One aspect of this class that other reviewers might've forgotten about is that this class is extremely front loaded. The first few weeks are a *lot* of work. You have to take a quiz at 8 AM, watch the lecture, do the extremely challenging homework assignment, do a prelab, then a lab every single week for the first 4 weeks. However, after the first 4 weeks, it gets significantly easier. There are no longer required labs and prelabs meaning you only have the quiz and the homework to worry about each week. You get 5-6 weeks to work on the car although you could reasonably do the project within a week and over a 3-day weekend if you really have to cram it. Near the last 1-2 weeks, he dropped the homework and quizzes entirely to allow us to work on our cars which meant the workload became extremely light/next to none near the end.

That being said, I think class is too difficult for this to be an effective intro to EE. I don't mean this gading-wise as there is significant opportunity for extra credit and you will likely get an A even if you fail the quizzes, but the pacing is too fast for someone who has never done node voltage analysis, Thevenin's theorem, or other analog EE stuff before. For a CS analogy, it'd be like going from a "Hello world" on the first day to writing multithreaded programs by week 4. It's just too much too quickly for the first few weeks. Because of how quick the pacing is and how difficult the quizzes and homeworks are, it's reasonable that you might end up disliking EE altogether because you just get thrown into this.

The professor and the TAs themselves are actually quite nice and there are plenty of opportunities for office hours. He even gives you his phone number so you can literally text him for help outside of office hours or lecture if you need it. The homework is extremely challenging even though it's only one problem a week and you will need it to do it with a study group and/or get help from OH for it. The lectures are fine although he does not usually do worked examples of problems so it's hard to understand new techniques he introduces without seeing him work through it. He does talk slowly during the lectures so if there is an option of watching the recorded version, I'd opt for that instead. The final project is not too bad and the report is quite short (around 1-2 pages) so you get a lot of time to do it.

TL;DR Nice, helpful professor; class is front-loaded, goes from hard to easy; grading is easy but the pacing is too quick and the material is just dumped on you; final project isn't too bad and you get a lot of time for it.

My main complaint for ECE 3 is that it feels like a class designed for people who already know its content. If you already know circuits, congratulations, this will be a decently easy and straightforward class! If you don't, be sure to make friends and find online resources to help you (I wouldn't depend on the lecture, I found it unhelpful most days) and you'll probably still be fine, more or less. The workload is rough for the first few weeks (pre-lab + post-lab + homework + quizzes + optional practice problems) but once the car project starts it lightens up a lot. Definitely do the practice problems when you can, a lot of times at least one of them is similar to the homework. Also don't stress too much about the quizzes, I failed several of them and did fine.

Briggs himself is nice enough. He's really involved in the labs and even remembered my name. Sometimes he would assume things as basic knowledge and roast you if you didn't know it, but other than that he's fine.

Almost every ECE student had Dr. Briggs for ECE 3, so you know how is he's teaching style, he explains everything too well, and he make sure that everyone understands the material but at the end, the class material is very very easy.
You can end up in this class in two different routes 1) Either you attend all the lectures, and try to do works done in lab session and you won't have any outside work to do in this class. 2) Or you just assume its a easy class, fall behind in lab, take so much of outside class time to work on labs and projects and fall behind in rest of your classes.
Other than that 40% of this class depends on 4 super easy lab and two time consuming mini project in DA class, and 60% that consist of a big project in DB class.

This is a great class for senior design. The workload consists of 4 labs, 2 mini-projects, and 1 project proposal for EE 113DB.

You get one week for each lab and two weeks for each mini-project. If you don't fool around in class and focus completing the labs, you'll be able to complete the labs/projects in class. So you pretty much get zero homework and no work outside class if you put in the effort during class.

The only problem I found with classmates struggling is that they did not have a strong math background. If you understand periodic wave signals and sampling, then this class is s breeze.

The lectures have always been at 8am with a quiz in the first 10 mins, but the timing and Dr Briggs' slow pace of lecturing meant that half the class would leave the lecture after the quiz to watch the recording later. The class is super manageable throughout the quarter, but do be prepared to spend the entire Week 9 weekend on the project, and possibly attend office hours if you get stuck on the homework question. The project instructions are unclear, but Dr Briggs is helpful outside of lectures (i.e. during labs and office hours), and so are the TAs (shoutout Alexiy!) and IEEE student mentors. Knowing how to code in Arduino and about RC circuits is definitely helpful for this class.

Dr. Briggs is so helpful and he cares about every student. GREAT professor to take class with.

It really helps to know Arduino before going into this class, though I think it would be manageable to survive if you have no experience with it. Taking Physics 1B before this is recommended, since Briggs will expect you to know how RC circuits work right off the bat. I didn't take Physics 1B before, and it was a struggle on the quizzes. You can fail some of the quizzes and still get an A, since the quizzes aren't worth too much. The first few weeks will be fast, but once you start working on the car, the class gets a lot easier. This quarter, he screwed over a lot of the class by changing his grading distribution (for example, you needed a 92 for an A-) and not following his syllabus (he didn't drop a quiz when he said he would) because I think he didn't want to curve down.

Should have a prerequisite of Physics 1B and possibly CS30/31 (the main project involves simple code). Briggs actually didn't believe me when I told him Physics 1B was not a prerequisite for the class. Having never taken physics before, the material was difficult, but if you've taken Physics 1B then I'm pretty sure it would all be quite easy. The main project is essentially worth 60% of the grade, 30% for completing the project and 30% for the report, neither of which is very difficult. There were quizzes at the start of every class, which were not hard. Briggs is not an engaging speaker, so lectures move extremely slowly. I would not recommend taking it with him if you can avoid it. I would recommend Xin Li as a TA, if he's there.

Professor Briggs is old. He is unhelpful and disrespectful in office hours. He refused to help me with the homework and did not teach me anything. The class is easy and I was able to figure things out anyway. I got an A- because he gave me a C- on the final project report. The grading for this report is completely arbitrary and the instructions were unclear. This class is required and it shouldn't be too hard, but don't bother trying to get anything out of the professor. Figure it out with classmates or TAs.

The class is not beginner friendly at all. Professors' lectures are not good, and it feels like he explains how to plug and chug rather than actually understanding why things work the way they do.
Additionally, the project is not structured well for students without much experience. He gives a lot of instructions and you don't know why you are following them. PID control was taught and we were told to not use I, and while he explained P I and D, the intuition was not well explained. Similarly, other concepts in the class are never explained and do not make sense.