Vikhyath Kamath Academics, Manipal, TGTS

TGTS : ECE – 3RD SEM

I am sure this is exactly what happened before you landed on this post:

It’s one of those days when you have nothing much to do. You are just enjoying your vacation, scrolling through your Facebook feed, just when the title “ECE : 3rd Sem” caught your attention.

After that, you had 2 choices:

1. You could have just ignored the post thinking “People are Jobless. It’s too early to think about the semester” and continue your scrolling.

Just then a meme caught your attention. Also you : “Oh look! Here’s another meme! This is Damn funny, I should definitely share it on the group”. That is when Irony died a painful death. 😛

2. You click the link thinking to yourself : “I will just have a look what is waiting for me in the next semester.  There is no harm in wasting a few minutes reading this post. Someone has put his/her pain in writing this.”

Well if you are reading this you have definitely chosen the second option and I have already wasted your few seconds 😛 .

You still have time to change your decision, now that you see a roller-coaster ride waiting for you,which would be taking you through this journey of an ECE student (more like my journey 😛 ).

In this journey I have tried to include as many reality checks (for you) as I could , so that you don’t have to face the semester head-on without knowing what’s gonna happen next.

So put your seat belts on and brace yourself,it’s gonna be a rough ride.

Before we begin lets make a few things clear:

  • This is just my perspective, and how I faced the 3rd Semester, so it may be different/same with one which you might have heard from your seniors.
  • Your experience might be totally different then mine, as it depends on your initial interest towards the subject,your efforts throughout the semester and the faculties allotted.
  • I would like to keep my identity anonymous and if it helps in anyway, to certify this as a credible post. I’m a person who considers that CGPA is just a number and doesn’t matter much till you have a strong conceptual understanding and grasp of the subject.
  • Why am I doing this? Love for my Juniors has always been unconditional,now that I’m in 7th sem I would like to help a few more before I leave the college.

So let’s start with the toughest ones followed by less tougher ones (Coz none of the subjects in ECE can be called Easy… Just kidding 😛 … Or am I? o_O ) and then a few tips regarding the labs.

 ANALOG ELECTRONICS CIRCUITS [AEC]

Faculty: A Gopalakrishna Pai

ABOUT THE COURSE

This 4 credit subject can be divided in two halves,In the first part you will be studying the operation of BJT and MOSFET, the working and analysis of small signal and large signal model for different topologies constructed using them,in the second part you will be dealing with Different types of Oscillators and Power Amplifiers- the Working, Characteristics and applications of each.

Fun Fact : Earlier this subject used to be taught as AEC-1 and AEC-2 , which was evenly distributed for two semesters (3rd and 4th).Starting from our batch(2014-18) they have reduced the portions(That’s what they say -_- ) and have combined the 3 credit subjects to make a 4 credit subject.(So not a fun fact 😛 )

Consequences : Obviously 3+3!= 4 , we learnt it the hard way. Till the end of second sessionals we had covered just the first part. Not trying to imply that our pace was slow. We had an excellent faculty for that matters. The topics in the first part being important, required additional time to finish the syllabus(Additional time=”A lot” of extra classes). After trying their best to complete the syllabus,the faculties were left with no choice but to declare some of the second part as self study.

The misery doesn’t end with extra classes,the endsem paper for the subject ended up having 30 marks weightage to the portions that were taught just a month before the finals.

Enough of my ranting about the subject(ironically this was my favourite subject in 3rd sem). Coming to the important part- How to face it ? Since it is a 4 credit subject you can’t just ignore it.

TIPS

  • Before attending the very first class of this subject please brush up your basic knowledge of BJT which you have studied in First year. Else you will end up hating the subject from the very first class as you will be left clueless about what was actually taught that day (or every class from then).
  • Thanks to Behzad Razavi (author of Fundamentals of Microelectronics), you can score 15 in your sessionals and do really well in your end sems and assignments if you study from his book and practice the excercise problems thoroughly, coz you will be getting direct questions from the same(Atleast our batch and the next batch did). A lot of patience and effort will be required to do so.
  • Don’t neglect the self study part ,you will get handouts for them, invest your time on it, you will easily seek the rewards.
  • Don’t take this subject lightly , Dozing off in the class/Playing Mini Militia/BB10 with your friends might land you and your troops outside the makeup examhall.Not even kidding.

tip1

ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES [EMW]

Faculty: Kumar Shama

ABOUT THE COURSE

Another important 4 credit subject in the 3rd semester.
This subject will be dealing with a much more detailed analysis of the Electrostatics and Magnetostatics concept which you might have come across in your Higher Secondary (11th-12th).

It has a vast portion and this would require you to pay your utmost attention in the class if you didn’t like the subject in your 11th-12th.Failing to do so may compel you to do overtime before the exams.

