First year is done!!! Yay! 1B was a hard term, but a fun term in my opinion. You get to actually dive into core ECE courses and learn cool things. Also, doing 1B in the Spring was a vibe to be honest. It was sunny most of the time, the dooming was minimal most days, and I was happy for most of the term. Emotionally, this term was way better than 1A. This also probably has a lot to do with the fact that you come into 1B knowing more people and more sure of what you have to do to succeed in the university setting.

 

There’s no denying it — 1B is harder than 1A. But, you’re smarter and more skilled going into 1B. You have all you need to succeed. It’s all about putting in the right amount of work and finding the balance among all the courses that works best for you. With time, you will find it.

 

Without further ado, let’s dive into my course reviews.

 

ECE 106 – Electricity & Magnetism

Instructor: Dr. Shadmehr (Dr. Opal as course coordinator)

 

I have very mixed feelings about this course. I enjoyed some of the concepts and the challenge that came with them, but my cohort had a less-than-stellar experience with the teaching of this course. I’ll keep the details minimal, but this was the course where most complaints were coming from this time around. It was our instructor’s first time teaching for ECE and first time teaching this course, and you could tell.

 

I came into this course somewhat scared due to what I’d heard from previous years. I also had very little E&M knowledge from High School. It ended up being just fine. As with most first year courses, the instructors started with the assumption we had very little knowledge and built up all the concepts from there. The labs were also decently fun, but tedious at times. They were completely confined to the scheduled lab times, which is always great.

For us, this course was SIGNIFICANTLY Nerf’d compared to years prior. It was nothing like 106 under Brenda Lee or Saini as the upper year ECEs have had for years. No double/triple integrals, no non-carteisan coordinate systems… easier problems overall.

 

This is not to say that the course was easy, but certainly easier than what it’s earned in terms of reputation. I’m not sure if this will hold true in the future, though, as I don’t think Dr. Opal is scheduled to teach this course next year, and he’s a large part of the reason the course was run as it was for ECE ’28.

 

My advice: Stay on top of things by doing the recommended weekly practice problems, going to tutorials, and seeking help when you don’t understand things. It sounds simple, but it’s easy to let that slip one week and end up in a recursive loop of being behind.

 

ECE 108 – Discrete Math & Logic 1

Instructor: Dr. Matthew Harris

 

This course is in contention for my favourite course of the term. I love math, and this course confirmed that fact again. Also, Harris is a GREAT prof who is always down for the memes and gives good lectures. I really hope to have him for 208.

 

The content covers propositional logic, various mathematical proof methods, set theory, functions & relations, combinatorics (counting, but more difficult), and discrete probability. So, a good chunk of more theoretical but still “basic” math, and then some more applied stuff. If you liked 115, I’d argue you’ll probably like some aspects of this course.

 

I guess I should quickly define discrete math (at least to my understanding). Discrete is in contrast to continuous. That is, where Calc teaches you about continuous functions and their properties, this course talks about discrete objects or data sets that are countable (you’ll define that in this course, but think Real Numbers vs. Natural Numbers).

 

I enjoyed the second half of the course more than the first half, as it felt more tangible and applied. But, overall, it was all interesting and I’m sure there’s some part of this course that will grab your attention.

 

Assessments for us were just weekly assignments (completed alone) and the midterm and final. If you have Harris, make sure you fully understand assignment problem solutions as they are good practice and will likely be slightly more difficult than exam problems most of the time.

 

A warning, there is another prof who taught the Stream 8 ’28s for this course in the Winter, and he taught the course very differently. Covered different content and presented it in a different way. Not sure if that’ll continue, but worth mentioning.

 

ECE 124 – Digital Circuits & Systems

Instructor: Dr. Albert Wasef

 

This course was great. You learn a lot about the fundamentals of digital systems — digital logic, logic gates (AND, OR, XOR, NAND, etc.), low-cost implementation of logic functions, state machines, etc. A lil’ intro into some real fun ECE content.

 

The labs are also fun in my opinion. You learn some VHDL basics and complete some increasingly more challenging projects. For us, the last project was a traffic light controller. Warning, the last two labs are longer than you may think. Some groups took upwards of 12 hours in the lab to complete them. Do not leave them to the last minute. You will regret it. A lot of the challenge for the later projects is in properly interpreting the requirements of the lab manuals.

 

Wasef is a great instructor. He knows the content very well, and really tries to make sure the whole class is on the same page. He’s practically begging for questions during lectures, and event went as far as to repeat a whole lecture for us that many didn’t understand. Great guy who really cares. He also gave us a Midterm that was practically identical in structure to the sample provided, and the final had no surprises either.

 

In terms of advice, if you can independently complete/understand the weekly problem sets, I think you’re good to go. I found a lot of value in attending tutorials, but that will be really dependent on your TA.

 

ECE 140 – Linear Circuits

Instructor: Dr. M-Y Dabbagh

 

“Your talent is probably not in engineering. Maybe music. The trades… carpenter could be?” – Dabbagh’s advice to those who failed the midterm after trying their hardest.

