Professor
Dennis Briggs
1 of 2
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - One aspect of this class that other reviewers might've forgotten about is that this class is extremely front loaded. The first few weeks are a *lot* of work. You have to take a quiz at 8 AM, watch the lecture, do the extremely challenging homework assignment, do a prelab, then a lab every single week for the first 4 weeks. However, after the first 4 weeks, it gets significantly easier. There are no longer required labs and prelabs meaning you only have the quiz and the homework to worry about each week. You get 5-6 weeks to work on the car although you could reasonably do the project within a week and over a 3-day weekend if you really have to cram it. Near the last 1-2 weeks, he dropped the homework and quizzes entirely to allow us to work on our cars which meant the workload became extremely light/next to none near the end. That being said, I think class is too difficult for this to be an effective intro to EE. I don't mean this gading-wise as there is significant opportunity for extra credit and you will likely get an A even if you fail the quizzes, but the pacing is too fast for someone who has never done node voltage analysis, Thevenin's theorem, or other analog EE stuff before. For a CS analogy, it'd be like going from a "Hello world" on the first day to writing multithreaded programs by week 4. It's just too much too quickly for the first few weeks. Because of how quick the pacing is and how difficult the quizzes and homeworks are, it's reasonable that you might end up disliking EE altogether because you just get thrown into this. The professor and the TAs themselves are actually quite nice and there are plenty of opportunities for office hours. He even gives you his phone number so you can literally text him for help outside of office hours or lecture if you need it. The homework is extremely challenging even though it's only one problem a week and you will need it to do it with a study group and/or get help from OH for it. The lectures are fine although he does not usually do worked examples of problems so it's hard to understand new techniques he introduces without seeing him work through it. He does talk slowly during the lectures so if there is an option of watching the recorded version, I'd opt for that instead. The final project is not too bad and the report is quite short (around 1-2 pages) so you get a lot of time to do it. TL;DR Nice, helpful professor; class is front-loaded, goes from hard to easy; grading is easy but the pacing is too quick and the material is just dumped on you; final project isn't too bad and you get a lot of time for it.
Spring 2021 - One aspect of this class that other reviewers might've forgotten about is that this class is extremely front loaded. The first few weeks are a *lot* of work. You have to take a quiz at 8 AM, watch the lecture, do the extremely challenging homework assignment, do a prelab, then a lab every single week for the first 4 weeks. However, after the first 4 weeks, it gets significantly easier. There are no longer required labs and prelabs meaning you only have the quiz and the homework to worry about each week. You get 5-6 weeks to work on the car although you could reasonably do the project within a week and over a 3-day weekend if you really have to cram it. Near the last 1-2 weeks, he dropped the homework and quizzes entirely to allow us to work on our cars which meant the workload became extremely light/next to none near the end. That being said, I think class is too difficult for this to be an effective intro to EE. I don't mean this gading-wise as there is significant opportunity for extra credit and you will likely get an A even if you fail the quizzes, but the pacing is too fast for someone who has never done node voltage analysis, Thevenin's theorem, or other analog EE stuff before. For a CS analogy, it'd be like going from a "Hello world" on the first day to writing multithreaded programs by week 4. It's just too much too quickly for the first few weeks. Because of how quick the pacing is and how difficult the quizzes and homeworks are, it's reasonable that you might end up disliking EE altogether because you just get thrown into this. The professor and the TAs themselves are actually quite nice and there are plenty of opportunities for office hours. He even gives you his phone number so you can literally text him for help outside of office hours or lecture if you need it. The homework is extremely challenging even though it's only one problem a week and you will need it to do it with a study group and/or get help from OH for it. The lectures are fine although he does not usually do worked examples of problems so it's hard to understand new techniques he introduces without seeing him work through it. He does talk slowly during the lectures so if there is an option of watching the recorded version, I'd opt for that instead. The final project is not too bad and the report is quite short (around 1-2 pages) so you get a lot of time to do it. TL;DR Nice, helpful professor; class is front-loaded, goes from hard to easy; grading is easy but the pacing is too quick and the material is just dumped on you; final project isn't too bad and you get a lot of time for it.
