<p>Problem:<br>
In order to confirm getting in my major and not have to repeat courses for better grades I must get an A (not A-, a solid freaking A) next quarter in my second year elementary transistor circuit class. I want your ideas on what study habits, time management skills, Test taking strategies, etc. I want to know what methods you use in your daily life as well. Keep in mind these methods must take into account that I have other classes as well, but I must put emphasis on this one to get an A and avoid 5 years at the university.</p>
<p>This is the class breakdown:
Summary:
Two port network parameters; small-signal models of nonlinear devices; transistor amplifier circuits; frequency response of amplifiers; nonideal opamps; modulation, bandwidth, signals; Fourier analysis.</p>
<p>Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30-10:45
One 4 hour lab per week excluding the first and last week</p>
<p>Homework: 10 %
Lab Reports: 15%
Midterm Exam: 30%
Final Exam: 45%</p>
<p>Homework due once a week
Midterm is Week 7 of a 10 Week Quarter (not semester) </p>
<p>Final exam is in Week 11 (Its own separate Week):</p>
<p>Solution to this problem:
I want experienced engineers that have gotten A's before in classes and know what methods prove useful for doing so. I am willing to sacrifice my entire social life to do so but I want to maintain a healthy day to day activity to keep my mind sharp (working out, eating right, etc). So how would you approach studying this class to get an A? I am sorry if this was a lot to read but getting an A in this class means a greta deal to me.</p>
<p>Also I want to know what organizational habits prove useful for getting good grades? I am open to anything that will get me an A.</p>
<p>Start your homeworks ahead of time, do the reading before lecture and go over your notes after class is over. Redo homeworks after you get your corrected problem sets back to make sure you understand what you did wrong. Study in the week leading up to the exam, not just the night before it. Go to every TA session, and go to office hours if you have any other questions. Tell yourself this class is a priority, and its work needs to be done before others.</p>
<p>fUN, One of the more interesting classes.
Get yourself ARRL Handbook.
Radio Shack Experimenter’s Books,
I used to look at circuit diagrams (AM, FM, TV, detection and feedback) to fall asleep. It got boring and really difficult when it became a digital blackbox.</p>
<p>Like what others have said, be proactive. Everyone is different so there is no silver bullet. My suggestion would be to create a reasonable study routine and surround yourself with people that will help you stay on task if you fall off. Cutting corners will only invite other bad habits. Invest in an at home lab. Just try to find little ways to maintain momentum so you don’t waste study time sitting bored and staring at your book. For example, I’d always speed read entire chapters highlighting important concepts then come back and note take.</p>
<p>Hey man, Engineering is HARD, I got to SB and 2 of our hardest majors are Chem E and then EE/ECE. I honestly would say just go to office hours, email the TAs when you need help and hell go to upper classmen if you need any help.
I’m a chem E and just took one of out first upper division class, thermo. Needless to say I passed that class, I could’ve done better but damn Ochem took time valuable time away from chem E. Just work hard man, i know you probably heard this before ’ the work hard / you’ll get an A’ speech but hey there isn’t any other way of getting an A in engineering, especially EE. One of my EE friends was joking around when he told me, ‘passing an engineering class requires some divine intervention’ . Good luck man.</p>
<ol>
<li> Go to office hours as much as possible.</li>
<li><p>Find a study guide book for the subject. I used to buy one of these for each class I took.
3 Get tutoring. Grad students are always advertising tutoring, look for one in student newspaper or in the engineering hall poster boards. They used to charge anywhere from $20-$40 an hour, but that was 10 years ago. You can also try the engineering societies that give free workshops.</p></li>
<li><p>This is a long shot but look up if the Professor has authored any books and check them out. I had an engineering professor who wrote a textbook that was about 20+ years old. I found it in the engineering library and found out he was using questions from his book for exam questions. I took the book with me to tutoring and the workshops and worked out all the questions in the book(there was no answer guide). On my second exam and my final, all the questions were straight from the book with different numbers. I got a 97 on my second exam and a 94 on my final because of that.</p></li>
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