1960 Clement and Johnson: A First Course in Electrical Engineering 19

which is struck with a hammer. The resulting strain pulses
are amplified and presented on an oscilloscope, permitting
Polaroid photographs to be taken by the students. Not only
is it thus demonstrated that transients really do travel up
and down the bar, but it is also shown that there is distor-
tion of the pulse due to the difficulty of getting a good
square blow on the end of the bar, and that there is ex-
traneous reflection due to the mounting arrangements and
to the presence of the strain gauges themselves.
Another experiment utilizes an alternating heat wave.
Thermistors are mounted in two positions on an alumi-
num bar and are connected into bridge circuits. The end
of the bar is alternately heated with a torch and cooled
with dry ice. The result is a more-or-less square heat wave
traveling down the bar. Because of the increased attenua-
tion of the higher frequencies, it appears almost sinusoidal
at the thermistors, which are about half a wavelength from
the source. This experiment takes quite a while, because a
period of six minutes is required to get reasonable wave-
lengths. It is easy to make the low temperature side square,
but it is not at all easy to play the torch on the end of the
bar in such a way that a square high temperature side of
the wave results. It is fortunate that the attenuation of the
higher frequencies takes care of most of the discrepancies
that would otherwise appear. Incidentally, pressing dry ice
against a red hot bar results in a noise that is somewhat
disturbing to classes going on in the building at the time!
We hope to develop a number of additional non-electri-
cal experiments in the future, and we have been very
pleased with the results of the two we have performed so
far.
CONCLUSION
The course in "Traveling Waves" offered in the second
semester of the junior year at the University of New
Mexico successfully teaches the student the principles of
distributed-constant circuits and in addition introduces him
to the use of the transmission line technique in solving a
wide variety of nonelectrical problems ranging from
acoustics to chemical diffusion. At least as much benefit
results from "undepartmentalizing" the mechanical, ther-
mal, and diffusion waves as from the actual knowledge
imparted in the course. The results of offering this course
for two years are quite satisfactory, and we intend to keep
this course in our curriculum and to attempt to extend the
analogies to some of our other courses.

