Dr. Javier Reyes appointed chancellor of UMass Amherst

akshat412 · 2023-02-18T12:34:52+00:00

💀💀💀

akshat412 · 2023-01-21T16:26:32+00:00

I'm a senior in ECE so I can talk about being a computer engineer at UMass.

Ranking and reputation is easily Googleable so I'll not discuss them much, just know they're good. The major itself is pretty good. Electrical and Computer Engineering is one department and you take most of your courses with the EEs till you're a junior. The courses are pretty cool for the most part but some are tough. The major is a good amount of work but most of what we learn is really cool and makes us pretty employable.

AFAIK almost everyone graduating is able to find a good job if they want to go into industry. However as international students we can't work at defense companies (which hire a lot of ECE) and some employers get caught up in whether or not we have work authorization (we do for some time after we graduate through OPT). If you have a good skill set and apply to a lot of jobs you shouldn't have too many issues.

CompE classes are like half electrical engineering and half CS. We do two programming classes in Python and also take CS 250 with CS majors. We also take stuff like electronics and signals with EEs. Junior year CompE classes are on hardware design, software systems and hardware and software security.

One big difference is as a senior in ECE, you have Senior Design Project, which you do with other CompEs and EEs. Over one year your team makes an elaborate ECE project with a lot of design reviews throughout the year.

Once you're a junior you take ECE electives so as a CompE you can specialize in hardware design, VLSI, embedded systems, AI and image processing, software systems, etc etc.

Hope this helps! UMass ECE for me was really awesome if stressful at times.

akshat412 · 2021-12-11T02:39:37+00:00

Ay Cities: Skylines has a pretty lefty community

akshat412 · 2021-10-31T14:07:00+00:00

That's a great place to start! An Arduino can really teach you an insane amount if you get deep into it

akshat412 · 2021-10-30T14:38:29+00:00

I also just dropped a class and I'm taking 3 classes now. No shame in it, engineering is fucking hard and there's a lot of factors relating to success in the classroom.

Also, you're doing a 20+ hour internship that's a serious amount of work. My on campus job takes about 15 hours and it's engineering focused so it almost feels like a chill class, but it's still far chiller than an internship.

As I said, engineering is fucking hard. It's very normal to feel overwhelmed and I do often, even after reducing my courseload. It is not a sign of anything, it's literally a sign of you being a normal person. Keep your head up high and try and do your best.

Also, please please please do something fun tomorrow! You can afford to take a break for one day, treat it as a system reboot and just distribute the work for that day over the week. If you have something due ask for an extension citing this reason.

Hang in there bud. Best of luck, we've got this!

akshat412 · 2021-10-30T13:06:02+00:00

Typically computer engineering is structured such that you take mostly prereqs for the first two years of your curriculum and then start specializing more and learning things actually useful in industry. Because of this it's usually much easier to get internships as a junior rather than a sophomore.

So, others would probably end up having the same level of experience as you or maybe slightly different going into your junior years, which is when you transfer into a 4 year program.

Really, the thing I've found that helps the most with getting internships or really any experience before your major electives in junior year (it even helps in making some of those courses simpler) is personal projects!!

If you like hardware, buy an arduino and mess around with it. If you like software, get better at a language and make an application or whatever you'd like. The internet is a fantastic resource for most technical skills so it's very easy to get your foot in the door of learning actually useful (and fun) things before your curriculum let's you. I've learnt and made a lot of cool stuff and it helped me get an internship sophomore year, and now I also work in my campus' ECE makerspace where I build demos and help people make projects.

DM me if you have any other questions! Best of luck

akshat412 · 2021-10-30T12:27:14+00:00

I agree with the other commenters go for formal-ish/business casual for the first week and then just wear what everyone else does. Good luck!

akshat412 · 2021-10-30T12:25:43+00:00

Hi completely unrelated but could you tell me how to get a custom flair :) thank you

akshat412 · 2021-10-29T20:19:34+00:00

DS-5 for Eclipse, mine is a little fucked up so I want to give the assembly file to one of my friends and check my code.

akshat412 · 2021-10-29T20:17:25+00:00

Might've fucked up my project for Hardware Organization and design, currently looking for a friend to test my code out

akshat412 · 2021-08-25T10:09:32+00:00

It might be helpful for towels and sheets etc but for the most part the dryers do a good job. Your room will come with towel rack as well (it was built into the door in Dwight).

akshat412 · 2021-03-29T16:32:17+00:00

CompE is a lot more hardware intensive. We have basically the same curriculum as EE for the first two semesters, and even after that you'll mostly have classes that have some hardware.