TIPS

  • The subject has 3 things : Formulas, Proofs and More Formulas.So better maintain a Cheat Sheet (Note: Not “Chits”) or Formula Book (yes “Book”, You read it right!! I’m not even Kidding) when you are studying this subject ,cause its gonna rain Formulae when you are midst of the semester and keeping track of them will be very difficult if you are opening the book for the first time before endsems.
  • Talking about the book to refer for theory(Proofs and formulae) : just follow the prescribed one -William Hayt and Buck -Engineering Electromagnetics and you would be able to score maximum marks provided you don’t just read the book but practice all the proofs it has.
  •  As far as numericals are concerned : if you get a good faculty and pay enough attention in the class, class notes are sufficient.If you don’t and you are lucky enough to have TGSC teaching for one of the other sections,then just blindly refer their notes.If none of them works ,then may God help thy soul 😛

tip2

 LOGIC DESIGN [LD]

Faculty: Guruprasad

ABOUT THE COURSE

If you enjoyed the Digital part in Basic Electronics then you would surely enjoy this subject , That said let me warn you guys,You might think that you did enjoy learning the subject (Enjoy=You might be able to answer most of the questions in the class 😛 )but the questions in the sessionals and end semester will be quite challenging and you might be left clueless on how to solve them if you don’t analyse the concept studied in the class thoroughly.

Serious Note: Please be clear with the concepts learnt here,many of the subjects in your Higher semester such as Digital System Design(4th SEM) and parts of VLSI(5th SEM) are dependent on those,any negligence over here might be reflected in the grades of those Subjects too.

TIPS

  • The books to refer : Honestly speaking I never referred any book for this subject , as the faculty was excellent (I know our section was lucky to have the right faculties for the right subjects 😉 ) and the notes prepared in the class covered everything. You may want to refer Anand Kumar’s book for Logic design as it focuses on specific areas from which the questions were designed for the tests (mind you,for me every question paper contained questions which I was looking at for the first time).
    Go through a lot of previous year papers so that the right logic “clicks” while solving your actual paper.
  • Most of the subject is related to the Digital Electronics lab and faculty might deviate from their syllabus to teach you things so that you won’t be left clueless about what is actually happening in the labs.
  • That being said, you might be expected to answer questions(in your exams) which might be related to the Labs.So please go through the lab manual while preparing for this subject .

tip3

SIGNALS AND SYSTEMS [SNS]

Let’s talk about the importance of this subject. So this subject is the foundation for the subject taught in next semester(4th) ie Digital Signal Processing, which is somehow linked to another subject taught in the next semester (5th) ie Analog Communication which is distantly related to another subject in next semester (6th) Digital Communication (I would have been really happy if I would have known if it were to be linked to a 7th semester subject :P).In short if there was a TV series named Journey of a Communication Engineer, SnS can be called as the Season 1,without watching it you will be left clueless for the coming seasons. Trust me. That is not something which you would want to experience.

ABOUT THE COURSE

Faculty: Divya B

Till the first sessional , it is just Introduction to the subjects – Some terminologies , a few numericals and overall a smooth sail. That said , you might find it simple but you need to be thorough with the concepts, no scope for negligence is expected at all.

In the later half of the subject you will taught about LTI system,Fourier Transform, Laplace Transform and Z transform, In short this half will deal with-Learning the Maths required to process the “signals”.

Without the Maths further semester will be nothing but “Noise” for you guys.Trust me Noise is hard to deal with even for a qualified communication engineer 😛

TIPS

  • Books to refer: As you see,this subject is less of Electronics and More of Mathematics, and like we were taught from our childhood – the only way to ace Maths is by rigorous practice and solving problems. Uday Kumar’s Book for SnS is a saviour in that matters.This book has many solved problems, all of which are solved with equal brilliance and shortcuts (which is necessary while writing your end sems/sessionals , coz it’s gonna be a very lengthy paper , if you don’t have the right tricks up your sleeve)
  • The last part might deal with Theory and solving the Last Assignment is more then sufficient to be prepared for the end sems.

tip4

NETWORK ANALYSIS [NA]

Faculty: Aparna V

ABOUT THE COURSE

This subject is related to one of the courses in Chemistry Cycle: Basic Electrical Theory.So Sorry to disappoint you if you ever thought BET is the last time you will be using the Kirchoffs Law and Star-Delta Transformations.

The half of the syllabus is a repeat of BET, so brush up some of your basics if you want to ace the sessionals.The rest half has slightly newer topics such as Transient Analysis of RLC load,Linear Wave Shaping, Differential Equations related to RLC circuits and Two port networks.

