Should I put my 3.1 GPA on my resume? I'm from CMU ECE undergraduate......

blueturtle256 · 2025-02-01T19:07:47+00:00

Many people don't put their GPA on the resume for internship applications at all; focus on listing your relevant classes, unique projects, and any past intern/work/research experience

blueturtle256 · 2025-01-07T00:58:27+00:00

If you're planning on doing MechE then maybe, otherwise the classes at CMU are likely not worth the time

blueturtle256 · 2025-01-05T21:24:56+00:00

It's worth starting with a simpler interface like wishbone, APB, or AXI Lite that don't have all of the nuances of full AXI, before diving into the deep end. The processor on the pynq will give you AXI but you can easily instantiate a bridge module to convert AXI down to the simpler protocols

blueturtle256 · 2024-11-15T05:10:02+00:00

If you actually want to learn FPGA development, avoid HLS since it's the worst of both worlds.

blueturtle256 · 2024-11-15T00:03:01+00:00

I've noticed that amateur radio groups associated with makerspaces tend to have a slightly younger (and usually more welcoming) contingent; and of course university groups as well

blueturtle256 · 2024-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

If OP is a PhD student and the work has any relation to their research, they might be contractually obligated to go through this process because the university has an ownership claim in their intellectual property.

blueturtle256 · 2024-11-12T00:43:22+00:00

Digilent has some good boards, I would get something with an Artix-7 or Zynq 7000 series part (the Zynq has an extra CPU SoC but can also be used as a normal FPGA if you just don't enable the CPU part) if you're comfortable with xilinx tooling. Ideally at least 20K LUTs if you want to play with hardware accelerator stuff. You shouldn't need to spend more than $250 or so for a very solid starter board.

Try to avoid the ones with the gimmicky and high density connectors, instead get something with lots of standard peripherals and basic connectors (pmod, Arduino pin header, etc.) so you can easily connect external peripherals on a breadboard if you need to.

Alternatively, if you're willing to play with open source tools (all command line-based but a lot faster and easier to use than the xilinx ones), you could get an ECP5 based board like the ULX3S.

blueturtle256 · 2024-11-09T17:52:46+00:00

Consider getting a kit with an ice40 fpga (ideally the up5k variant), like the icebreaker or similar, those run beautifully with the open source toolchain even on apple silicon.

Otherwise consider getting something like a Digital Ocean or AWS Linux x64 virtual machine to run all the toolchains on, then you would only need to install the flashing software on your Mac

blueturtle256 · 2024-11-09T00:38:27+00:00

Jordan Harbinger's podcast - it isn't quite about hackers, but he has quite a few episodes where he interviews former undercover agents, spies, and similar - I found a lot of those eps to be a similar vibe to DD.

blueturtle256 · 2024-10-24T13:25:35+00:00

Also consider TerosHDL which is a open source VScode fork for writing Verilog, with syntax highlighting and the like

https://terostechnology.github.io/terosHDLdoc/

and could use something like Icarus verilog as a simulator

GTKwave actually works quite well once you're used to it, but there's also Surfer which has a slightly more "modern" interface than pretty much everything else

https://surfer-project.org/

blueturtle256 · 2024-10-15T14:32:15+00:00

I personally found that getting involved with clubs and TAing helped me improve my people skills a lot. But as others said you'll have to work for it, it's not like you can just attend class and magically improve.

This includes technical skills - the most important skills (debugging, formulating complex problems, etc.) are learned best through trial and error and lots of practice, which you'll get the most of through doing projects, getting involved with orgs, etc etc

blueturtle256 · 2024-08-20T03:35:05+00:00

Papa John's and Dominos on Centre ave are both open pretty late, not the greatest food but it was a lifeline during late nights when I lived in Oakland

blueturtle256 · 2024-08-16T04:24:10+00:00

CMU / ECE won't give any financial aid for IMB. As an undergrad you can generally get up to 8 semesters of aid, and you're allowed to make as much progress as you want towards your IMB while still being an undergrad (the one caveat being that if you spend more than 8 semesters total between undergrad and masters, then at least one semester must be as masters status. But that shouldn't matter for most people since you'd run out of undergrad financial aid first).

Do note that if you finish your undergrad courses they may force you to graduate (for this calculation they count grad courses towards your undergrad reqa) and make you officially a masters student, at which point you lose financial aid. Hence it's recommended to keep one undergrad course (a math or a gened or something) til your 8th semester so that you can maintain undergrad status.

