2020 Courses
It’s a bit much to make a post for every single class I take, so here’s all the major courses I took during Spring 2020 and Fall 2020.
CS188 – Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
It doesn’t go too deep into all the math, so it’s a class I think just about anyone can take. True to its name, it does a really good job of introducing different methods of AI, ending off with machine learning. The projects are especially rewarding, take about 3 hours each solo, and are for the most part straight up implementing equations learned in class. However, if you do not like Pac-Man, I do not recommend the class as Pac-Man is basically our mascot.
EE105 – Microelectronic Devices and Circuits
This was definitely the more difficult of the classes I have taken at Berkeley simply because it caught me off guard with all of the semiconductor physics. After taking the class, I definitely have a better understanding of how transistors work and better circuit analysis techniques. If you’re going deeper into the circuit design, this is the class for you. I might be more of a CS person than I’d like to admit.
EE123 – Digital Signal Processing
Absolutely amazing class and one of my favorites. I still have a lot to learn, but it does a great job of introducing the different aspects of DSP and its many applications. The labs are also really fun and were what got me into HAM radio. The professor is also just so passionate about what he does and it really came off well and made the class that much more interesting. Simply put, I’d recommend this class.
CS162 – Operating Systems and System Programming
Operating systems have always been this mysterious thing to me but this class did an amazing job of demystifying it all and breaking down the various parts that make them up. Like I feel like I could actually become a kernel developer one day. I don’t really understand why so many people dislike the class but I’m also the type of guy that loves C so I might just be weird. It’s important to note that you’re required to form a ~4 person group to work on projects and that you basically need to design the entire project before you get to code. However, if you do the design well enough, there’s little need to debug your code. Literally this was the first time I wrote sizable amounts of code that worked on the first try. Except for the last project where early in the process I was like not putting parentheses around this define will bite me in the back. Sure enough, a 3 hour debug session later and that was the problem.
EE106A – Introduction to Robotics
Another great class and a solid intro to the world of robotics. There’s quite a bit of linear algebra but you really get to see how applicable it all is. Having a good concept of 3d space and orientation definitely doesn’t hurt with all of the transformations we do. It also introduced me to ROS which I finally understand the use of. The final project was a 4 person thing and I can safely say this was the first course project after CS170 that legitimately needed a group. We ended up doing a discretized multi-robot CTF game. Just like CS170, I handled the majority of the repo setup, architectural design, and test scripts to make sure we had a simple interface to design algorithms with.
EE149 – Introduction to Embedded Systems
If you didn’t like state machines before this class, you will. It’s a good way to get started with practical electronics implementations if you didn’t have the experience before. Even with my experience, I still had a couple gaps in knowledge to be filled in particularly with a couple of gotchas that are harder to learn on your own. The theory side of things was the place in particular where I learned quite a bit. The final project was a 2 person thing and I feel like we were the only group to do a simulation based project. I would’ve done a hardware project but coordinating that remotely during COVID is not easy. We ended up doing a multi-robot search and object retrieval project. I did the majority of the architectural setup and object estimation and retrieval algorithms.
SpaceX Summer 2020 Build Reliability Internship
This really isn’t a course but I don’t really know where else to put this so here it is. Also can’t really spill any details so here’s my three sentence review. Absolutely amazing experience I really learned quite a lot and honestly I changed quite a bit as a person. It was both a humbling experience in the sense that there’s just so much out there that I still need and want to learn and also a confidence boosting experience in the sense that I feel like I could actually make it as an engineer now. 10/10 would recommend.
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