He says the class is straight scale, but I feel like it's not. He must have a more lenient scale for final grades, because there's no way I could've gotten an A+ without it. He's a good lecturer but has bad handwriting, so definitely ask for clarification. Even though he posts his notes from lectures, it's kind of hard to decipher, so either ask someone who attended lecture or go to class lol. The homeworks are pretty fair, you'll have to use some MATLAB. (tbh i found MATLAB really helpful checking homework) The final project uses Simulink, and there's an extra credit project that combines ECE113 and ECE141 material. Definitely start on the final project early. Even though it's not that bad, the spec isn't very clear so you'll need a lot of clarification throughout the process. I didn't do the extra credit project personally, but many people did and said it wasn't too bad. His exams use wack physics concepts like remembering inductance, moment of inertia, and angular velocity, etc. They're not horrible, definitely do previous exams, the homework, and try to understand the material.

This class is not that hard to get an A in, but that does not mean the class is easy. He doesn't have a curve and grades on a straight scale. The performance of your peers does not affect your grade. Tabuada's lectures are not that helpful because he doesn't explain things well. I suggest not even going to class and then watching YouTube videos instead. Often I would go to class and get very confused, then ended up watching YouTube videos. Watching videos from these channels was enough to substitute going to class.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmK1EnKxphikZ4mmCz2NccSnHZb7v1wV-

https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures/videos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWPirh4EWFpGpH_Rb6Q4iQ6vGGRA6MORZ

Homeworks okay. There are solutions, but the solutions are often unclear. I got full credit on all homework except the first one where I got marked off a few points. Maybe the grader was hard for that one. The project is okay. I got full credit on that one. There was also an extra credit assignment for people who were also in or already took EC ENGR 113, but it didn't really need EC ENGR 113 since the only EC ENGR 113 part was just using a filter function to take noise out of a wave. I got 5/5 on that and boosted my grade 5%. So if my raw score percentage grade was 85, it would now be 90 after the extra credit. I believe this is the first time he offered extra credit.

Exams are hard, but are predictable for the most part as long as you do his past exams. It often involves modeling a differential equation, which he doesn't cover that well and give much practice on. Just do his past exams and then they grade pretty generously and give lots of partial credit. You only need like an 80% average on the exams (assuming you don't do the extra credit) to get an A as long as you get mostly full credit on everything else.

Professor Tabuada explains the material clearly. He really cares about students' understanding of the material. His project is a little bit tough so he is very willing to help you if you start the project early, so please start the project as soon as assigned so you would have time to ask equations. He expects students to understand the basic concept of the course so as long as you attend class and pay attention I promise you, you at least get B+.

Professor Tabuada is an extreme effective professor. He's organized, he does a good job explaining concepts, and he really wants to make sure that everybody understands. He doesn't grade on a true curve, but as long as you get at least a 87.5% on everything, you get an A. The tests are pretty fair and theres one midterm and final, but the MATLAB project was relatively confusing and he did not really help that much. You definitely want to read the assigned reading before lecture to fully understand the material in the class.

Professor Tabuada is a very nice professor, but his voice is way too soft to be heard in the back of the classroom. In addition, his handwriting is pretty sloppy for us students to read at times (e.g. he writes his 1's like 2's and his x's like n's). He still delivers the material in an effective manner, but sometimes, he just glosses over points that turn out to be very important later on in the course.

One weird thing about him is that on exams, he doesn't let his TAs help him answer any questions because if a student has a question about the exam, he wants to make sure that the question is answered the way he wants it to be answered. The exams themselves is about half straightforward and half curveballs, but they're not too bad overall.

Also, it's important to realize that Tabuada does NOT curve, so knowing the averages and standard deviations on exams doesn't really give you an indicator of what your final grade will be.

141 sounded interesting to me, but I realized that I didn't really like this class much. A lot of the stuff is very similar to 102. He was a good lecturer, and he actually assigns book problems (something I'm not used to anymore). That can either help you or screw you over. For me, it was a little bit of the latter. The MATLAB project we had to do at the end kinda sucked, especially since it had no relevance to material on the final. I heard Balakrishnan (sp?) teaches this class too, and I'm sure you've heard the infamous stories of him. Take this class with Tabuada if you need it.

His lectures are great and very straight forward. He writes very clearly on the board. I think a lot of students found his tests a bit challenging though.