 

This was also a pretty fun course. It’s basically all KCL, KVL, Nodal Analysis, and Mesh Analysis. That means, pay attention early on in the course and nail down the pre-midterm content. It all builds upon that and AC Analysis post-midterm is basically the exact same as DC, but adding in complex numbers. My favourite topic in the course was OpAmps. If you have Dabbagh, make sure you study up on the assigned applications, as one question on each exam will likely be dedicated to them.

 

I enjoyed the labs for this course too. They familiarize you with lab equipment like Digital Multimeters, Power Supplies, Oscilloscope, etc. Very useful and the TAs were very helpful. I did manage to short circuit a resistor and get some smoke… but Dabbagh said that he was doing the same in his basement in the 1970s, so all good 🙂

 

Dabbagh is a decent instructor. He has great notes (though he gatekeeps the fully solved versions of them…), and explains concepts pretty well. The common complaint here is that he doesn’t work out most problems on the board. Instead, he just reads the solutions from his notes. However, we provided some feedback on this and seemed to notice he spent a bit more time building up important concepts on the whiteboard. I would say both the midterm and final were fair but difficult.

 

Make sure to stay on top of the practice problems for this course (especially pre-midterm like I said), do past exams provided by the instructor and on the EngSoc Exam Bank, and you’ll be good.

 

ECE 192 – Engineering Economics & Impact on Society

Instructor: Dr. Magdy Salama

 

The course title is misleading. It’s all about cash flows and evaluating project alternatives on the basis of costs/receipts. Future worth analysis, present worth analysis, annual worth analysis, internal rate of return… nothing from a macro-economic perspective or anything.

 

Not a bad course overall though, it’s something that just has to be done. Salama just posted lecture videos and hosted one optional “discussion lecture” per week. Attendance for those was quite low, but he was a nice guy and explained concepts decently. Our grade was based on 3 quizzes and a final exam, all of which were fair.

 

Of course, I would recommend staying on top of this course throughout the term rather than waiting until the day before the final and cramming… but this course should not be near top of mind during 1B.

 

MATH 119 – Calculus 2 for Engineering

Instructor: Dr. Matthew Scott

 

Here, we pick up where we left off in MATH 117, but start by extending into functions of 2 or 3 variables. The first half of the course is, traditionally speaking, “Calculus 3” content. That’s multivariable calculus — partial derivatives, gradient vectors, directional derivatives, LaGrange multipliers, double/triple integrals, spherical and cylindrical coordinates, etc.

 

Post-midterm revisits some more traditional “Calculus 2” content — Newton’s method, Taylor polynomials, error bounds, infinite series, convergence tests, etc.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed this course. I found it to be less difficult overall than MATH 117 and also more interesting. It had weekly tutorial assignments/quizzes very similar to my iteration of MATH 117. Do the weekly practice ahead of the tutorials, know how to solve assignment questions without the help of friends, and you should be ok. Also, the Harmsworth course notes continue to be amazing for 119. My instructor provided a PDF for free, but if you got the bundle in 1A, it’ll continue to come in handy. Also, Zack Cramer’s videos are very good and practically cover all the required content. Your instructor will probably provide them on Learn, but if not, the YouTube playlist is here.

 

Matthew Scott delivers great lectures and clearly cares about his students. He always takes time to answer questions and pauses routinely to make sure everyone understands the reasoning for every step he takes. He gave very fair exams. Both the midterm and final included questions we’d seen before.

 

Scott also emphasized the importance of a lot of the material very well. He told us that, as engineers, we “will be asked to do the impossible,” when discussing different approximation techniques, and just always seemed to be able to discuss the applications of what we were learning. Amazing prof overall.

 

Co-op Search

 

Having landed a pretty decent first co-op in 1A, the co-op search went quite smoothly for me this time around. I had a signed offer prior to midterms. Stats:

 

• 23 External Applications
  • 2 Interviews -> 2 Offers (1 Accepted Obviously)
• 21 WaterlooWorks Applications
  • Selected for 3 interviews, but got them cancelled as I had accepted the external offer

This continues my trend from 1A of having external roles rather than WaterlooWorks. Either way, I got another good co-op role and I’m looking forward to the next 4 months! As I write this, my cohort’s employment rate for the coming term is about 65% — not great.

 

Conclusion

 

In writing all that, I realize I repeatedly said things along the lines of “just keep up with the weekly problems.” I guess that’s the problem — you have 6 courses in 1B, 5 of which are core STEM courses that do indeed require continuous practice to stay on track. 1B is truly a test of your time management skills. But believe me, you can do it. 1A has taught you what you need to focus on to do well in engineering. Use that information and adapt as the term goes on.

ALSO, don’t forget to live a little!! If you spend all your time doing practice problems, you’ll burnout by midterms. Remember, the term is not a race, keep it slow and steady. That’s all for now, see ya next time!