Latest revision as of 13:00, 16 December 2011

Peer Legacy for ECE302

All students who have previously taken ECE302 are welcome to use this page to leave comments/give advice to future students.

• When I was taking ECE302, I made a big mistake of focusing too narrowly on how to solve the problems but not the concepts behind them. As the course progressed, I found it harder and harder because I wasn't able to have a solid understanding of the basics and thus couldn't see the big picture. So the advise for future student will be do not to apply the formulas blindly when doing the homeworks and try to truly understand what the problems are asking, why am I using these formulas.--Yi Yue

• I found ECE302 to be one of the hardest (if not the hardest) ECE classes I've taken. It's not impossible to get an A, but it takes a lot of work. This is one class where I think conceptual understanding is really critical to doing well on the exams, because you really need to understand when to use one equation and when to use another equation and how different probabilistic situations differ, etc. I found lecture to be very minimalist (at least as far as going through practice problems), so I utilized my T.A. very heavily (just about every week). Be sure to get a fairly solid grasp on "1D signals/systems" before you start dealing with "2D signals/systems". Otherwise, the material will likely be very confusing.--rscheidt

• Chih-Chun Wang teaches this course very well. If he's teaching it, be sure to take it if you haven't :) As always, step away from the math and ask yourself, "What am I really doing?" In a course like 302, many students come in with some understanding of what probability is. Make sure the math matches your expectations. --weim

• I took ECE302 last semester. I think it is easier than 301, 311 and others. I did not spend a lot of time after class. The only thing I did was to do my homework and understand them. I went to professor’s office hour and TA’s office hour for additional help. I did not read any extra materials other than the book. But I did not spend a lot of time reading the book. Compared to 301 and 311, I did not use a lot of calculus. Most of the time, I only need some high school calculations. The class starts from one dimension to two dimensions to multiply dimensions. As long as a student understands the one dimension problems, everything else is just repetitions. Since a lot of things are very similar in this class, I felt I learnt the same thing three times. That is really a good part of this course. If you did not understand some of the material the first time, you still get the chance to understand them later. I spent a lot of time on this course at the beginning of that semester. But I spend less and less time after that. Chih-Chun Wang is a good professor on teaching. I recommend students taking his class.--pan11

• ECE302 is a jump from 301. Most of the concepts in 302 are new. I recommend Professor Chih-Chun Wang as he does an excellent job teaching the subject and keeping interest. This course is one that is very applicable to future jobs and attending lecture and taking notes is very important. Studying and understanding the notes and homeworks will help you to grasp this topic and will help you do well on the exams. --kheldman

• ECE 302 is in my opinion the hardest class in EE. It is also very different from other classes in EE. Understanding the formulas is very important because you need to know how to manipulate formulas and use them depending on the situation. This is very hard because the concepts are very abstract. I recommend asking your TA or your professor any doubts you have. Getting to understand the content at the beggining is crucial as the class gets exponentially harder. --Carlos Leon

• Seeing as I have an engineer's mind I've always thought about things such as, what are the chances something will happen? How do those odds change if something else happens? How related are probabilities of certain things happening? Are they related because one causes the other or due to other causes? These questions are all answered in a mathematical way and in an intuitive way in ECE 302. I would highly recommend attending lectures and trying to predict how equations will change as you can test your intuition this way and perhaps be surprised at how some things turn out. This has been one of my favorite courses at Purdue. --Chris Pfeiffer

• I know only one person in my entire ECE circle of friends who enjoyed this class - even my coworkers at my internship said they hated this class. I don't know, maybe it's just something about probability that everybody dislikes, BUT if you want to do DSP (which is what I want to do), unfortunately this is a class you have to be decently good at. I had Prof. Gelfand, and he's very easy on the grading, as long as you show an understanding of how to set up the solution to his questions. Get the beginning stuff down like the back of your hand, and the rest of the class just builds on that. I haven't had a real life application of this class yet, so my advice is just to slog it out and hope you'll grow to enjoy parts of it :P --Kimberly

• Took this class last semester and I think that this class is huge jump from 301. As you may have heard, this is a tough class but it is not impossible to get an A. The concepts are very abstract, however once you get it, it is very easy. This class is more like a probability/ math class rather than an ECE class. Try to work all homework problems on your own before you ask for help as it will be even more difficult to understand someone else's pattern to solve the problems. --hirawan

• This course teaches you engineering related statistic knowledge, and it seems more likely to be a math course instead of engineering course. I don't like this course personally. However, probability is something that electrical engineers use a lot, so you'd better understand what is going on in 302. I took 302 with Professor Comer. She is really nice and her exams are based on her lectures. So try to follow her in the lecture and make sure you practice the related problems as semester proceeds, otherwise you'll have to feed yourself with a lot of formulas before final. --lyang

• By the end of this course, I thoroughly understood the material taught at the beginning, and somehow I managed to get a decent grade. Honestly, when I took this course, I had very little time to spend on it due to my class load and TAing. Perhaps the professors of this course could improve the presentation style to induce a higher level of conscience in their respective audiences.--[User: kstefan:Kelton]]

• Probability is very difficult subject to follow because it is totally up to how much you practice case by case. Understanding the concepts of different probability and going over practice examples will greatly help. --[User:yoon47|Changkeun]]

• I have to say this is the hardest class in ECE. I would suggest that you should understand every lecture right from the start. If you start to fall behind it could be hard to get back on track. I had Gelfand for this class. His lecture are packed with information but he is easy on the grading. I have to say I have not applied to much of this class as of now in other ECE classes. --Le

• ECE302 isn't terribly fun, but it is a necessity. Manipulating probability functions is important in other ECE topics such as noise modeling in signal processing. It is important to gain the necessary knowledge to make considerations about future problems in the ways introduced by this course. The general statistics topics covered are also very important. An interesting problem to research pertaining to this course is the Monty Hall problem. It shows that if you don't analyze problems with the necessary probabilistic considerations, you may make incorrect decisions. Maybe this course will help you get rich in Vegas in the future, or at least lose less money. If you enjoyed both this class and ECE301, consider taking ECE440. - Kirk

• The course ECE302 has to be one of the hardest class I have taken yet in Electrical Engineering major (aside from 438). A lot of the topics in the beginning seem pretty basic but as the course develops a lot of matmatical computations are drawn into each problem. It is necessary to stay on topic in this class and to never miss a class and attend the TA's help sessions as much as possible until you funlly understand the current topic. I personally had Professor Comer for a professor. I have friends in the class this semester who are retaking from Professor Comer and say that the material is completely different. One huge aspect of this class is called Bayes Theorm. If your capable of understanding this theory early on, the class should run smoothly. -- Eric Woeckel

• ECE302 was a lot different from ECE301. It was purely about probabilities as the coure title states. I took this course from Professor Gelfand, and the tests and exams were fair. All the notes were posted from the beginning of the semester, but do not be tempted to miss the class. The problems he went over in class usually appeared on the exam and they were worth a lot. More importantly, going through some problems with him in class helped me understand better and it was much more efficient way to learn than learning by myself. --euijae

• ECE302 was the most difficult class I’ve taken at Purdue. Some experience in discreet mathematic can be helpful. This was the first time I was introduced to solving problems using a probabilistic model. Most equations/functions you have encountered so far should be determinist (i.e. Ohm’s law or Newton’s second law F=mA). This is important in understanding quantum mechanics and the operation of BJTs and MOSFETs (i.e. ECE305). An example is the Dirac Fermi function. Be prepared to work and crack open the book in this class. --Michael Shen

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