ECE 2660

The FUN series in general lacks anything resembling structure. The material covered in each FUN course is more or less the same and it seems like the idea behind this process is that the information will sink in a little bit more after each iteration. The fault in this system becomes evident during the exams. Exams in this course are fully multiple choice and are almost more representative of your guessing ability than your familiarity with the subject material.

Every three hour block is split between lecture time and lab time. This setup would be fine, but you are assigned a new lab every class and most groups quickly fall behind. There is a very small window for errors and almost everyone has to show up outside of class to catch up at some point during the semester. While there's nothing inherently wrong with having work outside of class, you only have access to the lab equipment during certain times of the day. It's clear that this backup is not intended because Powell seems surprised whenever a group falls behind the workload. Having a new lab each class also means that you aren't able to focus on applying what you've learned because you are continually rushing to catch up which is harmful to an educational environment.

Powell wants to see his students succeed and makes himself pretty available in order to achieve that goal. He's also very personable and fun to interact with. Unfortunately, his knowledge of the subject is a little too advanced for this course and he struggles to convey the relevant information in an effective manner.

I wish I had known how bad this course was before deciding to pursue a major in Computer Engineering. Unless you plan to go into Electrical Engineering do not take this course. If you plan to major in Computer Engineering, but don't plan to pursue a career in Electrical Engineering, major in CS instead. The FUN series is one of the biggest flaws of UVA's Engineering School and needs some serious structural changes.

Brandt-Pearce and Powell are nice people, but the Fundamentals series needs serious work. Content is not well organized and at this point it feels like the instructors are just winging it as we go along.

Professor Powell is one of my favorite professors so far. He's very knowledgeable about electronics, and he had office hours everyday, so you just drop in and ask him questions if he isn't clear. Even if you don't understand a concept the first time, he's willing to go through it with you step by step and help you understand. He dedicates a lot of time to really help his students learn.
That said, some of the labs for this class are not easy. If you want to do well on the labs, you do have to really try hard to understand what's going on.

Professor Powell is an interesting lecturer. He's enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the information he's teaching. But he's not the best at conveying the information in an easy to understand way. He stays on topic and makes the occasional baseball joke, but sometimes its hard to follow where he is.

The class itself was fairly by the book. Weekly homework assignments that took a couple of hours, and labs once a week with a report. Three in class tests, and a final.

The information of the class was not my favorite subject, but necessary for ECE majors. Overall, Powell's a more than decent professor to take this course with.

Tough course, but the bread and butter of non-linear circuit elements (transistors, diodes, etc). Make sure you understand what you are doing on the homework, and try and stay ahead of the lectures in the textbook. Powell is a great guy, but he may be difficult to follow sometimes.

Labs are difficult and time consuming.

Be prepared to live, eat, and breathe datasheets.