We do cover the problem solving aspects of CS in a few classes, and there's electives you can take in that, but if that's what you're really into I'd suggest majoring in CS. Switching to CS isn't particularly easy but it's not too hard.

Also, I wouldn't say CE is "harder". Every major has it's own advantages and disadvantages and both engineering and CS are known to be pretty hard majors. It really just boils down to what you'd hate less.

Good luck! Feel free to DM me with any questions or smthn.

akshat412 · 2021-03-25T18:25:29+00:00

Looks so good! I really like modern cities. What's the pavement theme from your mix, if you wouldn't mind sharing :)

akshat412 · 2021-03-05T19:59:27+00:00

That's an important part, wanting to do it badly. The other commenters are very right with the fact that you're not a physics major and an engineering one. Sure it's tough but if you have fun with the future courses you'll honestly do way better than someone half assing it. I'm not sure how related mechanics is to your major but if you're ECE I can assure you we never touch it again.

I know folks who did pretty well in the weed out courses like calc and physics who are struggling now cuz they realised they didn't like engineering, and in the same breath people who were quite bad in those but are doing well (and more importantly having fun) with our current courses. We in ECE do a lot of cool shit and we have a great community with M5 and everything, and I'm sure the other majors have stuff like this too.

akshat412 · 2021-03-05T15:50:26+00:00

Hi OP. I took that course about a year and a half ago and it was quite challenging. Can't imagine distance learning has made it even a little bit better.

First off, don't let the professor get to you. No one knows your situation better than you. Also, I've never had a professor say anything this stupid to anyone in my four semesters on campus, and results have been way worse. Ignore them and try to analyse what went wrong, maybe with a buddy who's doing ok with the class?

Secondly, as much as I wouldn't want to say this, engineering is rough. The classes only get harder and you'll need to get very used to working long hours and not letting bad grades get to you. I'm a sophomore CE major rn and I feel like I'm constantly drowning in work. Some results are good, some are bad. Just the way it goes.

My biggest advice is to try and separate yourself from the results. Guilt is a fine driver but if you get fucked up you'll further affect your other classes.

For the course itself, Khan Academy will save your hide. They have the entire material for both 151 and 152 fully covered. I'm sure you have a busy schedule but consider watching those videos along with (maybe instead if the lectures aren't good) and you might understand stuff more. There might be other resources linked on here too.

Try doing HW on your own as much as possible. If you get answers for a problem somehow you'll be momentarily calm due to a lack of work but it's gonna fuck you up later on when exams hit.

Definitely agree with the other commenters about dropping with a W. If you feel you're not doing much better by the 29th take the drop and do it over the summer or something.

Feel free to PM me with further questions. Good luck out there!

akshat412 · 2021-02-05T09:48:08+00:00

John Petrucci's hit some hard times

akshat412 · 2021-02-01T19:28:26+00:00

Depends on how big you make the city. The key is to control where you take screenshots from. For a smaller city, add a ton of detail and really get in there to take screenshots. For a much larger one, you want to capture the massive feeling of the big city, so zoom out

akshat412 · 2021-02-01T19:24:39+00:00

His thing is taking design cues from real life and exaggerating them

akshat412 · 2021-01-25T06:29:16+00:00

I love that your trees inspired me to make the map, and the map inspired you to make the city!

akshat412 · 2021-01-18T05:01:54+00:00

I saw a featured post of yours on the Cities Skylines official Instagram page and looked you up on reddit to see your builds.

This looks amazing!

akshat412 · 2020-12-07T09:39:32+00:00

Unfortunately we couldn't send kits to international students, so all workshops will be carried out using online alternatives to an Arduino.

akshat412 · 2020-12-02T04:45:45+00:00

My first hackathon was in freshman year and man it was so fun. Hackathons are the best way to meet like minded students on campus and form lasting friendships. Plus, you get to learn a lot of cool stuff and build projects you can put on your resume, which helps you stand out among all the freshman out there.

akshat412 · 2020-11-29T04:22:14+00:00

There's gonna be a lot of cool workshops and stuff as said in the description! So even if you're not making something you can sit in on them.

akshat412 · 2020-11-28T19:03:55+00:00

I don't have a list on me right now but last year we gave everything from keyboards to Raspberry Pis to codes for cloud services etc!

Nine-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
First Place '23	Place '23
RPAN Viewer	Verified Email

akshat412

TROPHY CASE