4 Year Electrical Engineering Degree Reflection

Four years of electrical engineering means having taken lots of classes, shedding many tears,
finding a sense of accomplishment, shedding more tears, and having taken even more classes. Being a
senior, I have experienced all the myriads of emotions associated with engineering school from the day
one excitement to the bitter numbness of test battery. With the end finally in sight, now seems to be
the best time to review my past experiences as an undergraduate engineering student.

I came to Iowa State excited and hopeful, looking forward to learning new material and
becoming a fully fledged engineer. My first semester I started with Calculus II and EE185 with Mani.
While Calc II was difficult, I managed to put in a lot of hard work to get by and do well. At the time,
however I failed the standards that I had set for myself of getting a 4.0, and quickly, I had to learn to
deal with frustration and disappointment. Looking back now, I am amazed that I could put in the quality
work I did for that class and the grade of a B+ I received. Mani’s class in 185 was incredibly enjoyable. I
learned much about thinking and also Matlab. After his class, I wanted to dive right in! Dr. Mani also set
an unrealistic expectation of professors for me because he was phenomenal, and I assumed that
everyone else would be like this as well in the department. I thought all professors would throw that
much dedication into their students in our department the way Mani did. I was proven wrong
eventually. In summary, my first semester was a learning experience of college and filled with
hopefulness and eagerness for learning.

My eagerness started wavering my second semester. I took physics II and calculus III this
semester. While calculus III was pretty easy for me, physics was another ball game. I enjoyed physics in
high school but the structure of the class for 221 was simply to bring about misery and pressure. I have
seen physics taught in much more concise effective ways without having to deal with a barrage of work
that drains energy and life from students. Nevertheless I got through the class and used my struggles as
a learning opportunity to identify weaknesses in my own learning. This same semester I took 285 with
Dr. Daniels. I loved the class and the challenges he provided. I got an A in his class and a continued
enthusiasm for my major.

My start of my sophomore year is where my eagerness for my major began wavering. I took
differential equations and EE201 circuits. I struggled with both classes from the time consuming
homework to the dull lectures. Following along with both professors became incredibly tedious due to
each of their nuances and inability to teach in an engaging manner. The lab work was also a shock
because I was entering unfamiliar territory. At first my lab partner did all the work and did not give me a
chance to play around with the equipment shortly before disappearing. I ended up working alone and
struggling. I would have to meet up with friends after lab to learn concepts but in the end after much
work, I was able to grasp the concepts for the lab and become independent. I realized at the end of the
class that I really did not enjoy circuits that much, but I believed that if I had Dr. Tuttle next semester, I
would be fine and learn to enjoy the concepts.

Unfortunately for me in semester 4, I did not have Dr. Tuttle and while my professor was not
bad, he also left a lot to be desired from. In 230, I struggled much more in the labs since they often
times seemed confusing, disorganized, and the equipment was always failing in some respect. I
remember that if we did the lab and then submitted a report, we would easily have a B if not A. My
surprise was at the end of the semester when I was able to design a two channel headphone amplifier
by applying all the material I learned in that course. While taking 230 I took EE224 Signals and Systems
with Dr. Dogandzic. Never have I taken a more emotionally challenging course. I worked in that class,
and I worked really hard to keep up with the constant barrage of time consuming homework followed
by quizzes on a weekly basis. I would always be studying for this class while simultaneously struggling.
Dr. Dogandzic was also intimidating and hard to follow initially. This is the course where I have spent the
most time studying and the most time struggling. I made many good friends in this class however
because forming a strong study group was the only way to do well in this course. We all were going
through the same challenges and helped each other succeed. For the difficulty I faced and the amount
of effort I put forth, this semester was by far one of the best I have had even though I did not receive a
3.5 like I wanted.

My Junior year is when dissatisfaction came forward with my major and the classes that I was
taking. I took EE324 Signals and Systems II and while the material was not difficult, I realized that I was
not motivated at all for this class. I learned that I clearly did not find signals fascinating and started
hating the subject. I was subjected to some of the worst learning environments our department could
ever conjure up. I took EE324 and EE322 in the same room in Sweeney, and this room puts engineers
and designers to shame. There was a single fixed projector screen in the middle of the room which split
a black board into two halves. Even if a student were to sit dead center in the front of the classroom,
that student was unable to see material on the ends of both boards. Students on the right side of the
room could not see the left side of the room and same principle goes for those on the left side. Of
course the professor always forgot this. EE324 was taught by one of most unenthusiastic professors I
have ever had with some of the worst presentation skills I have seen. The lectures really needed
revamping, and just recently my Engl 309 instructor presented a slide of what not to do in power point
that looked like the ones used in class. My faith in professors in our department fell around this point
and hopes for better instruction disappeared. While the EE courses became dull and unenjoyable, I truly
loved and cared for CPRE 281. This is one of my favorite courses I have taken at Iowa State University. I
put much time and effort into understanding the material and obtained a good grasp of concepts. I
spent over 40 hours on the final project alone. This class renewed my enjoyment in engineering.
However this feeling disappeared really quickly the next semester.

