Surviving Electronics and Communication Engineering: Semester 3 in a Nutshell

Let’s ace it together!

So you have just finished your very first year of college and looking forward to your third semester, where you will finally dive into your core subjects. Electronics can, at times seem too tough to handle not because it’s difficult but because you may be unaware of good learning resources. Fear not! We have got your covered!

The Summer after First Year

Your first well deserved big break and I’d just recommend you to keep exploring various things, chill and relax. Internet has made this world tiny. Attend online webinars from companies like Intel, Google, Microsoft, etc. Connect with different people across the world (LinkedIn is a good place to do that). Build a network. Follow research activities. Discuss ideas with your friends and other people alike. The most casual of interactions sometimes lead to revolutionary outcomes and if you really want to learn something, it can only be achieved by doing. You are simply fooling yourself if you are just reading some text book. The real world is quite different from how it’s portrayed in the text books.

Engineering is all about how you evolve as a human and as a critical thinker with the support of your diverse peer group under a constrained environment that the college provides you with, and not just about the academics and the curriculum you follow.

No, it’s not about electronics. It’s not about marks or grades. (OK, good grades may bring you good fortune but that doesn’t mean that bad grades will not (more on the grading system later whose impact you’ll see more during your second and third year))

And lastly, never think something is beyond your scope.

What you think is what defines your limit in such situations. New technologies can be quite intimidating.

Second year will mostly make you realize what’s meant for you and what’s not. Assuming you have explored the world enough by then, you’ll know how to proceed further and where you should go to find what you want.

Not to sound scary or something, things will automatically fall into place when you keep doing something you truly love to do. (Of course the good things only)

The Third Semester:

Our real story starts now when you actually enter into the world of electronics. I’ll just briefly take you across various subjects you will come across and how to deal with them.

Digital Electronics:

?You’ll learn about the fundamental building blocks of your computers and microprocessors. Neso Academy in YouTube is the place to go. They have a digital electronics playlist. Without a doubt, it is one of the best resources available online. Watch like 4–5 videos per day and make notes from those videos, you’ll complete the semester syllabus in 1 month with proper understanding and excellent knowledge. This is a pretty important subject compared to others even from placements point of view. Just ensure 75% attendance and spend your time more productively. Apart from those YouTube videos, referring to ‘Digital Fundamentals’ by Floyd and Jain is recommended in certain topics. Another amazing book to read for this course is ‘Digital Design’ by Morris Mano. These resources are enough to crack this course.

Key topics of this course include, flip flops, shift registers and basic principles of digital design using logic gates.

Analog Electronics/Semiconductors:

This is like extension of 12th standard diodes/transistors and related stuff. You have PN Diodes, Zener Diodes, working of different types of transistors that form the basic units of all electronic circuits around us. Once again Neso Academy YouTube channel has the best videos as far as I have explored. Semiconductors is a relatively dull subject in semester 3. If you are the studious one, you can actually complete 3/4th of Electronic Circuits (which generally comes in Semester 4) as you study semiconductors. The best book according to me would be ‘Electronic Devices’ by Thomas Floyd. Everything is clearly explained here and it has good number of problems as well. From examination point of view, it is basically class notes and few derivations you will need to study. Be careful with Unit 1 of this course.

Signals and Systems:

(Image: A few common functions, you will come across in Signals and Systems)

It’s essentially mathematics and functions related stuff. Another important subject this semester. The best text book as far as I have come across is ‘Signals and Systems’ by Anand Kumar . This may generally be available in your college library and is difficult to find online. This is like the RD Sharma of signals and systems. Solve this book properly and you will feel how easy and interesting signals and systems is. However, that book alone isn’t enough if you aim for complete knowledge. Another famous book to refer would be ‘Signals and Systems’ by Oppenheim.

Some concepts can be repetitive and are often derived from the basic fundamentals which you should be thorough in. The course broadly includes Fourier series and transforms, Laplace and Z transforms and their properties, Convolution concepts etc.(One of the most important)

The solved problems from ‘Signals and Systems’ by Hwei P Hsu which is a part of the Schaum’s outline series give an excellent exposure and practice to for better understanding.

Advice: Spend maximum time with this subject in Semester 3 as it forms the backbone of Digital Signal Processing and many other advanced concepts you will come across later.

Network Analysis and Synthesis:

It’s all about Kirchhoff's laws, circuit analysis and related topics, directly an extension of Current and Electricity you learnt in high school. Among the countless books I have come across, ‘Fundamentals of Electric Circuits’ by Charles K Alexander is the best book. It is an interesting read as well and everything is clearly explained in an algorithmic approach with proper examples. This is a relatively easy and fun subject. Worth attending classes but always refer a proper textbook apart from class notes and PPTs. The more problems you practice, the better you get in this subject. As simple as that! ‘Circuit Analysis for Dummies’ by John M Santiago is another interesting book to refer.

Maths/Real Analysis:

This is literally Greek and Latin and can feel really abstract. Don’t attempt to go deep into this subject or waste time reading extra things not there in syllabus unless you are really, really interested in this stuff (for digital and signals subjects, it is advisable to learn much beyond what’s taught in class for knowledge and not from examination point of view). Of all the materials I have gone through, didn’t find a proper learning resource yet. There are some standard textbooks that the faculty may suggest but none of them are clear.

To survive this subject, assignments are the key. Ask your faculty for practice questions or some assignments. Insist faculty to give assignments early. Learn and understand how to solve them properly. Most questions in tests come similar to those in assignments. Remember assignments and class notes are the key.

Apart from that you’ll probably not understand anything, but try to learn it mechanically like some procedures and stuff. Those who can memorize even subjects like math, they will have peace from examination point of view. Essentially, Real analysis lays the foundations of various important mathematical proofs that we will use elsewhere.

The above steps are the most common ones, you'll come across in this course.

A fun approach to the most fundamental concept of this course would be equally ridiculous;

Electrodynamics:

Another easy subject if you remember the JEE stuff well from the 12th grade. It has All electricity and magnetism concepts with lot of integrals. ‘Electrodynamics’ by Griffith is the book. It’s not an excellent book but it is enough along with class notes from examination point of view. Special attention should be given to Unit 5 of this course which has lot of derivations and stuff. The course starts with basic electrostatics and then moves on to magnetism, electromagnetic induction and finally ends with Maxwell’s equations.

If you are interested to truly learn this stuff and how to exactly use integrals in physics the book to refer is ‘Schaum’s outlines in Electromagnetism’, an excellent book to solve problems and quick revision of concepts but deviates away from the exams you will be writing.

You should probably visit this link once here. You can actually take a print out of that formula sheet and stick it on the wall!

Coming to the End Semester Preparations:

Expecting a miracle without effort cannot be justified. We have to ultimately study, spend time, if required,memorize stuff because most examination patterns demand that. Whatever you do, think about what you are learning, what you are understanding and what you are really interested in. There is no substitute to persistence and hard work. A clever trick which students may sometimes ignore is referring to the previous year question papers. Do not neglect that, ever. More than often, the question papers will be almost same as the ones from the previous years.

Before we move forward, here is some bonus information. Make a note of this useful blog post by Pooja Balasubramani. It summarizes all the prominent internship opportunities available to you as a second year student.

While there are so many other references and textbooks one may refer, we have compiled here what we felt were the best of all those resources. All the best for your new semester!

End notes:

You may have noticed that there could be a lot of formula sheets you can make for every subject. It is a good practice to make some for a quick reference. Also, the syllabus and subjects at colleges elsewhere may vary slightly but hopefully, all the resources provided will be useful.

(This article was first published on Probe, NIT Trichy's blog on Medium here)

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