ElectroMag
October 21, 2009Andrew 2 Comments »I am sitting in ECE 126, Electricity and Magnetism. I’m not paying attention (clearly because I’m writing this). This class is useless for a Software Engineer. Ordinarily, I am entranced and fascinated by advanced science, but calculating the voltage or capacitance of a complex circuit system is of little interest to me. Perhaps if we learned how these equations are derived class would at least be interesting – if not still useful for my degree.
It pains me that seemingly only one or two classes I take each term is relevant to Software Engineering. This term it’s CS 241, which is by far the best class I’ve taken in my program thus far. I’ve actually learned many interesting CS concepts, such as the origin of regular expressions in DFAs, MIPS assembly, and how to write a functioning assembler. Thankfully, I’ve been informed I will have more classes of this quality in the future (hopefully).
It would be useful for a class on data structures and algorithms to be included in the 2A curriculum. I independently studied graph theory in preparation of my interviews this semester and let me just say it was a good thing I did!
Finally, a tip for those who watch How I met your Mother and The Big Bang Theory. Watch TBBT first, because the superior writing in HIMYM tends to ruin TBBT if watched second.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:11 PM
I absolutely agree on these points. Electromag has absolutely nothing to do with even the most low level Software Engineering. It’s an extremely specialized course that shouldn’t be made mandatory for many who are really more interested in high level CS concepts. Sometimes courses along this line make me wonder if I should have gone to CS.
July 5th, 2010 at 1:32 AM
Hahaha, I love both TBBT and HIMYM, but seriously TBBT is the “best” for us geeks.. lol I’m a software engineer as well.
Awesome blog btw andrew, +bookmark.
Cheers,
Dave