The final semester of my junior year became the worst semester I have taken. I was incredibly
demotivated by my courses and struggled a lot from pressures in and out of school. EE332 was
especially challenging for me and I did poorly in this class. I admired my professor but considered him a
poor lecturer due to his style of scrawling images. This made learning in lecture a struggle and visiting
the TA afterhours was frustrating for multiple reasons from their attitudes of having to try to explain
concepts that they believed I should have gotten right away to trying to locate them. I was also taking
CPRE 288 at this time. This class was one that I was looking forward to but quickly turned into a
disappointment. As before, the lectures did not serve me well and I had a hard time trying to learn from
them. The lab was fun since I got to work with the Roombas. However they took a lot of my time and
unlike my younger days, I did not enjoy spending late nights in Coover when I had many other items of
work to deal with like my own health both physical and mental. This is the semester where I began
wondering why I chose to be an engineer and where I was going with my life. The results were poor and
I did not learn or retain much information over the course of the semester. I realized I really needed a
break from school.

I received an offer for a Coop at Rockwell Collins and I jumped on the opportunity. I thought this
was the break I needed. Initially the work was fun, and I enjoyed the challenge. However this shifted
when I got transferred to a different department that was in need of help. Instead of programming like I
thought I would be doing, I performed systems and testing work on my new team. The first two weeks
on the new team, I became a glorified excel editor. Shortly after however, I began debugging errors on
this program. Unfortunately, I was unfamiliar with all the code since I never wrote any of them, and I
was unable to write new code or fix existing errors. There were fun moments where I got to operate a
flight rig for some of the tests that I did. I got paired with an excellent mentor who helped me on my
tasks and gave me an important piece of advice, “All the information you need is in your fingertips
already. You just have to know how to use that information and figure out how it relates. That’s the
difference between a good engineer and an excellent engineer.” Afterwards I began working on my
researching skills for technical problems. Soon whenever I asked a question, it was after exhausting all
my resources and not knowing what to do next. This usually resulted in many senior engineers wanting
to run whenever they saw me due to my presence being an indication of a difficult issue at hand.
Industry is a lot different than being in the classroom, and much more enjoyable. During my time, I
operated in several different team environments from having my own sub team to being a part of agile
development. My time at Rockwell Collins was definitely rewarding but not quite what I was looking for
in terms of my career. What I realized that what I liked best about my job was the money and prestige of
being a Rockwell Engineer. As such, I have decided from this summer to keep exploring other options
and companies for careers.

Upon returning to Iowa State University, I have received offers from Northwestern Mutual as a
Financial Rep due to my people skills and TI for product marketing due to my entrepreneurial
background. I have decided to try out TI to see if this is the path that I am looking for. In the meantime I
am taking EE330 and EE311 as well as senior design. EE330 I absolutely hate, and was forced to take due
to my biomedical sequence not being offered on my return. The class is more of internal struggle of
motivation and inspiration. Meanwhile being in Mani’s 311 is a fun enjoyable time regardless of the
challenge. For senior design, I am working for Dr. Daniels to help design an app that can make holiday
decorating easier. The app allows a person to set up light strings and then customize them. While the
idea sounds simple, the integration is quite complex. So far the project is a learning experience working
with new circuits and applying math to engineering which is something that did not occur often while
performing systems tests. Even though motivation is low at this point, I still look forward to what the
next semester brings.

Looking through my reflection, I realize that if I could go back and repeat my degree, I absolutely
would not. If I stuck in the engineering field, I would have gone into Computer Engineering or Science. I
enjoy coding much more that I enjoy circuits, semiconductors, signals, power, and electromagnetism.
Alternately I may have even gone to U of I instead for biomedical engineering which was what I initially
wanted to do. I have even considered switching out of engineering altogether to explore psychology and
entrepreneurship or even study dance. The one good benefit of this major however, is the flexibility and
freedom that I can have once graduating to pursue a career of my choice, whether in entrepreneurship
or finance.