UK universities have stopped teaching analog electronics on Electronics degree courses?

[Flyback]

Hello,
A recruitment consultant told me 6 months ago that UK universities have stopped teaching analog electronics on their Electronics degree courses.
Does any reader know if this is true?

 

[ronsimpson]

Probably not true but I believe there could be little analog tough.

If the universities are not teaching much analog then you should get as much analog as you can (even outside school). When it is time for your first job you need to be different than every one.

 

[JimB]

UK universities have stopped teaching analog electronics on their Electronics degree courses.

Have a look here:
https://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk...ate/degree-electronic-engineering/index.shtml
at the sylabuses (?) for the various modules in electronic engineering at Leeds University.

Looks like plenty of analogue stuff to me.

A recruitment consultant told me

That probably tells all.
What the hell would an HR department drone know about electronics?

JimB

 

[ronsimpson]

What the hell would an HR department drone know about electronics?

This is something I learned too late in life!
He is a sails man. He does not care about you, just your money and his bonus.

Go on line and look at the class titles.

 

[Flyback]

Thanks, I went to the modules section of the leeds university uk electronics degree, and there looks to be little analog electronics, but certainly some (about 10% of the total course(?)).

There is certainly utterly no mention of smps, though in year two, there is something called "DC-DC Chopper converter Implementation with PWM control."...goodness knows what that is.?

The following modules seem to be analog electronics...

Year 1
Circuit analysis and design
Fundamentals of electrical engineering
Year 2
Energy systems and control

 

[ronsimpson]

Going to school and learning what they teach you makes you one of them.
Going to school and learning, in spite of what they teach, will make you.....you.

Read your books 1 to 2 weeks ahead of the teacher. It drives them crazy. They think you know more than you do. (don't tell anyone)
Sit in the front row, look the teacher in the eye.
Ask the hard questions.
Get the text book from a different school. Bring the right book to school. At home read the chapter in competing books. It really helps to read the same thing told a different way.
Get a used text book. Get a marked up book. It is typical to have errors in the book. Be the first to ask why............

 

[JimB]

There is certainly utterly no mention of smps,

Are they going to cover EVERY possible circuit configuration ?
No, it is not going to happen.

Learn the basics and then work out the rest as and when you need to know it.

JimB

 

[3v0]

I is often said all you learn in school is the basics and more importantly how to learn. The rest you learn on the job.

 

[Flyback]

At university in UK, a different one, we did two separate modules in year one and two which were dedicated to Switch mode power supplies.

Switch mode power supplies is the "kingpin" of analog electronics (except microwave and RF)......if you can design smps, then you are well placed to hive off into any other form of analog electronics...eg motor drives, amplifiers, instrumentation ..etc etc

smps is simple, cheap to learn, and gives the wholistic analog capability.

 

[crutschow]

If they offer a general control theory course, be sure and take that. Control (feedback) theory is fundamental to much of analog (and digital) system design. I missed taking that (way back then they called it a servo-mechanisms course) and I had a lot of catching up to do when I started working with op amps and other types of feedback control systems.

 

[Ian Rogers]

This thread has been moved as it's not really "General electronic chat"...

 

[ronsimpson]

You can get a degree in EE with out ever touching a soldering iron. Spice is to life what Dungeons & Dragons is to life.

 

[ghostman11]

as someone that has taught at university, i have the following advice. Uni isnt about teaching you a subject, uni is about giving you the tools to learn a subject. if all you know is what has been taught, then you will know little.
uni has always meant to be about learning how to learn. this over the years has been lost. most uni's have etc classes etc and guest speakers who do lectures not in the schedule, go to these, read what you can, go to your lecturers and ask questions. Look at there personal pages, just about all will list there area of research etc on the uni website. if any are doing research that appeals to you, go talk to them, most will allow you to take part or watch. be proactive.
dont expect the knowledge to be placed inside your head, go put it there.
most uni's allow the use of labs at lunchtime etc if you ask nice.
stand up in a lecture at least twice and ask a sensible well thought out question, the reason is, in order to do that first you have to read about whatever the lecture is about first i.e do your homework before each lecture so you know something about the topic first
my area isbiology but i cant see electronics being different in this respect

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

uni has always meant to be about learning how to learn. this over the years has been lost. most uni's have etc classes etc and guest speakers who do lectures not in the schedule, go to these

Strangely enough as part of my daughters Masters Degree in Chemistry they had a lecture on the XBox360 Kinect system - by the guy who designed it.

This was actually a scheduled lecture, not something she just happened to attend.

She was well impressed anyway, and enjoyed the lecture.

They also had to build an electronic circuit as well, a simple LDR and opamp, which they used to measure the light levels transmitted through a liquid - no problem there, I taught her to solder at Primary school (about 7 or 8?), and she's pretty good with a soldering iron. She did show me the circuit, but refused to take my comments (criticisms ) back - it was really pretty poorly designed.

I can't comment on the analogue side of electronics, but I do remember when we visited York University Open Day there was a really nice single PCB disco mixer designed and built by one of the electronics students - nothing 'difficult' electronics wise of course, but it was a very nicely laid out and constructed PCB.

 

[jpanhalt]

Nigel,

I agree. That is what being at good university is all about. Some people complain about not having lecture hours at some of your more famous universities (e.g., Oxford, Cambridge). To be honest, I have always considered those places that take roll at each lecture second rate.

A very good friend of mine who received his education at Cambridge (circa 1960's) recounted an anecdote about when he was asked by an American university for proof of his degree. He went to the dons at Cambridge and asked. The answer was that if he needed a piece of paper to prove he was from Cambridge, they would be embarrassed to give it to him. Of course, for practical reasons, he got the piece of paper.

John

 

[Flyback]

I wonder what happens at Cambridge University now, in UK, we rely on the French and Chinese to design and build our nuke power stations, we rely on European and American companies to make all our lights, and our Electric Drives for our battleships are designed and built in France.
Still people come from miles around to study there....some of the flats snapped up by students in the city go for 2 million pounds...such as Park Place etc.

 

[jpanhalt]

You know, Flyback, that is a good point. When I was at university, I lived there, as did my classmates. Complete immersion has advantages, regardless of what you are studying. Unfortunately, there were abuses, and limits were placed on the hours a student could be on site. Our competition does not have such limits. I find it ironic that in athletics, there are no such limits, but in academics there are. For which should our society value success more?

I am too old to fight it, but others need to consider ways to address abuse without destroying the good. My wife is fond of the phrase, "Don't throw out the baby with the wash." Unfortunately, that concept is quite foreign to some.

John

 

[Flyback]

Well I agree,
It seems unusual that students should want to live in Parkside Place as follows, which is near , but not part of the Cambridge university campus
http://www.parkside-place.com/

http://www.parkside-place.com/dl/brochure.pdf
...if you see page 10 of the brochure, you won't recognise the fire station in Cambridge, which is next door to parkside place, ....they rebuilt the fire station in the same luxury material as the apartments, since it is next to the apartments.

 

[SuperSpit]

Hi guys, I'm in first year at Coventry doing EE and I can verify that we do do analogue electronics. Indeed our first coursework (25% of the module mark) was based upon designing, building and testing an op amp circuit.

We even had a couple of lectures on the graphical method of analysing BJT's!

I would be very surprised if it was even possible for a candidate to avoid taking at least one module without analogue electronics involved.

 

[ghostman11]

edit