Professor

Paulo Tabuada

AD
3.6
Overall Ratings
Based on 26 Users
Easiness 2.9 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 3.3 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 3.6 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.9 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (26)

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March 20, 2010
Quarter: N/A
Grade: N/A

Professor Tabuada is an extreme effective professor. He's organized, he does a good job explaining concepts, and he really wants to make sure that everybody understands. He doesn't grade on a true curve, but as long as you get at least a 87.5% on everything, you get an A. The tests are pretty fair and theres one midterm and final, but the MATLAB project was relatively confusing and he did not really help that much. You definitely want to read the assigned reading before lecture to fully understand the material in the class.

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Nov. 4, 2018
Quarter: Spring 2017
Grade: A-

Professor Tabuada explains the material clearly. He really cares about students' understanding of the material. His project is a little bit tough so he is very willing to help you if you start the project early, so please start the project as soon as assigned so you would have time to ask equations. He expects students to understand the basic concept of the course so as long as you attend class and pay attention I promise you, you at least get B+.

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July 10, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A

An ok class. I felt like reading the book and attending discussions with an engaging TA was much better than attending lectures TBH...it's hard to read his handwriting and I got lost many times until I figured out what he was going on about from the readings. He posted his notes online but again the handwriting is not the best. Start the MATLAB project early since it is 20% of the grade. The midterm had weird modeling physics questions that was not in the homework. If you do the homework, project, and attempt the exams, you will pass. Overall 6/10.

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July 1, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+

He says the class is straight scale, but I feel like it's not. He must have a more lenient scale for final grades, because there's no way I could've gotten an A+ without it. He's a good lecturer but has bad handwriting, so definitely ask for clarification. Even though he posts his notes from lectures, it's kind of hard to decipher, so either ask someone who attended lecture or go to class lol. The homeworks are pretty fair, you'll have to use some MATLAB. (tbh i found MATLAB really helpful checking homework) The final project uses Simulink, and there's an extra credit project that combines ECE113 and ECE141 material. Definitely start on the final project early. Even though it's not that bad, the spec isn't very clear so you'll need a lot of clarification throughout the process. I didn't do the extra credit project personally, but many people did and said it wasn't too bad. His exams use wack physics concepts like remembering inductance, moment of inertia, and angular velocity, etc. They're not horrible, definitely do previous exams, the homework, and try to understand the material.

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Oct. 27, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+

I thought I should have gotten a C+ but wound up with an A+, not quite sure how that happened.
-Do the final EC project
-The material you learn is pretty theoretical but its still an interesting class.

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 11, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A+

I took this class during Spring 2020, so COVID and stuff. 141 is overall an okay class. There's a bit of Physics 1A that you need to remember for the equations of motion (question on this on both midterm and final). I would consider that everything in this class is challenging, but doable. The final project for us was modelling coronavirus in Simulink (very apt for this quarter), which I thought was pretty doable for a final project. The only thing that saves ur grade for this class is his very generous grading curve. You only need an 87.5% to get an A, a 81.25% for an A-, and a 75% for a B. However, we didn't have the EC project that other classes seemed to have

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 17, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

I found 141 to be an interesting class, especially as we neared the end and a shift in focus to design explained why we chose to study these topics. That said, I wish that shift had come earlier. The pace of the class felt very slow, although that didn't correspond to a solid understanding of what we were doing until I started watching youtube videos (all hail, Brian Douglas).
Tabuada was solid - could be a bit hard to follow, and frequently spoke without writing, but he made sense, he did examples, he didn't move to fast, and his grading was incredibly lenient (at least with this set of TA's). Would recommend.
HW was super helpful for understanding what we were working on in class, and the final project was interesting and relevant to COVID, but also painful in the number of approximations (that made little sense outside the scope of the project) you had to make for it to be manageable.

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 21, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

I took this class because I thought it would be a cool elective with a pretty lenient grading scheme. But I ended up finding the material for this class to be pretty dry and uninteresting. For the most part this class is pretty mathematical and abstract. If you liked stuff like 102 or 113 maybe this class is for you. But if you like classes more grounded in application and less about mathematical theory you're probably gonna be disappointed.

That being said, the grading for this class did end up being pretty lenient. Don't take this to mean the class itself is easy though. The material isn't a cakewalk to understand, and the exams (especially the final) were kinda rough, and easy to mess up on. Be ready to tackle seemingly random physics questions on the exams too. The homeworks also tended to be rather confusing and would take a while.

Lastly, Tabuada as a professor is pretty helpful and very receptive to answering any questions students have. He even does MATLAB demos, which pretty much no other EE professor does. However, his lectures aren't particularly engaging, and they can be pretty hard to follow at times. His handwriting is also kind of confusing and not easy to make sense of, so that doesn't help much. Ultimately, I didn't find lectures sufficient to understand the material, so watching youtube videos and looking over homework solutions is what ended up getting me through it.

