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MIT Introductory EE Goes Hands-On
pioneer writes "MIT is looking to replace its introductory core EE (electrical engineering) curriculum with more hands-on classes. MIT Professors Abelson and Sussman discuss the new class, which replaces equations with actual circuit building, tours of electrical plants, and classes taught by famous professors."
MIT's insurance carrier just raised thier liability rates...
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
Why don't you just keep on rubbing in how cool the classes that I'll never get to take are?
"This is the third in a series of articles on educational initiatives that bring innovation into the classroom"
Exactly how is teaching by example and using real-life situations innovative by any stretch of the imagination? Good Professors at other schools have been doing this for years...
Lots of hands on exposure to role models is probably more valuable than the hands on exposure to circuits. Most of my friends that ended up at MIT HAD plenty of playing with circuits in their free time in high school and earlier.
-B
This sounds like a good idea to me. As a soon to be 3rd year EE major, I definately think this is the way to go. All of my memories from basic circuit design classes are well...nonexistant. The classes were so boring and theoretical that it was pointless to go to class...so i didn't. Learning circuits from a theoretical standpoint is difficult and often times the math is more complicated than what you'd reasonably expect from university class (I remember a 25 page homework solution for a 1 week assignment - 10 problems). There is also a lack of practical applications being taught. There is only so many times you can apply Kirchoff's voltage and current laws and Ohm's law to a box of lines and numbers and still be sane. Looking at schematics that mean nothing to you all day is pointless. I know I would have been far more interested in EE if we were building a transister radio or something useful rather than just tinkering with simple low/high/band pass filters and verifying Ohm's Law. Granted these are worthwhile skills, but you don't get the full picture of electrical engineering from crappy textbooks.
Scott
I thought it was normal to actually *build* circuits in electrical engineering since my school required it. It wasn't until after graduation that I talked to other recent graduates and found out that my school had been the exception and not the rule. It certainly helped me get a job when I could refer to specific problems I had designing and building say, a 100W audio amplifier (just one of many projects), rather than just talking about the theoretical aspects of such a design. I also discovered that my school held a high reputation in industry because of this. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts and a the retirement of a few key professors, it looks like they will (or possibly already have) abandoned many of these hands-on labs.
Um. Yeah. My non-famous professors sucked. Really, what does being famous have to do with the caliber of the class? If a professor is good, they are good, even if no-one has heard of them and they are fresh out of graduate school. The worst math professor at my college was the most highly acclaimed and published of the math faculty. The best math teacher I had was an instuctor, he taught Discrete Math and some others, wasn't allowed to teach 3000 level classes until he finished his PhD....
Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.