A First Course in Electrical Engineerin*

P. R. CLEMENTt AND W. C. JOHNSONt

Summary-This article describes the introductory two-semester INTRODUCTION

course in electrical engineering that has been developed over a
period of five years at Princeton University. The aims of the N 1954 the Department of Electrical Engineering at
course are to provide an introduction to the field of electrical Princeton University began planning a major revision
engineering via the basic concepts of electricity and magnetism of its undergraduate curriculum. This revision was
(which are developed through Maxwell's equations in the integral prompted by pressures from several areas. First, the grow-
form), to apply these concepts in developing the fundamentals of ing emphasis on materials and the rapid development of
energy conversion and circuit theory, and to carry forward, in a
continuous and integrated way, a modern treatment of network solid-state devices make it important that the student have,
analysis. Thus, the treatment proceeds from field ideas to circuitsupon graduation, more than a mere speaking acquaintance
and physical apparatus, and to their mathematical models. With with this area. Several years before, the department had
the circuit relations formulated, attention turns to the analysis of
instituted a required course in physical and solid-state
networks, starting with network topology and extending through electronics for seniors, and had also introduced in the
pole-zero ideas. The treatment stops just short of the Laplace
transform. This course is intended to serve as a foundation for electronics courses for juniors the analysis of some tran-
subsequent courses such as electronic circuits, energy conversion, sistor circuits to complement the more traditional material
and advanced network analysis and synthesis, and has been de- on vacuum-tube circuits. But this was not enough.
veloped with the purpose of providing the student with a unifying Second, certain well-established and less rapidly chang-
point of view for these varied topics. ing fields such at network theory and feedback control
systems were becoming more and more a part of the under-
* Manuscript received by the PGE, August 7, 1959. This paper graduate curriculum, whereas in former years they had
was presented at the IRE Seventh Regional Conference, Albuquer- been restricted to graduate work. It seemed desirable to
que, N.M., May, 1959.
t Dept. of Elect. Engrg., Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. incorporate an introduction to these fields in the required
 20 IRE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION
courses, and to offer elective courses for further work at
the senior level.
Third, the students were arriving as freshmen with
better preparation than before in mathematics and physics.
Thus the freshman courses in those fields were able to
proceed more rapidly, and the minimum science back-
ground necessary for engineering was becoming estab-
lished earlier. The students were eager to advance more
rapidly, and it was from discussions with them that we
became acutely conscious of the necessity for a greater in-
tellectual challenge at an earlier level in our own courses.
In addition to these pressures, there were certain con-
straints. We were unwilling even to suggest a sacrifice in
the number of liberal arts courses required, since the 20
to 25 per cent of the engineering curriculum in that area
is small enough for an educated engineer. We could not
merely cut out great quantities of the more traditional
scientific material, since many of the principles are ex-
tremely important to the electrical engineer, regardless of
the particular phase of the field he enters upon graduation.
And we could not easily change from a four to a five year
program even if we so desired, because this, in a resi-
dential university, would create problems of housing not
easily solved.
It was clear that the revised program would require an
introductory course that 1) would present the material in
a fashion that was stimulating to the student and 2) would
be more efficient from the point of view of the entire
curriculum. We completely eliminated the old course and
instituted a new one which has now, after five years,
reached a reasonably stable state. It is this introductory
course that is the subject of this paper.
STUDENT BACKGROUND
The science content of the student's background which
is relevant to the first course in electrical engineering is
found in his mathematics and physics courses. The student,
upon entering the department in the first term of his
sophomore year, has had one year of college calculus and
one year of college physics. The freshman calculus course
combines differential and integral calculus with analytic
geometry. It does not include the topics of partial differ-
entiation, line integrals, or surface integrals; these sub-
jects appear in the first term of the sophomore year. The
freshman physics course includes seven to eight weeks of
electricity and magnetism in the second term. A few stu-
dents with advanced standing have a better preparation, but
the number is rarely more than 10 per cent.
COURSE CONTENT
At the beginning of the first term of the sophomore
course in electrical engineering, the principles of elec-
tricity and magnetism, which the student encountered as
a freshman, are reviewed and greatly extended. We wish
the student to feel at home with the fundamental basis for
the interactions between charges, both at rest and in mo-
tion. We wish him to be thoroughly familiar with the con-
February
cepts of electric and magnetic fields, and the application
of these concepts in practical situations. We wish him to
obtain a physical picture of phenomena within material
media, and for this reason we discuss the behavior of con-
ductors, semiconductors, dielectrics, and magnetic ma-
terials from a molecular point of view. This discussion is
not limited to the qualitative. In fact, the student is ex-
pected to work many problems, and to stress the problem-
solving aspect of the course, we have set aside half of the
laboratory periods in the first term as calculation periods.
At the beginning of the sophomore year, the student's
mathematical background has not advanced to the point
where he can make intelligent use of partial differentiation
and the other mathematical apparatus generally associated
with a sophisticated approach to the subject. We feel that
this can be, however, a blessing in disguise, for too much
mathematics at the beginning can obscure the physical
concepts. Our aim is to present the physical ideas correctly
in such a form that the student will not need to unlearn
them at a later time. In such a presentation the student
can see that mathematics of a more advanced kind would
permit him to manipulate the physical ideas so as to solve
practical problems of a greater degree of difficulty. We
use differential and integral calculus freely. We introduce
the multiplication of vectors and the line and surface
integrals. We go no further into vector analysis, and are
therefore limited to the integral formulation of Maxwell's
equations, and to examples and problems which have a high
degree of spacial symmetry. Fortunately, many practical
problems can be solved within this limitation.
The nature of the problems is such that they have engi-
neering applications which are often obvious to the stu-
dent. To list a few, we expect the student to: 1) work
problems on condenser microphones and electrostatic pick-