Overall, an average class. I didn't really enjoy it, but there are worse classes you could take.

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
March 20, 2021
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A+

Prof. Tabuada is very nice and funny. He covers up to frequency compensation and a brief introduction to digital control, which I've heard is less than teachers such as Shoarinejad. He explains the material carefully and logically, and takes questions and is pretty funny. His handwriting can be a bit hard to read occasionally, as he write on a tablet. The grading scale is very generous. I dont think his tests were incredibly hard. The frequency compensation stuff was pretty confusing though. Definitely take this class if you are into circuits, since circuit design of feedback amplifiers are very important. Highly reccomend.

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June 24, 2019
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+

This class is not that hard to get an A in, but that does not mean the class is easy. He doesn't have a curve and grades on a straight scale. The performance of your peers does not affect your grade. Tabuada's lectures are not that helpful because he doesn't explain things well. I suggest not even going to class and then watching YouTube videos instead. Often I would go to class and get very confused, then ended up watching YouTube videos. Watching videos from these channels was enough to substitute going to class.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmK1EnKxphikZ4mmCz2NccSnHZb7v1wV-

https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures/videos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWPirh4EWFpGpH_Rb6Q4iQ6vGGRA6MORZ

Homeworks okay. There are solutions, but the solutions are often unclear. I got full credit on all homework except the first one where I got marked off a few points. Maybe the grader was hard for that one. The project is okay. I got full credit on that one. There was also an extra credit assignment for people who were also in or already took EC ENGR 113, but it didn't really need EC ENGR 113 since the only EC ENGR 113 part was just using a filter function to take noise out of a wave. I got 5/5 on that and boosted my grade 5%. So if my raw score percentage grade was 85, it would now be 90 after the extra credit. I believe this is the first time he offered extra credit.

Exams are hard, but are predictable for the most part as long as you do his past exams. It often involves modeling a differential equation, which he doesn't cover that well and give much practice on. Just do his past exams and then they grade pretty generously and give lots of partial credit. You only need like an 80% average on the exams (assuming you don't do the extra credit) to get an A as long as you get mostly full credit on everything else.

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EC ENGR 141
Quarter: N/A
Grade: N/A
March 20, 2010

Professor Tabuada is an extreme effective professor. He's organized, he does a good job explaining concepts, and he really wants to make sure that everybody understands. He doesn't grade on a true curve, but as long as you get at least a 87.5% on everything, you get an A. The tests are pretty fair and theres one midterm and final, but the MATLAB project was relatively confusing and he did not really help that much. You definitely want to read the assigned reading before lecture to fully understand the material in the class.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
EC ENGR 141
Quarter: Spring 2017
Grade: A-
Nov. 4, 2018

Professor Tabuada explains the material clearly. He really cares about students' understanding of the material. His project is a little bit tough so he is very willing to help you if you start the project early, so please start the project as soon as assigned so you would have time to ask equations. He expects students to understand the basic concept of the course so as long as you attend class and pay attention I promise you, you at least get B+.

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EC ENGR 141
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A
July 10, 2019

An ok class. I felt like reading the book and attending discussions with an engaging TA was much better than attending lectures TBH...it's hard to read his handwriting and I got lost many times until I figured out what he was going on about from the readings. He posted his notes online but again the handwriting is not the best. Start the MATLAB project early since it is 20% of the grade. The midterm had weird modeling physics questions that was not in the homework. If you do the homework, project, and attempt the exams, you will pass. Overall 6/10.

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EC ENGR 141
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+
July 1, 2019

He says the class is straight scale, but I feel like it's not. He must have a more lenient scale for final grades, because there's no way I could've gotten an A+ without it. He's a good lecturer but has bad handwriting, so definitely ask for clarification. Even though he posts his notes from lectures, it's kind of hard to decipher, so either ask someone who attended lecture or go to class lol. The homeworks are pretty fair, you'll have to use some MATLAB. (tbh i found MATLAB really helpful checking homework) The final project uses Simulink, and there's an extra credit project that combines ECE113 and ECE141 material. Definitely start on the final project early. Even though it's not that bad, the spec isn't very clear so you'll need a lot of clarification throughout the process. I didn't do the extra credit project personally, but many people did and said it wasn't too bad. His exams use wack physics concepts like remembering inductance, moment of inertia, and angular velocity, etc. They're not horrible, definitely do previous exams, the homework, and try to understand the material.