TIPS

  • Again I didn’t refer any books for this subject as Notes from other section (mostly for numericals) will be more than enough.
  •  Overconfidence in this subject will have its consequences.Agreed , that the syllabus is a repeat but negligence of any sort will affect your internals as others are guaranteed to score good marks.

tip5

ENGINEERING MATHEMATICS – III

Faculty: C Ramesha

ABOUT THE COURSE

Mathematics has never disappointed me in terms of being interesting and challenging.This sem was no different,some of the important topics which you will be going through this semester would be Partial Differential Equations,Complex Variables,Vector Calculus and Fourier Series-Transform(Again :P).

TIPS

  •  End sems and sessionals will have straightforward question.You would either know the questions or you won’t. Don’t skip any topics (Especially the Heat and Wave Equations) you would regret it.
  • The papers are going to be lengthy, so practicing and increasing your speed and thought process should be something you need to focus while preparing for your exams.
  • I had an excellent faculty for this subject(or for any Maths subject for that matter). So just Notes were more than enough. A few solved questions from Grewal and reading the prescribed book by Kreyzig helped me clear my concepts and ace the subject.tip6

    DIGITAL ELECTRONICS LAB

    A not-so-boring lab after all, this lab basically focuses on design and implementation of combinational and sequential circuits.Most of the theory behind experiments will be covered in the LD classes.

    TIPS

  • You will be expected to solve the exercise questions for the next experiment before implementing it in the lab. Anand Kumar can be used as reference if you face any difficulty while solving those.(You can always rely on Google as a backup or if you are too lazy to open the book)
  • You will have to submit a Mini project(it should be somewhat related to digital electronics) at the end of the semester – This is to give you an early heads-up so that you can search for a good project in your vacations.
  • End Sems Lab exam will have 2 questions, first you would be required to design a sequential circuit and second one would need you to design and implement a combinational circuit problem.

  • SIGNALS AND CIRCUITS SIMULATIONS LAB

    The name is a big give away in terms of what you are going to do in the lab. Naturally, you will be simulating circuits to get the required signal as output.
    Here you will be learning to use 2 softwares : OrCad Pspice and MATLAB. MATLAB won’t be taught much and you will be simply copying the codes on the editor window (I personally recommend you to learn MATLAB on your own as it is a powerful tool and has umpteen uses).

    TIPS

  • The Endsem will have 2 question,one question being a circuit simulation on PSpice and second being a fairly easy MATLAB question.
  • Our batch didn’t have a Mini Project submission for this lab, but my immediate juniors had those.Taking in consideration ECE dept won’t budge out after deciding something,this sem wont be any different. So you will be required to simulate and explain the working of a fairly complex circuit either using PSpice,TINA or MultiSim.
  • So let the search for the circuit begin!

     BOOKS FOR SURVIVAL

    most-frequently-challenged-book-ftr

    Books which can be purchased :

    Behzad Razavi – Fundamentals of Microelectronics (AEC)

    Books which can be issued from the Book Bank :

    Uday Kumar – Signals and System(SnS)(also can be issued from the text book section/central library as and when required)

    or

    W Hayt,Buck – Engineering Electromagnetics (EMW) 

    (If possible, Buy)

    Books which can be issued from the central library

    Van Vulkenberg-Network Analysis

    Anand Kumar- Switching Theory and Logic design (Don’t Buy)

    If you are reading this before entering the 3rd semester, I guess I have scared you enough (that was not my motive at all 😛 ). But let me assure you it’s going to be a very chill semester if you have the right methodology to tackle the subjects. At the same time I want you to be prepared for the transition from first year to second year,as its direct impact can be seen on your first sessionals (atleast 😛 ).But this will be common for all so don’t lose hope and fight back.I have shared my experience and it is upto you now, to learn from it.

    A token of appreciation for The Vikhyath Times for inspiring me to write this. After looking at the response and getting to know how helpful the Survival Guide for EEE was, it was about time an ECE senior would have done something to help his/her junior.

    About the anonymous identity, you can always drop response and questions in the Comment section , and if need be I wouldn’t hesitate to share my identity.

    Always Happy to help! 🙂

     EDITOR’S NOTE

    If this person has gone anonymous, there’s a reason behind it! But anyways, the making of this guide is what matters the most so thank you Anonymous for doing this. I believe this helps not only the juniors but also us to look back and reflect upon our experiences with the semester, as it stays here for as long as you want.

    And boy you’re good with writing! I hardly edited what you wrote (I even kept the smileys which you can’t do without but I have a strict policy of not having them) ! Maybe you should be writing more! Anyways, thank you, on behalf of the readers here, for doing this.

    You, dear readers, can extend your thanks by liking the facebook page and read some of my stuff! Hope you will like them too! As Anonymous said, any response is welcome. If you want to extend a personal thank you, you can ping me here or on my page and I will reveal the writer of this post to you.

    Thank you and all the best for your journey into ECE from hereon!