The challenge was to develop an interesting course for freshmen entering the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at Berkeley, most of whom chose this major while in high school because of their interest in math, physics, or computers. Our personal goals remain to share our enthusiasm for these subjects and to help students develop a physical understanding of the subject. We believe that hands-on lab work is an important part of the course, and that experimenting with consumer electronic equipment that students have used - such as the VCR, CD player, and television - is both interesting and instructive (see the Laboratory Manual for Electrical Engineering Uncovered).
The text is divided into two parts. Part I, On Being an Engineer, is concerned with topics that are important to a practicing engineer but which are not specifically discipline-based. It includes short "chapters" - essays, really - on modeling, design, communication, and the like. Part II, Electronics, with Water Models, introduces electronic principles, as well as topics important in connection with computing - binary numbers, logic gates, computer architecture, and so on. The Appendices contains information about topics such as grading, significant developments in the field, and terminology, that students should find useful.
Our students had room in their schedules for only a two-unit, one-semester course. Accordingly, we had one class meeting per week at which material was presented by ourselves or by a few outstanding guest lecturers. We did many demonstrations, which are described in detail in the Instructor's Manual, and we showed occasional short video segments (e.g., in connection with semiconductor fabrication). Each student was expected to attend a smaller one-hour discussion section. There was a two-hour lab each week in which the students were free to choose which experiments they did, except for three experiments that all were expected to do (oscilloscope, series and parallel components, and ultrasonic rangefinder). Students worked in pairs and were required to hand in answers to simple pre-lab questions on entering the lab. The students completed each experiment in the two-hour period, turning in a write-up as they left the lab. If possible, we included a field trip to an industrial site, which students found most informative.
We used only part of the material in the text, as there wasn't time to cover nearly all of it. Usually, all of the Part II material was included, and we selected among the topics in Part I. We began with electronics and finished with computers, but the order could be reversed in order to provide a more gradual entry into the subjects. Homework was assigned weekly, mostly from the electronics and computer problems in Homework II. Some Homework I assignments were included. There was at least one single-page writing assignment, often involving a brainstorming or design element in which having fun with the topic was encouraged. Each student also obtained some writing experience by serving, with a partner, as a classroom scribe. Scribes took notes at one classroom meeting and submitted a typed copy to the instructor for editing, after which the notes were reproduced for distribution to the class.
In a three-unit course, one could treat the topics in Part II a bit more leisurely, and include more material from Part I. We have found that students respond well to descriptions of entire systems, and to topics related to the profession of engineering. We believe that students should be informed at the start that engineers must spend much of their time in non-technical activities, such as communicating with others. The central role that cost plays in technical decisions should also be made clear in this course.