Re: MIDTERM

Eric Wei (ewei@physics.ubc.ca) Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:59:53 -0800 

From: "Eric Wei" <ewei@physics.ubc.ca>
Subject: Re: MIDTERM
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2000 18:59:53 -0800



I am in the sames shoes and I agree with Dustin totally.

This is what I observed from the past midterms.  The problems seemed to be
shorter and much more straight forward.  With regarding to the design
portion of the midterm, I have a few comments of my own.  We have programmed
in other high-level language for a long time so most of us are use the the
logics involved in writing codes.  However, it takes time to adapt to a new
way of approaching problems.  In VHDL, it's often required to think about
the problem at both the software and hardware levels, and that takes time to
get used to.

Regarding the midterm, I would really like to have another chace to "redeem"
myself.  I have a fairly heavy course load like the rest of the people in
the class but I still think I deserve a fair evaluation of my understanding.
The fact that I only had 40 minutes to write the midterm didn't quite help
either (I slept in on the day of the midterm.......... =).  How about if we
have another midterm and just count the best of the two so people have a
choice of whether they want to write this one or not?

Eric

----- Original Message -----
From: "ddowler" <ddowler@direct.ca>
To: <eece379@casas2.ece.ubc.ca>
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 2:36 PM
Subject: MIDTERM


> Dr. Casas:
>
> I have found that the labs and assignments seem very difficult at first,
> but after a few hours of reading over them, and reading questions and
> answers from the class, i understand them.  Once I understand the
> assignment, it is A LOT easier to write code for it.  I sat and stewed
> over the third assignment for about 4 hours, and when I had an
> understanding of the problem, I wrote the code in about a half hour.  I
> think this was the problem with the midterm.  It was too much to take in
> all at once, especially with all the little details like the different
> clock frequencies, the speed of sound in water, etc.
>
> In real life, we would not start any design until we had a very good
> idea of the problem specification, which takes some time and thinking.
> Is there a way around this for the midterm?  If we were to write another
> one, could we take it home and read the problem (and have a chance to
> ask questions), and then come to class and write our code?  Or maybe you
> could give us some simpler problems that take only 5 or 10 minutes to
> understand, and don't have as many details.  What do you think?
>
> Dustin Dowler
> EECE 379
>