AD
Most Helpful Review
all the reviews that say he's by the book are completely true. everything was from the book. the homework, extra credit, midterm questions, final... just read the book, do all the homework and go through the examples because its what he goes over in class. it's really easy to over study for this class because he could make it a lot harder than he does.
all the reviews that say he's by the book are completely true. everything was from the book. the homework, extra credit, midterm questions, final... just read the book, do all the homework and go through the examples because its what he goes over in class. it's really easy to over study for this class because he could make it a lot harder than he does.
Most Helpful Review
Briggs was straight up by the book, no curve balls or anything. I went to class probably three times and did really well. He offered three extra credit assignments which can boost your grade by a +/- for each one, so effectively one whole grade if you do all three. If your'e good at working out of the book then you should have no problem at all.
Briggs was straight up by the book, no curve balls or anything. I went to class probably three times and did really well. He offered three extra credit assignments which can boost your grade by a +/- for each one, so effectively one whole grade if you do all three. If your'e good at working out of the book then you should have no problem at all.
AD
Most Helpful Review
An extremely caring professor that will go out of his way to make sure you can complete the given task. Now in terms of the task, thats a different story. Major props to Briggs for opening the lab up a million times so we'd have no excuse to not be done with our project. Not major props to him for leaving us in the dry to figure out a million things on our own. After about 4 sessions (at most 15 hours) dealing with assembly, we had to jump head first into our project. Yes we had 2 quizzes to test our understanding, but even the mediocre grades didn't keep him from continuing progress. I will give him some appreciation though, he really would stick it out when you had an issue and try to help you figure it out. I just wished he was more familiar with the DSP so that solving the problem didn't take 4 effin hours. In the end, the final project presentation and demo is really what will earn your grade here. Luckily, thats the only thing I really cared about and really pushed to show my understanding and expertise of. Plus I think he may be a pity/lenient grader. Wear some nice clothes when you do it, always helps. He's rather sharp looking himself. Overall grade: A Extra time spent in the lab each week: ~4 hours
An extremely caring professor that will go out of his way to make sure you can complete the given task. Now in terms of the task, thats a different story. Major props to Briggs for opening the lab up a million times so we'd have no excuse to not be done with our project. Not major props to him for leaving us in the dry to figure out a million things on our own. After about 4 sessions (at most 15 hours) dealing with assembly, we had to jump head first into our project. Yes we had 2 quizzes to test our understanding, but even the mediocre grades didn't keep him from continuing progress. I will give him some appreciation though, he really would stick it out when you had an issue and try to help you figure it out. I just wished he was more familiar with the DSP so that solving the problem didn't take 4 effin hours. In the end, the final project presentation and demo is really what will earn your grade here. Luckily, thats the only thing I really cared about and really pushed to show my understanding and expertise of. Plus I think he may be a pity/lenient grader. Wear some nice clothes when you do it, always helps. He's rather sharp looking himself. Overall grade: A Extra time spent in the lab each week: ~4 hours
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2018 - This is a great class for senior design. The workload consists of 4 labs, 2 mini-projects, and 1 project proposal for EE 113DB. You get one week for each lab and two weeks for each mini-project. If you don't fool around in class and focus completing the labs, you'll be able to complete the labs/projects in class. So you pretty much get zero homework and no work outside class if you put in the effort during class. The only problem I found with classmates struggling is that they did not have a strong math background. If you understand periodic wave signals and sampling, then this class is s breeze.
Fall 2018 - This is a great class for senior design. The workload consists of 4 labs, 2 mini-projects, and 1 project proposal for EE 113DB. You get one week for each lab and two weeks for each mini-project. If you don't fool around in class and focus completing the labs, you'll be able to complete the labs/projects in class. So you pretty much get zero homework and no work outside class if you put in the effort during class. The only problem I found with classmates struggling is that they did not have a strong math background. If you understand periodic wave signals and sampling, then this class is s breeze.
AD
1 of 2