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EC ENGR 141
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+
Oct. 27, 2019

I thought I should have gotten a C+ but wound up with an A+, not quite sure how that happened.
-Do the final EC project
-The material you learn is pretty theoretical but its still an interesting class.

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A+
June 11, 2020

I took this class during Spring 2020, so COVID and stuff. 141 is overall an okay class. There's a bit of Physics 1A that you need to remember for the equations of motion (question on this on both midterm and final). I would consider that everything in this class is challenging, but doable. The final project for us was modelling coronavirus in Simulink (very apt for this quarter), which I thought was pretty doable for a final project. The only thing that saves ur grade for this class is his very generous grading curve. You only need an 87.5% to get an A, a 81.25% for an A-, and a 75% for a B. However, we didn't have the EC project that other classes seemed to have

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 17, 2020

I found 141 to be an interesting class, especially as we neared the end and a shift in focus to design explained why we chose to study these topics. That said, I wish that shift had come earlier. The pace of the class felt very slow, although that didn't correspond to a solid understanding of what we were doing until I started watching youtube videos (all hail, Brian Douglas).
Tabuada was solid - could be a bit hard to follow, and frequently spoke without writing, but he made sense, he did examples, he didn't move to fast, and his grading was incredibly lenient (at least with this set of TA's). Would recommend.
HW was super helpful for understanding what we were working on in class, and the final project was interesting and relevant to COVID, but also painful in the number of approximations (that made little sense outside the scope of the project) you had to make for it to be manageable.

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 21, 2020

I took this class because I thought it would be a cool elective with a pretty lenient grading scheme. But I ended up finding the material for this class to be pretty dry and uninteresting. For the most part this class is pretty mathematical and abstract. If you liked stuff like 102 or 113 maybe this class is for you. But if you like classes more grounded in application and less about mathematical theory you're probably gonna be disappointed.

That being said, the grading for this class did end up being pretty lenient. Don't take this to mean the class itself is easy though. The material isn't a cakewalk to understand, and the exams (especially the final) were kinda rough, and easy to mess up on. Be ready to tackle seemingly random physics questions on the exams too. The homeworks also tended to be rather confusing and would take a while.

Lastly, Tabuada as a professor is pretty helpful and very receptive to answering any questions students have. He even does MATLAB demos, which pretty much no other EE professor does. However, his lectures aren't particularly engaging, and they can be pretty hard to follow at times. His handwriting is also kind of confusing and not easy to make sense of, so that doesn't help much. Ultimately, I didn't find lectures sufficient to understand the material, so watching youtube videos and looking over homework solutions is what ended up getting me through it.

Overall, an average class. I didn't really enjoy it, but there are worse classes you could take.

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EC ENGR 141
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A+
March 20, 2021

Prof. Tabuada is very nice and funny. He covers up to frequency compensation and a brief introduction to digital control, which I've heard is less than teachers such as Shoarinejad. He explains the material carefully and logically, and takes questions and is pretty funny. His handwriting can be a bit hard to read occasionally, as he write on a tablet. The grading scale is very generous. I dont think his tests were incredibly hard. The frequency compensation stuff was pretty confusing though. Definitely take this class if you are into circuits, since circuit design of feedback amplifiers are very important. Highly reccomend.

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EC ENGR 141
Quarter: Spring 2019
Grade: A+
June 24, 2019

This class is not that hard to get an A in, but that does not mean the class is easy. He doesn't have a curve and grades on a straight scale. The performance of your peers does not affect your grade. Tabuada's lectures are not that helpful because he doesn't explain things well. I suggest not even going to class and then watching YouTube videos instead. Often I would go to class and get very confused, then ended up watching YouTube videos. Watching videos from these channels was enough to substitute going to class.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmK1EnKxphikZ4mmCz2NccSnHZb7v1wV-

https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures/videos

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWPirh4EWFpGpH_Rb6Q4iQ6vGGRA6MORZ

Homeworks okay. There are solutions, but the solutions are often unclear. I got full credit on all homework except the first one where I got marked off a few points. Maybe the grader was hard for that one. The project is okay. I got full credit on that one. There was also an extra credit assignment for people who were also in or already took EC ENGR 113, but it didn't really need EC ENGR 113 since the only EC ENGR 113 part was just using a filter function to take noise out of a wave. I got 5/5 on that and boosted my grade 5%. So if my raw score percentage grade was 85, it would now be 90 after the extra credit. I believe this is the first time he offered extra credit.

Exams are hard, but are predictable for the most part as long as you do his past exams. It often involves modeling a differential equation, which he doesn't cover that well and give much practice on. Just do his past exams and then they grade pretty generously and give lots of partial credit. You only need like an 80% average on the exams (assuming you don't do the extra credit) to get an A as long as you get mostly full credit on everything else.

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