ups; 2) calculate the torque on the vanes of an electro-
static voltmeter, beginning with the equation for the
conservation of energy; 3) find the maximum voltage
that can exist before breakdown in various configurations
such as a coaxial cable with more than one dielectric; 4)
calculate conductivity taking into account electron and
hole mobilities; 5) design a simple permanent magnet;
6) derive certain fundamental properties of plane waves.
The foregoing occupies about a half a semester. Further
work in electricity and magnetism comes in a required
physics course in the second term of the sophomore year,
and in a full year elective course in the junior year. We
feel that it is important for us to introduce the field of
electrical engineering in this fashion, however, since it
eliminates the compartmentalization of the various areas of
the field, such as machinery, electron ballistics, high-fre-
quency circuits, and so forth. Insofar as the course is
concerned, the basic principles are used in the remainder
of the first semester in two ways: 1) the development of
circuit theory, with attention to the relation between the
physical concepts and their mathematical formulation, and
2) the development of the basic ideas of energy conversion
and electrical transducers, including means of measuring
 1960 Clement and Johnson: A First Course in Electrical Engineering
electrical quantities. We thus proceed from field ideas to
circuits and physical apparatus and to their mathematical
models. In this part of the course, we expect the student
to work problems such as: 1) forces in relays and sole-
noids; 2) the external characteristics of dc motors and
generators in the analysis of systems involving those
machines (dc machines are introduced as one specific ex-
ample of energy conversion which can be treated in some
detail along with general considerations of energy trans-
ducers) ; 3) developing the expressions for the parameters
L and C as appropriate for simple geometries, and then
by successive approximations determining more exact re-
lationships between input voltage and input current as
the frequency becomes higher.
This approach leads, near the end of the first semester,
directly to the more mathematical aspects of circuit theory,
and these occupy the remainder of the year. In this por-
tion of the course the student studies network topology,
transients and the steady state in linear and some nonlinear
networks, the use of phasors for steady-state ac analysis,
reduction techniques and network theorems, Fourier
analysis, elementary zero-pole ideas, the design of audio
and power transformers and polyphase circuits. In this
portion of the course, as well as in the first part, we have
used an unorthodox approach. To cite a few examples: the
complete solution to the differential equation for the circuit
is presented first, with concentration on the transient
portions and the steady-state portions coming later; the
concept of Q is introduced from the energy definition,
without need for specifying the location of the dissipation
of energy; the zero-pole description of a network is em-
phasized. As in the earlier portion of the course, the
problems constitute an important part.
During the second term of the sophomore year, the
student also takes differential equations in the mathematics
department and a physics course in electromagnetic theory
which uses vector analysis freely and carries the student
further into the mathematical aspects of the subject.
The time devoted to the course is three lectures and
one class during the first term, plus a three-hour labora-
tory, giving a total time of seven hours per week. In the
second term, the three lecture hours and the three laboratory
hours provide a total time of six hours per week. In the
class sections of the first term, the sophomore group is
divided into small sections of perhaps eight to ten students.
Instructors discuss with them informally the physical and
mathematical concepts which, in the lectures, are coming
at them at a rather rapid rate. We do not have the class
section in the second term because the nature of the work
is more mathematical than physical, and we feel that the
student can best benefit by using the time to solve more
problems on his own.
The laboratory experiments are designed to supplement
the lecture material. For example, in the first part of the
course, the student experiments with oscilloscopes which
are designed especially for the purpose. From the lecture
he can calculate the forces on an electron stream in an
21
electric or a magnetic field. In the laboratory he learns
how to compute deflection sensitivities, how the focussing
and intensity controls interact, and so on. Later on in the
course, the lecture provides him with the concept of the
transfer function. In the laboratory he puts his knowledge
to use in determining what configuration of components
(up to a maximum of three in number) lie within his two-
terminal "black box."
In the laboratories connected with the upperclass electri-
cal engineering courses the reports are generally informal
in nature. The student keeps a notebook, with his original
data and write-up, which he turns in from time to time
to be graded. There are no rigid formats for the report.
We experimented with this type of write-up in the sopho-
more course, but discovered that the reports in the upper-
class years are far superior when the student has had a
background in formal report writing. Therefore, this year
we have returned to the formal write-up.
Next fall we plan to continue with the laboratory ex-
periments once every two weeks. On the alternate weeks,
there will be supervised calculation periods intermingled
with informal talks by an experienced member of the staff
on various phases of electrical engineering. We hope that
these talks will provide the student with a more specific
notion of what an electrical engineer might do and will
stimulate him by specifically illustrating how the material
which he is encountering in lecture relates to practical
electrical systems.
THIS COURSE AS PREPARATION FOR UPPERCLASS COURSES
At the end of his sophomore year, the student is far
enough along with ideas and techniques that his succeeding
courses can proceed rapidly. As a junior, he has a semester
of energy conversion and control, a semester of engineer-
ing analysis, and a full year of communication systems
and electronic circuits. Also, he takes a required course
in functions of a complex variable and often elects further
courses in physics. This is all basic preparation for the
senior year, when he takes physical electronics, communica-
tion and control circuits, and chooses among courses in
servomechanisms, microwave tubes and circuits, switching
theory and logical design, digital computation, and in-
dependent work.
EFFECTS ON THE STUDENTS
The sophomore course is a difficult one for the students,
and we intentionally use it as a filter for the upperclass
courses, since we wish no student to be in the position of
finding as a senior that he should not be an electrical engi-
neer at all. By and large, the response of the students has
shown that they enjoy the challenge, and in rising to meet
it, they are developing more rapidly than before. We cer-
tainly do not offer our particular plan of study as the
only, or the best, solution to our original problem with its
pressures and constraints. The approach that we have
described is, we feel, one of the logical ones, and we have
now tested its practical application to our own satisfaction.