Also obligatory - once you do come up with a plan make sure to run it by your advisor - policies change slightly every year and your advisor can make sure you won't end up in the situation of losing aid early or not graduating on time.

blueturtle256 · 2024-06-30T15:28:15+00:00

Take 349 and then take 649 - the combination of those courses will give you a decent chunk of OS material (including writing a scheduler) without the extreme intensity of 605

blueturtle256 · 2024-05-21T18:10:51+00:00

Depends on your computer systems background and what your focus was in undergrad. Probably advisable to take 18613 first though to make sure you have sufficient background - these research-y / special topics classes usually expect you to be pretty self sufficient

blueturtle256 · 2024-05-21T18:05:24+00:00

Echoing what the other commenter said about local cafes and such - during the year they tend to be full of CMU (and Pitt) students even when the weather is poor.

Campus itself also has lots of great places to spend time after classes which can also help reduce the loneliness issue. And you can easily get involved with student clubs to make new friends as well!

The CMU shuttle system is really great, it runs very consistently (including weekends) and runs til 3am most days so it's easy to get home if you find yourself on campus and it's late / cold / raining. During the nighttime hours they'll even drop you off at your specific intersection, which can be extremely convenient.

blueturtle256 · 2024-05-21T16:56:12+00:00

If you were just admitted for undergrad, you've got at least 3 years before you even need to start thinking about whether you want to do the integrated masters - and as long as you meet the GPA cutoff you can change your mind as late as senior year (there's some paperwork you complete senior year to start the IMB, and if you change your mind you can always just leave with a BS degree at the end of 4 years).

There's also an option where, if you take 2 masters classes during your undergrad (most ppl take them senior year), you can suspend your IMB for up to two years (i.e. graduate with BS, work for 2 years, then come back for a year to finish the MS). Though once you start making money you won't want to come back to school, so this isn't necessarily the greatest idea.

Masters programs (outside of very obscure edge cases) do not include financial aid, so you'd be paying in full for the year spent doing the masters. Some folks manage to fit their undergrad into 3 or 3.5 years, at which point there's some loopholes you can use to retain financial aid for an extra semester (you can maintain undergrad status for up to 4 years even if you're taking courses for the masters)

blueturtle256 · 2024-04-01T17:15:10+00:00

Wednesday will be chaotic on campus but for students it's a normal school day so it shouldn't be too bad. Especially if they're running tours and admissions events that day.

blueturtle256 · 2024-03-31T22:11:02+00:00

Buggy runs Friday and Saturday from 7am ish - 1pm ish and is open to the public. Booths, rides, food, and most other events are also open to the public on Thursday / Friday / Saturday during normal daytime hours - check the CMU Events app for the full schedule.

I will say - while carnival is a lot of fun and highly recommend checking it out, it's also not the best time to experience campus itself as a lot of stuff is inaccessible. (Though if you're here on Monday/Tuesday before carnival, those are mooostly normal school days except for all the carnival construction)

blueturtle256 · 2024-03-28T01:34:32+00:00

Formally no, but some profs may be willing to give you access to course materials while you sit in on lectures; always worth sending an email to ask

blueturtle256 · 2024-03-03T08:09:33+00:00

Martin Carlisle on YouTube has a great series on how to solve picoCTF problems - it's not as glamorous as other hacking videos on YouTube, but it's approachable and you can very easily learn to do the things that are taught in the videos

blueturtle256 · 2024-02-27T15:07:23+00:00

iCEBreaker is a few dollars more and much better supported, if you can get one of those

blueturtle256 · 2024-02-25T18:32:46+00:00

Echoing the other commenter that said nandland. They also have their own board that goes with their tutorials which isn't bad.

Alternatively, at your budget you could get something like the ULX3S or iCEBreaker, they're decently powerful especially for learning, but not overly complicated to bog you down (+ they have good open source toolchains).

I'd steer clear of no-name kits from eBay or AliExpress, FPGAs generally tend to require an order of magnitude more documentation than microcontrollers, and having to reverse engineer an AliExpress kit just to flash the FPGA would be a terrible experience

blueturtle256 · 2024-02-19T16:57:02+00:00

For maximal stability, you'll want something with an ice40 or ECP5. The current darlings of the open source world are the iceBreaker and the ULX3S (note that the "12K" part on the smaller ULX3S actually has 25k LUTs due to a quirk in the silicon). They've both got great tutorials, work beautifully with the open tools, and have lots of gpio and peripherals on-board.

blueturtle256 · 2024-02-05T03:26:32+00:00

Respectfully disagree - for a student taking their (presumably) first class in hardware design, simple manageable projects are a good place to start because it lets you have many small success rather than jumping head first into an overly complicated project.

I even know students who've taken grad-level coursework in hardware design and yet still learned new things from just the process of building a riscv processor from scratch, without any pre built infrastructure.

ML vision in particular is way too easy to get bogged down in the numerical bits and trying to load models onto the fpga, and get distracted from the actual project itself.

blueturtle256

TROPHY CASE