EE 494 Ruiyu Sun

Cumulative Reflection

I’m now a senior in electrical engineering. Look back to my three years studying at Iowa State
University, I think I made the correct decision in major choosing. Most of the classes I took,
whether elective or major classes, are interesting to me. I was thinking that engineering classes
are so hard and dull that I won’t enjoy what I study. However, when I took them, especially
classes with labs, I felt they were interesting and I was willing to learn more about them, even
though they are hard.

The first major course with lab I took should be EE185 and EE201. They are totally different
types of courses that let me discover many possibilities of classes I will take in EE. I took EE 185
with professor Mina. This class is about engineering problem-solving. Professor wants us to
know how to find valued problems and understand the problems. So he talked about critical
thinking since the first class , which he is so attaching importance to that he’d like to mention
again and again in other classes as well. This concept is inspiring and I keep in mind all the time.
It let me study with motivation but not accept knowledge passive. EE 201 was teaching by
Professor Tuttle. This course is a typical engineering class talks about electric circuits. A lot of
laws, concepts and calculations are involved, but the lab is rather interesting and helpful. When
I build circuits and do all the tests by myself, I find the fun of engineer. I learnt how to use all
the devices like meters and oscilloscopes in the lab of this course. All the basic electric circuit
knowledge I use in every class are learnt from this class. These two course taught me how to
understand and study electrical engineering, also shows me that engineering classes are not as
boring as I thought.

There are some non physical electrical classes for this major. For example, EE 285. This course
introduces the C language. Before I took this course, I never thought that I would learn
programming oneday. Right after I took the first lab of it, I felt that I should try programming
early. This class helped me find another field I’m interested in. After this, I took computer
science class for my technical elective. Programming is such an important skill nowadays.
Electrical engineering is not only dealing with analog circuit, but including more and more
digital things. ​Embedded system is the most widely applied system of the time. Programming
saves so much time and effort engineers need to make, avoiding plenty of problems and
mistakes that physical objects may have.

Since I start to look for internships, I realize how useful the skills I learnt from the courses I
took. The tools we use, like all the devices and Cadence; the techniques we learnt, such as
programming and FPGA; the circuit designs we did in every class, all those make me meet the
requirements that companies need, even have a plus. I had an internship in summer 2019. The
company produces PCBs. I can clearly see how the boards are designed, what components are
EE 494 Ruiyu Sun

used on them. It really helps me to find small errors that may cause tests of boards can’t pass.
Some of the tests are done by uploading programs. I can read some of them to understand
what tests are undergoing. Everything I have learnt actually helps me in my work. I also learnt a
lot from my internship. Out of the labs, I finally see the true products in industry. I have a better
understanding on what I’m learning and what problems do engineers and engineering are
facing. This helps me clarify what I want to and should study.

This semester I’m taking EE 432 which has an amusing lab - manufacture wafer. I believe it’s an
unforgivable experience and will be helpful for my future study and job seeking or pursue
higher level education. I will look for more opportunities that can provide me different
experiences in electrical engineering field.