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.

Professor Briggs is so so so helpful and easy to approach. He is generally well-organized on Canvas and Gradescope and uses announcements well. His 8am quizzes make lecture attendance mandatory but they only last the first 10 minutes so a lot of students leave afterwards to watch the recorded lecture later. Having labs pre labs and hw for the first 4 ish weeks is kinda annoying but the class is a breeze once the car project starts. Just do the practice problems closely for the quizzes and put enough effort into the project and you should be set, especially with the extra credit he offers.

This class is weird. The lectures, homework, labs, and projects relate very loosely to one another. I could barely pay attention during the lectures but I dont think I missed anything of importance. Most of the homework is chill and if you don't know how to do something there are plenty of videos online explaining all the content in the class. The labs in the first half in the quarter are free points once you get past the confusing directions. The project is like 30 minutes of coding then an aditional 1-2 hours of tweaking values until the car works. The quizzess are usually near identical to a hw or practice problem and the final is basically 7-8 quizzess combined. Briggs offers extra credit which I recommend doing as it bumped by raw score of a 91 to an A. Overall, Briggs is a chill guy and he gave me an A so I fw him.

This class is a joke. This class should be waived for transfers because it is so incredibly easy for us. I did not study one bit for this class and that is not an exaggeration. If you have taken a circuits 1 equivalent then this class should be a breeze. I can’t speak for the people who haven’t, but I can only imagine it would be the most boring and slow-paced class offered here. All the quizzes, homeworks, and even the final exam was just basic KCL/KVL and circuit principles. This class felt like a gen. ed because of how little I cared and paid attention in it. The only thing that might be a concern is the final project, which is worth 30% of your grade. However, even having no experience in Arduino, this project wasn’t that bad. It’s pretty easy to score well in the report and he gives a ton of extra credit even if your car doesn’t complete the track. Briggs isn’t a good professor and the structure of this class is straight up silly.

This class won't really test your brain but more your patience lmao. I feel like the amount of content we actually learn isn't much: node analysis, lab equipment, AC DC circuits, op amps, and PID controls for the car -- but topics relating to the car project aren't even on the exams or quizzes. However, the 8 am quizzes, tediously debugging and fine-tuning Arduino code for the car, and writing a report the week of finals just made this class feel like a chore. It didn't help that I took 3 upper divs and this class this quarter too, so this class was always something I would forget about and have to catch up on last minute. All in all, not a fun class but not very hard

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.

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.