1B ECE

ECE 1B was… interesting. It had its pros and cons compared to 1A. It definitely went faster than 1A.

Pros

Computer Engineering Supremacy

All of my classes were with my stream 8 cohort, the same group of people I'd see for the next 3 years (ECE Reunited: Fall 2028, 3B).

Nothing Else to do Except Grind

The Waterloo Winter term doesn't have much happening, which helped me incentivize studying and co-op grind.

Food Places

This term, I tried eating at different places outside of the plaza.

Cons

The Weather

Fun fact: The most similar foreign climate to Waterloo is Sapporo, Japan, which is the capital of the mountainous Hokkaido prefecture.

The weather was on and off. Until April, the weather was freezing cold. There was a record breaking two snow days this 1B term, which never happens.

Missing the Day Ones

I had to make new friend groups and talk to a bunch of new people. Which was fun, but was sad knowing that I won't be able to see some friends for 3 years.

Burnout

I never want to study for 8 months in a row again. I'm glad I'm alternating co-op and study terms till I graduate.

Courses Rated

Running back the Tier List from 1A, here is what it looks like now.

ECE 124 - Digital Circuits and Systems

Instructor: Prof. Bill Bishop

For the entire semester I had this course in C/D tier, but hear me out. Lab Support was very useful. The entire course was on slides from day one, There were ~10 past midterms and 3 past finals to study off of. Labs were only 3-4 hrs with good focus. I dropped a 62 on the midterm, and a 91 on the final.

ECE 192 - Engineering Economics and Impact on Society

Instructor: Prof. Dario Peralta

Now you may be asking, why is ECE 192 in A tier? Well, ECE 192 is in A tier because the prof is a HOMIE. Half of the course grade comes from a group assignment and 2 multiple choice learn quizzes, meaning it was impossible to fail.

The final was relatively straightforward. There were five questions in total and three bonus questions. The marking scheme also made losing marks hard.

MATH 119 - Calculus 2 for Engineering

Instructor: Prof. Sachin Kotecha

Goated prof, goated content pre-midterms. After midterms the course just became a pattern recognition grind with divergence/convergence tests being half the content.

ECE 140 - Linear Circuits

Instructor: Prof. Mike Cooper-Stachowsky

Where do I even start? Probably the most important course in 1B for Electrical Engineers and anyone interested in analog / hardware. The content was straightforward - just do as many problems as you can and pray you see the same circuit on assessments.

As far as I'm aware, Peter and Mike both wrote the midterm/final. They like putting very tricky passive sign convention questions or like measuring voltage from a weird reference point. Make sure you get nodal and mesh analysis down as well as Thevenin and Norton.

ECE 106 - Electricity and Magnetism

Instructor: Prof. Hamed Majedi

Majedi did a great job being an enthusiastic, and interesting professor. He wrote a very fair midterm. In fact, the midterm was so fair that it had one of the highest midterm averages in the history of the course. Because of this, he made the final difficult. Passed fine, did way better than 1A physics.

ECE 108 - Discrete Math

Instructor: Prof. John Thistle

The course felt frustrating. Doing propositional logic, proofs, and set theory work was fun of course, but the way assignments, exams, and lectures were presented in this course was terrible. Assignments were not marked until AFTER the final. The final had only two questions, leaving 25% of the final course grade on a single question on relations, with the other 25% on a single combinatorics problem. I enjoyed the content but not the way this course was taught.