Impress my professor HELPPPP

[cybertronicify]

Hello everyone!!

I'm trying to get into this college class that is waitlisted. Its the only electronics class without a prerequisite. I can show up at the beginning of class and hopefully someone is late so i get his/her spot. But another way is to impress my professor, any ideas on how to do so? Magic smoke might work...

Thanks,
Jason

[Phaedrus]

Think of a cool, useful project of reasonable difficulty. Make a decent enough start on it to show your professor your initiative and passion.

Given the paucity of details, there's not much more I can offer.

[marshallh]

You have at your fingertips the greatest information resource ever known in the history of man...

You don't need to take a class to learn. If you get in, great. Otherwise spend time teaching yourself and don't dwell too much on it.

[KJDS]

Lectures are a very very inefficient way of teaching.

A friend of mine was a lecturer for many years. One year half of his students had a timetable clash so he produced a mini-book and some exercises for them to go through instead of the lectures. They got much better marks in the exam.

Can you get hold of the course notes?

[tszaboo]

It would help if we would know your level of understanding of electronics, and the field your prof is working. Look up his website/CV.

[German_EE]

I never managed to impress my Professor but I did leave a good impression with his wife 

I was at university between 1975 and 1978 where I studied Electrical Engineering. Being an old fashioned type my Professor used to invite three or four students to tea every Saturday afternoon and one weekend it was my turn. So, I turned up in my suit and sat there with the other students drinking tea and eating sponge cake but eventually the tea began to have an effect and I needed the toilet. So, I asked the lady of the house and she directed me upstairs.

Stood there in the 'smallest room' I could not help noticing that there were two rolls of toilet paper, one soft roll and one roll of the hard stuff like tracing paper that they used to use in public toilets. This matter slipped to the back of my mind but it kept on resurfacing until I just had to ask. So, waiting for a quiet moment, I asked the Professor's wife about the two rolls.

"Oh", she said, "that's for Frank, the roll of soft paper is for normal use and the other roll is for when he's sitting on the throne and needs to write down a good idea before he forgets". It turns out that I was the only one of his students brave enough to ask.

[cybertronicify]

Thanks for all your replies! My college is weird and they don't all you to get into any other electronic classes unless you take Beginner's class. There are no placement tests for EE so you have to take the Beginners class, i consider myself as intermediate and i want to get into pcb fabrication and electronic engineering. I might try to see if i can get it waived, but chances are that is not gonna happen. Thank you for all the help i really appreciate it!

[HighVoltage]

One way professors look at the students is to judge what they know and can impress with.
But a good professor is judging more on the questions.

So, read a few articles on some current subjects in electronics that interest you and that you have a passion for.
Then prepare a few good questions and ask those questions in front of the class.
You will stand out and you will be noticed.
Because only people who know a subject a little and who have passion will ask these kind of questions.

I did teach on college level before and those students with the most good quality questions got stuck in my head fast.

[Fred27]

I never managed to impress my Professor but I did leave a good impression with his wife 

I thought that was going to go a whole different direction.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

"that's for Frank, the roll of soft paper is for normal use and the other roll is for when he's sitting on the throne and needs to write down a good idea before he forgets"

Is that true? That sounds completely ridiculous!

Although my Dad kept a notepad next to his bed for writing ideas down that he had while trying to go to sleep.
He says having important/good ideas kept him awake at night so unless he wrote them down he couldn't sleep as he was worried he would forget them.

I'm not sure how many of the good ideas still looked good in the morning.

[SL4P]

I like your original idea of 'magic' smoke..

Put together a simple example project that 'cooks' a disposable component at startup - then when re-powered works properly.

In your submission notes, simply say that you have found debugging much easier this way around.  Trying to fix burned out parts //after// the failure is much harder than fixing them before they fail.

[mrflibble]

I never managed to impress my Professor but I did leave a good impression with his wife 

I thought that was going to go a whole different direction.

You're not the only one.

Sooo, after you left the house ...

Wife: "That one student of yours sure was gullible. He totally believed me when I told him you used the rough toilet paper to make notes.  "

[German_EE]

The story is true, and I was the only student brave enough to ask about the two rolls in the toilet until the day he died. I reappeared a couple of years later for tea a second time and she greeted me by my first name so I still insist that I left a memorable impression.

[Terabyte2007]

Back in the 80's ( O0) when I was in my senior year of college, my professor had assigned us a 3-Part final project. We had to design and build a project, do full documentation and an Oral presentation. I designed and built an entire microprocessor with discrete components with memory and a binary OS which used an 8-bit word pulsed switch input to program. Had a Run/Stop button and a series of process controls such as lights, relays, solenoids and etc. The program would run the timed execution of the process program to the second which was entirely documented and presented to the class before executing the program. Each area of the circuit was isolated with its own board to show the operating blocks of a microprocessor and support components. I spent like a month designing, building, testing and preparing documentation for the final. I did however aced all three parts! It was worth the time and effort.

I thought maybe this story could help get the creativity flowing! 

[tszaboo]

I dont understand. There is a beginners class, you are supposed to take it, just take it. It is not like you will waste your time, and if it is pointless, just write the test end of the semester.

[jlmoon]

Write your professor and tell him about "The life of an Electron"  This story will get the best of them..