Professor
Puneet Gupta
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Most Helpful Review
I think his tests were all pretty fair and that the averages should have been much higher. I'm not one of the people that did really well in this class either, I got a B. Maybe the reason the scores were so low was because of the ambiguity of some of the questions? He was not bad at teaching but sometimes it was hard to understand what he was saying because of his accent/fast talk.
I think his tests were all pretty fair and that the averages should have been much higher. I'm not one of the people that did really well in this class either, I got a B. Maybe the reason the scores were so low was because of the ambiguity of some of the questions? He was not bad at teaching but sometimes it was hard to understand what he was saying because of his accent/fast talk.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - In the wise words of Gracie Abrams: "Made it out alive, but I think I lost it". Hindsight is 20-20, and if I'm being honest this class was pretty doable with the single exception of the second midterm (average was a 56, MT1 average was a 66 and Final average 79). Dislcaimer: I scored top 10 on MT1 and the final, but I was definitely in the trenches throughout this class. The grading curve is pretty generous: 80% or above is an A, and if you're just shooting for a C to pass you just need a 50%, which is fairly doable. On the flip side, any class with that type of grading scale should be expected to be brutally difficult. It starts out pretty smooth with RLC circuits (review of Physics 1B and 1C), source transformations and Thevenin equivalents (somewhat tough, but no calculus so that's a win), and first and second order circuits (which double down on everything you learned in differential equations). Unfortunately it quickly jumps out the window when we get to diodes, transistors, op amps, CMOS logic, and all the other nonsense that real electrical engineers don't get to until halfway through their major. It's pretty impossible to have any real intuition for these topics, and like most upper divs, you quickly depart from what textbooks, Google, and ChatGPT are capable of answering. Those of us lucky enough to not be an ECE major get the pleasure of this fuck-ass class that crams entirely too much information in 10 weeks and eclipses what most of my ECE friends know how to do by this point in their major. In terms of the professor himself, he's alright. Like all engineering professors, he's frequently and unapologetically late, but thankfully most classes were underway within 5 to 10 minutes after the top of the hour. Some classes even ended 10-20 minutes early depending on if we were at a good stopping point. Our class was in Boelter 3400, so he used whiteboard markers. His handwriting is pretty shit and pretty small, which combined with a dying marker means sometimes the lectures are tough to follow. Handwritten lecture notes and audio recordings were available on Piazza and BruinCast respectively - again, sloppy handwriting, but you can follow along in a pinch. Gupta's shining quality is his patience - he will answer the same question as many times as you want, and will happily bring the entire lecture to a grinding halt in that pursuit. If you're feeling lost, it's a reprieve. But if you're lucky enough to know what's going on in that exact moment, it can be excruciating to hear him repeatedly answer the same exact question. He also sometimes anticipate the questions people ask before they finish, which comes off as a little rude. He and his TAs respond pretty quickly on Piazza, and he offers Office Hours which are a great opportunity to review. Bottom Line: his teaching skills are questionable, but he genuinely cares about his students learning the material. I got an A in this class, which is a privilege most people don't have. Reading the textbook (pretty piratable if you know where to look) makes a big difference in understanding the formulas or seeing the more advanced applications of components. The practice exams (for the most part) are pretty true to the exams. And with the midterm exams being so low, the teaching team definitely elected to ease up on the difficulty for the final. Lock in, go to office hours, and pray to the ECE gods. This will hopefully be your last ECE class you ever take at this school, so regardless of what grade you get, I just hope it's painless.
Fall 2024 - In the wise words of Gracie Abrams: "Made it out alive, but I think I lost it". Hindsight is 20-20, and if I'm being honest this class was pretty doable with the single exception of the second midterm (average was a 56, MT1 average was a 66 and Final average 79). Dislcaimer: I scored top 10 on MT1 and the final, but I was definitely in the trenches throughout this class. The grading curve is pretty generous: 80% or above is an A, and if you're just shooting for a C to pass you just need a 50%, which is fairly doable. On the flip side, any class with that type of grading scale should be expected to be brutally difficult. It starts out pretty smooth with RLC circuits (review of Physics 1B and 1C), source transformations and Thevenin equivalents (somewhat tough, but no calculus so that's a win), and first and second order circuits (which double down on everything you learned in differential equations). Unfortunately it quickly jumps out the window when we get to diodes, transistors, op amps, CMOS logic, and all the other nonsense that real electrical engineers don't get to until halfway through their major. It's pretty impossible to have any real intuition for these topics, and like most upper divs, you quickly depart from what textbooks, Google, and ChatGPT are capable of answering. Those of us lucky enough to not be an ECE major get the pleasure of this fuck-ass class that crams entirely too much information in 10 weeks and eclipses what most of my ECE friends know how to do by this point in their major. In terms of the professor himself, he's alright. Like all engineering professors, he's frequently and unapologetically late, but thankfully most classes were underway within 5 to 10 minutes after the top of the hour. Some classes even ended 10-20 minutes early depending on if we were at a good stopping point. Our class was in Boelter 3400, so he used whiteboard markers. His handwriting is pretty shit and pretty small, which combined with a dying marker means sometimes the lectures are tough to follow. Handwritten lecture notes and audio recordings were available on Piazza and BruinCast respectively - again, sloppy handwriting, but you can follow along in a pinch. Gupta's shining quality is his patience - he will answer the same question as many times as you want, and will happily bring the entire lecture to a grinding halt in that pursuit. If you're feeling lost, it's a reprieve. But if you're lucky enough to know what's going on in that exact moment, it can be excruciating to hear him repeatedly answer the same exact question. He also sometimes anticipate the questions people ask before they finish, which comes off as a little rude. He and his TAs respond pretty quickly on Piazza, and he offers Office Hours which are a great opportunity to review. Bottom Line: his teaching skills are questionable, but he genuinely cares about his students learning the material. I got an A in this class, which is a privilege most people don't have. Reading the textbook (pretty piratable if you know where to look) makes a big difference in understanding the formulas or seeing the more advanced applications of components. The practice exams (for the most part) are pretty true to the exams. And with the midterm exams being so low, the teaching team definitely elected to ease up on the difficulty for the final. Lock in, go to office hours, and pray to the ECE gods. This will hopefully be your last ECE class you ever take at this school, so regardless of what grade you get, I just hope it's painless.
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Most Helpful Review
Lectures are horrible. He's extremely talented at putting people to sleep. Lectures follow the textbook pretty closely, but quizzes and tests seem to have next to nothing to do with anything. They cover the topics covered in class, but the questions themselves are often something obscure and never mentioned. By week 5 or so, only half the class show up to lectures. Take at your own risk.
Lectures are horrible. He's extremely talented at putting people to sleep. Lectures follow the textbook pretty closely, but quizzes and tests seem to have next to nothing to do with anything. They cover the topics covered in class, but the questions themselves are often something obscure and never mentioned. By week 5 or so, only half the class show up to lectures. Take at your own risk.
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