ECE 3750

Brant-Pearce is an enthusiastic professor. She's really knowledgeable about the subject, and is genuinely interested in it. She's also very friendly and open to suggestions fro the class about the way she teaches. She really wants you to understand the material and does a good job teaching it.

The class itself isn't the most exciting thing. There's a lot of Diff EQ, so if you're planning on taking/have to take this, make sure you've already taken APMA 2130. I'd also recommend you don't take too long of a gap in between these classes - I did and I had to relearn a lot of what we did in Diff EQ.

There were two? tests and a final, as well as weekly homeworks. The homework isn't too difficult, but be ready for the test questions to look nothing like the homework. They apply the same principles, but in ways you haven't seen before. The way she sets up her tests is also pretty fair. You get to choose 8 questions from 10, and you're graded on those only. That way, if you see a question you have no idea how to answer, you have the choice to not do it, which is nice. Definitely use the textbook - it's definitely one of the more helpful books you'll use. Also find a group of students to do the homework with, it makes understanding the concepts a lot easier.

Overall, the class was alright, and didn't feel like a class that you have to get through to get a major. It wasn't really my thing, but I could see how it would be an interesting class for those who are.

Brandt-Pearce is a pretty terrible professor and ruined what could have been an interesting/useful course.

First of all, her lectures are awful. She doesn't explain the concepts well at all and instead spends way too much time on the mathematical aspects of signal processing. She often skips steps and leaves everyone confused. Also, since the course basically turns into an APMA course, it becomes very, very dry. There are also pop-quizzes every once in a while (6-8 1-2 question quizzes per semester), leaving you in a constant state of fear. These quizzes, for some ungodly reason, are 15% of your grade and are very difficult to prepare for. Really, the only way to prepare for them is to constantly read and study the book like every single day. I read the book occasionally, but refused to study it constantly because I don't like torturing myself.

Second, the course material is a disorganized mess. She gives out homeworks, practice problems for tests, and tests (2 midterms and a final). None of these relate to each other. Many of the homework problems were either way too difficult or made no sense at all. They ended up being useless to me in my understanding of the material. While the practice problems did help me learn the material, they did not help me on the tests. This is because the tests mostly consisted of questions involving the concepts that were poorly explained during the lectures while the practice problems tested math skills.

Finally, I want to talk about the review/homework sessions. They were awful. The worst I've ever experienced at UVA. Brandt-Pearce and the TA had the bright idea of only answering questions one at a time to individual people instead of answering questions that everyone had in front of the class using the whiteboard. It made no sense at all. Basically, everyone would line up and the TA would take 5 to 10 minutes to answer each person’s question – many of which would be the exact same question. I tried to get the TA to change this, but he ignored me…

All that said, I actually did learn a lot of the material (from the book) and did quite well in the class. Doing that was torture though. I know Brandt-Pearce means well and she is a nice person, but she needs to seriously restructure the course and make a better effort to teach the concepts.

I actually *really* enjoyed this class! The material might not be everyone's cup of tea because it's more abstract and less application-based than the EE/CpE courses up to this point (i.e. electronics, circuits), but there is definitely an audience that the class will appeal to. Though some of the material is difficult, I thought Brandt-Pearce presented everything pretty clearly and concisely. The book is a good resource; definitely follow along throughout the semester, otherwise you'll just end up reading it all the day before the exams. If you pay attention during lecture, and make sure you understand the homework, this class will not as bad as the other reviews make it sound!

Brandt-Pearce is a bad professor. I hate to say that because she’s a really nice person, but her lectures are not helpful at all. Her lectures are very disjoint and hard to follow, and she makes concepts seem more difficult than they actually are . . . she also relies heavily on power points, which really sucks since this is basically an APMA class.

There are weekly homework’s, pop quizzes, two tests, and a final. The homework’s are quite time consuming (usually 5-7 hours), and not always helpful in understanding the material. I wish Brandt-Pearce chose the problems more strategically. The pop quizzes are basically a tossup . . . you really just have to hope you get lucky and guess right. The tests aren’t as bad as the pop quizzes (test 1 average was 76%, test 2 average was 73%), but they are really difficult to prepare for . . . the only thing you can really do is study the practice problem set she hands out before every test. The test problems aren’t like the homework problems at all, so don’t waste you’re time studying them. There was a pretty strong curve at the end of the course, which was nice . . . I didn’t understand a lot of the course material, but I still ended up doing really well in the end.

This was a very tough class, one of the most difficult I have taken so far. Maite is a good professor, but there is a ton of material covered in this class, and towards the end of the semester things speed up even more. Make sure you pay close attention during class if you want to do well. She is also very accessible for office hours: go if you are struggling with the material.

Grades are based on time consuming homework assignments, pop quizzes, 2 tests, and the final. This is essentially a APMA class stuck in the ECE department. I wouldn't recommend unless you need to take it.

Brandt-Pearce means well, but does not lecture very effectively. It's very hard to figure out how everything relates throughout the semester, so I recommend reading the book at the pace she teaches (you'll find yourself reading it during homework assignments anyway). She is very open to class feedback, which is nice, but doesn't make up for the fact that her lectures are much more math and process based than conceptual and big-picture. The tests are fair for the most part, but much more like the practice problems than the homeworks. The boring subject matter has made me lose any interest I ever had in control systems and the like. Unfortunately required for all EE's and CpE's regardless of your area of interest. Healthy curve is given.

Utter disaster of a class. Lectures were disorganized and unhelpful, textbook was terrible, and homework sets ranged from straightforward to absolutely insane. Test averages were both in the mid 60's. I learned virtually nothing the whole semester.

Homeworks were a tossup. Some problems were extremely easy, others were impossible. Lectures were largely pointless, you could learn everything she taught just by reading the book. Do a lot of practice problems, it's basically a math class. Most of the material is useful to know, even if you're a CpE.

Her lectures are often disorganized, and her "review sessions" before the test are a joke.