<p>Hey guys. I'm an EE going into my fifth year(last quarter.) and I've just gotten disillusioned with the program. Thought I'd post this little thread as a warning to students/parents where it's visible(vs flopsy's thread where it'd get buried quickly). Prospective EEs seem like the type who'd surf these kinds of forums lol. As a disclaimer I'd say I'm pretty much the avg ee student(not the top by any means, but I try to understand what I'm doing). GPA in the 3.2 range. </p>
<p>What I've come to realize is that our program pays COMPLETE lip service to teaching. You might say "yeah but that's kind of expected. it's a research university." True, but from what I've seen we fail even when compared to our peers. There are two reasons for this. First is that crucial, fundamental courses are taught by total incompetents. EE is very incremental; everything builds on lower level concepts and you can't hope to do design unless your basics are rock solid. In this regard UCLA short changes it's students horribly. Here are some examples so you know I'm not talking out my ass. </p>
<p>Case 1: EE 102 the signals and systems class. Probably the most fundamental class in EE. The LTI system paradigm is used in every area to specify the blackboxes we want to implement, whether it be in circuits, communications, devices, whatever. Other concepts like fourier transform/series are also used in many areas of EE. For the past two years this class has been taught by a 90 year old indian guy, and a new korean assistant prof. When the indian guy taught the class about 20 out of 200 students attended, and half of those were asleep. I could say a lot more but that's a pretty clear statement on the clearness of his teaching. The ta even told us privately he was shocked how the class was run. I haven't taken the korean women but my friends tell me she is useless; just sits there and reads off powerpoints from stanford, which must be good because theyre from Stanford. Also wastes time by telling students to go to the board to do problems and *****ing them out. The avg student comes out of 102 with a very superficial understanding of this class. Give them anything they havent seen in hw and they can't solve it. I've even heard honors students debating fundamental concepts class(whether laplace transform is generalization of fourier transform or other way around). The most glaring example. </p>
<p>Case 2: EE 2, the gateway semiconductors class. This class is supposed to build the foundation for the whole semiconductor device area of ee. The really know what's going on you need some knowledge of quantum mechanics, so a good prof s important. Instead our heroic professor stopped showing up after the first few lectures and left teaching up to the TA. In previous quarters this class has also been taught by a guy who claimed jesus taught him everything he knows about ee, and spent class time advertising his bible study. With guys like this how can students progress further in the solid state pathway, which assumes this knowledge? </p>
<p>Case 3: EE M16, the digital design class. Another fundamental class. People build entire careers off the concepts that are taught just in here(i know guys at intel who do just that). When I took it, it was taught by eshaghian, this adjunct prof who dressed like a freshman sorority girl(she was a middle aged persian woman). She proclaimed a lot of nonsense about how she was a great teacher, cared so much about students etc., but i felt she was just going through the motions to get paid. Did not give two squirts of **** about student learning. Wasted hours of class on these bs pop quizzes everyone got 100& on. She also spent the last few lectures letting students who failed the midterm give powerpoint presentation as makeup. Selfabsorbed and useless, which is the worst combination. </p>
<p>Other schools might also have ****ty profs, but at least they put the core classes in capable hands. I know for sure that berkeley has lecturers who're known for their ability as instructors teach the basic courses(EE 20, EE 40, CS 61c), and my friend at georgia tech says they do as well. Even our cs department has some great lecturers for core cs which makes me wonder why ee can't follow suit. You don't need a guy with 20 patents and 100 publications to teach an intro class, just someone who can convey things clearly. Without fully understanding these classes ucla students are left dead in the water. It's like trying to do calculus without knowing algebra</p>
<p>This rant will be continued</p>