4 ms·
Are you my prof? If we weren't interested, we would have quit during the first semester. Our very first assignment was to design a modified Miller. After nigh
by dumpster_fire 3y ago
Are you my prof?
If we weren't interested, we would have quit during the first semester.
Our very first assignment was to design a modified Miller. After nights of struggling with the software and connecting transistors, we were then told psyche! You could've imported from the library that we've never told you about! The rest of the assignments were essentially just importing circuits and moving stuff around and hitting the simulator run. Over and over and over again. It takes a certain grit to stare at the Cadence UI for 10 hours running the simulator button to yield a random result. There's no Stack Overflow, the TA was of no help. Just learning the software alone was hell. The instructions were on printed paper that didn't work half the time. Then you have the crashes that wipe out hours of work. We didn't dare to save our work sometimes because it'd crash the software. Loading the software took forever. I genuinely hated Cadence with a passion.
I'll admit I don't have that grit. My best memory from the course was still being able to design and fabricate my own chip and PCB to go with it, and successfully converting an analog signal to digital and back. The ENOB took longer than needed to solve and it was rewarding. But I'm not doing that as a career.
Only 3 out of the original 20+ people graduated. Only one bothered to apply to semicon. The barrier of entry is high, but the educators were of abysmal quality.
- thebigwinning 3y agoI'm not endorsing bad professor games (which are real). But from my time in academia a lot of students have similar experiences about courses that just aren't for them. For example, in a state school analysis course, almost half the class decides they just need to squeeze by to graduate and maybe 5 students will enjoy it and do graduate school.
- dumpster_fire 3y agoFair point. Then again it's difficult to figure out what you are interested in in university at 18/19yo. Maybe just a vague curiosity, maybe the paycheck. But you have to actually take the course to know. I wish there's a better way.