Monday, November 16, 2009

Towards Mid-Junior Year

The end of the semester is in sight. Unfortunately the Thanksgiving holiday is right in the middle of some major lab assignments so I have to see that I get those mostly completed this week even though they aren't due till after holiday.

A brief overview of this semester's studies:
The circuits class has consisted of op-amps, diodes, and MOSFETs. Still to come is a section on BJTs. The lecture is great but the lab has been a huge amount of work. We still have 2 more lab assignments to do and they are very involved.

This semester's signals class was not so enlightening as last semester's but still good. Topics included sampling, modulation and transmission (mostly AM), feedback systems and root locus analysis. The LabView assignments aren't particularly exciting for me but hopefully I'm learning something.

My affection for VHDL seems to oscillate between positive and negative. I have been excited about it and hated it but right now I'm feeling pretty good about it. I like working with VHDL more than with software programming languages.

Random Signal Analysis, hasn't had much to do with signals at all yet. It's an introduction to discrete and continuous random variables regarding probablility, expectation and variance.

As I go into my last 3 semesters I plan on taking 3 more circuits courses, digital signal processing along with another signals course on filter design or some such, and properties of electronic materials. Oh yeah, next semester I have to take economics too, maybe it will be enlightening.