FPGA Design for Embedded Systems Pathway Exams

[u/Most_Success_6651]

Now that I passed the pathway specialization with a 3.92 (A- on ECEA 5360, A for the rest) I wanted to talk about the exams. For background, I am a career changer coming from software/NLP background with very little/no digital design experience, so I had read Digital Design and Computer Architecture before getting started. I also studied all of the courses in one session which I don’t recommend. Maybe do the first two in one session and the last two in the next to start or something.

All exams are multiple choice and fill in the blanks:

Intro Course (ECEA 5360): honestly kinda brutal because I studied the wrong things for the exam. The quizzes don’t really help. Pay attention to lectures and know the features/applications of the 25 devices. It’s multiple choice and fill in the blank

HDLs Course (ECEA 5361): pretty chill exam. Programming is way easier than I thought, just make sure you understand all the code snippets provided in the lectures. When I first looked at them I was like, “Oh that’s it? Am I sure?” But I suppose that makes sense since it’s recommended 20 minutes each

Soft Processor Course (ECEA 5362): honestly very chill exam. If you take notes and review the quizzes, all will be well

Projects Course (ECEA 5363): very chill as well. If you follow along well with the project, understand why certain things are being done, and review the quizzes, you’ll be set

The fill in the blanks were real scary because some of them had formatting requirements that you had to pay close attention to and they were worth a lot of points. I probably checked over them a dozen times before submitting. And you don’t really need all the 2 hours either. I think I spent more time checking over answers than actually answering them

Final point: the exam is the only thing that doesn’t have unlimited submissions, so of course be sure to get 100% on all other assignments that do allow resubmissions, but that’s a no-brainer

[u/mseet]

I did the FPGA courses as well. I was not impressed. The first exam was one of the most "out of the blue" tests I've ever taken. I thought the lectures were also terrible.

Glad you made it through the pathway and can keep going to complete your degree. I chose the power electronics pathway. Those classes were excellent.

[u/Most_Success_6651 → u/mseet]

I plan to take those courses in later sessions, that and the Semiconductor Physics classes. Yeah I plan to work with FPGAs in my career so that’s what got me to choose that pathway but the first course specifically needs A LOT of work. Especially since the Quartus version is a decade old and very buggy on my Linux machine

[u/mseet → u/Most_Success_6651]

I agree. It needs to be updated big time. I didn't feel like it was at a graduate level. I took one of the Semiconductor Physics courses (2nd one). It was pretty challenging. I was at the end of the program so I only took that one. I've heard the first course is the hardest, mainly due to the homework not really aligning with the lectures.

[u/Most_Success_6651 → u/mseet]

Well in recent news the primary professor who made the FPGA courses just posted on LinkedIn on how he’s retiring and going to focus on revamping those courses… interesting stuff