good professor, but labs are a bit tedious. An A is definitely doable if you are willing to put in the effort.

Easily one of my favorite classes at UVA. Professor Dugan is a pretty good lecturer and is very helpful in general. The labs are easy and not graded all that critically; it's pretty easy to get 100s on many or all of them. Quizzes can be killer, but Professor Dugan drops something like half of the quizzes. Sometimes she has "pop quizzes" because she is annoyed that people don't come to lecture. In these instances, those who attended lecture get a free quiz drop, and those who are absent have no affect to their grade. The TAs for this class are very helpful, and I would recommend going to the weekly discussion or office hours if there is anything you don't understand.

This is a laid-back class; you don't have to do much more than show up to class to get an A. Actually, it's pretty important you show up to class; there are pop quizzes every week and (if you don't get the textbook) there's no way to learn the material other than sitting in class and listening to Dugan go over it seven times. She is a good professor and will take the time to explaining things to the class as a whole or you individually. The midterms are almost identical copies of previous semesters' tests and you can study the night before. Overall, the class was interesting (even to me, BA CS in the CLAS) and worth the low-medium amount of work. My advice: Study for midterms with the old tests and always be ready for a pop quiz.

Dugan is great both in lecture and office hours. This is definitely a weed-out class for CS and CpE, so if you can get a B or A (which is very doable), you can probably handle either of those majors. The tests were hard, but don't count for all that much of the grade (45% is from labs and explorations). I came away with a very good understanding of the material, which is itself incredibly interesting.

The Course:
Starting from no assumed knowledge of digital logic, this course provides the necessary knowledge to build a processor. There's a big emphasis on Boolean algebra (particularly simplification with Karnaugh maps), followed by design of larger components (e.g. comparators, registers, etc.)

You have lab every other week (which week depends on your section), and labs have a fairly quick turnaround time. She also assigns "explorations," which are guided experiments/design problems using the Logisim digital logic simulator.

I, personally, found the final to be substantially harder than all the other tests, so don't put off studying.

The Professor:
She's awesome! Professor Dugan is an engaging lecturer, really helpful/approachable in office hours, and takes a genuine interest in her students (which is especially impressive considering the size of the class). She has a relaxed demeanor in class (enough to put students at ease, but still professional) and answers students' questions clearly. I cannot recommend her enough.

Best way to prepare:
Since some people find this course difficult, I thought I'd mention that the book CODE by Charles Petzold covers most of the essentials of this course--unlike a textbook, it can be read without pen/paper in hand. I was "coasting" for much of this class because I read CODE in high school. Knowing what a finite state machine is before the class can help, too. (If you have the Discrete Math book by Epp, skimming the section on automata will give you a big head start.)

Hands down one of the best courses I have taken at UVA. Dugan really cares about the class, and the TAs were fantastic. By the end of the course, you will understand how to build a simple processor from your detailed knowledge of a lot of different logic components.

There are 5 lab assignments; the first three are built using physical breadboards and logic chips while the last two are built exclusively on the logic simulator software (Logisim). All of the pre-lab work can be done in a day, but the fifth and final lab assignment will take significantly longer to complete than the other labs. The in-lab demonstrations are straightforward and you can usually leave lab early after you show your TA your properly working implementation of the lab. The post-lab report is easy to write and as long as you cover everything on the rubric, you should be well off.

The grading is very fair and Dugan will allow you to override your test average with your final exam score if it is higher, making the final count for 55% of your grade rather than 25%. Only the top 10 quiz grades are kept (about 15-17 quizzes are given).

Going to the TA review sessions is a great source of help for exams, lab assignments, and general questions. Also, Dugan/TAs respond quickly on piazza for any other questions that come up.

The course was very fun overall and has inspired me to apply for a TA position! I cannot recommend it enough.