Check out these EEC courses in UCD ECE course catalog
| Code | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| EEC 7 | Programming & Microcontroller | My first ECE class. I learned how to program a TI microcontroller with C programming language and TI's developer library. Enjoyed Professor Yankelevich's passion with circuit. Check out the project here. |
| EEC 10 | Analog & Digital System | Had Professor Rashtian as the professor. He’s very passionate about teaching and would ask students to discuss with each other during the lecture. The first half of the course is a review of the analog circuit theory. The second half covers the embedded system. We also use the knowledge we’ve built throughout the course to build a sound-following robot with TI’s robotic kit. Check out the project here . There’s also a research paper about using the TI robot to teach EE system-level understanding of electronic product. |
| ENG17 & EEC100 | Analog Circuits 1 & 2 | Took Circuit 2 with Professor Gomez-Diaz The series introduces analog circuits. They covered the fundamental circuit laws such as KCL and KVL. They also covered theories such as Thevenin equivalent and phasor analysis. Circuit 2 emphasizes frequency domain analysis with Fourier series and bode plot. Those techniques allow us to examine the properties of low, high, and bandpass filters. In the end, we used Laplace Transform to obtain the transient response of the circuit. View some of the labs we've done here. |
| EEC18 & EEC180 | Digital Circuits 1 & 2 | The series first walked students through the 2’s complement number system and boolean algebra. Then they introduce combinational and sequential circuits such as D-flip flops. In the end, students learned about Moore and Mealy's finite state machines. The Digital System 2 was taught by Professor Akella. |
| EEC110A & EEC110B | Electronic Circuits 1 & 2 | The electronic circuit series introduces students to analyze circuits with Bipolar and MOS transistors, which make the circuit an amplifier. The primary goal is to find the gain (output/input) of these amplifiers. Students will learn how to find the amplifier’s gain through large and small signals domain analysis when an AC signal is applied. We explored different amplifier topologies such as the common-emitter, common-base, and diode-connected amplifier. There are also special topologies such as the current mirror and differential pair that copy the current from the input or cancels the common noise from the input. Later in the course, parasitic capacitors would be added to make calculations harder, as they introduce poles in the frequency domain and could degrade the gain at some frequencies. Feedback is also discussed because certain frequencies of a signal may cause positive feedback in the circuit and make the system unstable. I had the excellent opportunity to take EEC110A with Professor Rashtian and EEC110B with Professor Momeni You can see my notes here. |
| EEC150 | Signals & Systems | Learned about the zero input and zero state response of a system. The system represents the differential equation obtained from solving the circuit. We used the Fourier series to model the non-sinusoidal input signals. We also learned the Laplace and Fourier Transform and how to use them to analyze the frequency response of a system. Took it with Professor Jeong. |
| EEC161 | Applied Probability | Learned about the axioms of probability. Later, we graphed the random variable’s distribution to systematically represent the probability of the event. We learned both the discrete probability mass distribution and continuous density distribution. We calculated the expectation, variance, and moments of the random variable. Toward the end, the course introduces the weak law of large numbers that proves why the sample mean converges to the real mean (expectation) as sample size grows. The central limit theorem shows why the normal distribution is the limiting distribution of sums of random variables. I took the class with Professor Zhang. |
| EEC170 | Computer Architecture | In the course, we first learned about the RISC-V assembly language, then we walked through the internals of a RISC-V CPU and examined how its data path will interpret the assembly instruction. At the end of the course, we looked at the memory hierarchy of the CPU to see why accessing the cache is faster than using the main memory. This is one of my favorite courses in ECE because I didn’t know why C is compiled into another language and what does it means that the computer reads 0 and 1. I took the class with Professor Akella. You can see my notes and projects from this course. |
| EEC175A & EEC175B | Internet of Things Design | This is the senior design series for designing the Internet of Things (IoT) device. EEC175A first introduces the general definition of an IoT device. For example, they can sense, compute, and communicate information to other devices such as a server on the cloud. The course covers analog & digital sensing techniques, digital communication, compression, and internet communication. Professor Sasan taught the course. You can view my note here. In the second half of the course, we developed a smart recycling system that uses a robotic arm to sort recyclable items out of the trash on a conveyor belt. I was responsible for setting up a special object detection mechanism that uses Raspberry Pi’s camera to detect a special object specified by the user on a mobile app. It was an unforgettable experience to debug the robotic arm. One time the voltage was incorrect, and we trouble shorted to the ethernet port to find out that the port needed to be replaced. There’s also a time when the solder on the limit switch shorted the entire system 😭. |
| EEC260 | Random Signals & Noise | This is the first and only graduate-level course I completed at UC Davis. The first half of the course was a review of 161. In the second half, we dived into stochastic processes such as the Markov chain, Weiner Process, and Poisson Process. Here, I realized my math foundation sucks 🤣. I ended up using formulas without knowing what they mean. It motivated me to take other math foundational classes. You can see my note here. I took the class with professor Ghaffar. |
| EEC130A & EEC 130B | Electromagnetics 1 & 2 | First, I took both courses with Professor Putnam. He is one of the best professor at Davis for teaching. He makes sure we understand the content and gives context and explanation to different formulas. EEC130A covers the transmission line theory, which explains what happens when the wavelength of the signal is small compared to the size of the circuit. The rest is a review of electricity and magnetism. In EEC130B, we learned about EM wave propagation and the related phenomena such as reflection, transmission, and polarization. You can see my notes here. |
| EEC173A (co-listed as ECS152A) | Computer Networks | One of my least favorite classes at UC Davis, mostly because the CS majors talk about curves and grades every day 🥱. Learned about the OSI layers of computer networks. You can see my notes here. |
| EEC172 | Embedded Systems | I didn’t enjoy the content of this course because I think embedded systems should be learned through internships or actual work. Lots of people like this course because of the hands-on experience in the lab. I think the lab experience is nice because you get to work with peers and network with them. I don’t even have any notes from this class 🫠. |
| EEC133 | Radiation & Antennas | Currently taking. |