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.

This class is interesting, to say the least. I personally didn't like the professor that much; his notes were always messy and unclear at times, all homework and exams were pretty hard and the textbook tended to have not many good examples for the types of questions we were given, and he was overall not clear/helpful when directly asked. My TA, Alexander, was outstanding. His discussion sections were great for getting good examples and a general review of what the professor taught poorly.

Most people rate this class great due to the pre-applied curve, that is if you get over a 50%, that is passing (C-). Although it is nice, the grading is extremely strict, especially that they will take OFF points if you put wrong work down, so you could technically get negative points (yes you read that right). Midterms are only one hour, and the final was only 2 hours instead of the allotted 3, which made it a time crunch for the amount of questions given. As long as you do well on the homework and aim to get 50% on the exam, you'll be good grade wise, but the class was a pain to get through in the very least.

Last thing, the material for the last three weeks of the course is extremely rushed if taken in the Winter quarter due to the holidays, but half of the final was on it. I would recommend taking it Spring as it has the least amount of holidays, so discussions and lectures aren't cut short.

Easiest ECE 100 you could ever find. 90+ is A+. Midterms and finals are straightforward and easy.

The professor was 5-10 mins late every day. Lectures were not the most clear but they got the job done. Homework was fine. Tests were rushed for time and a bit difficult but solvable once you find out a trick to simplify the problems. They allow a cheat sheet. Part of this being so manageable is that we had the best TA ever thank you Alex G