My self-study plan for electrical engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#11

Post by vsareto » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

>Once I’m done, then what? At the present, I don’t have a clear picture of how to transition from studying to working with brain-computer interfaces.

Buy some BCIs and reverse engineer them, possibly. Maybe try to improve them. You might want to reach out to the authors of the papers you've been reading for advice. Neuralink put a BCI in a pig so try figuring out how they did it, and maybe they'll give you a job? Even Elon's pitch for recruitment during that presentation was "we don't know much about the brain anyway", and mostly just want you to have solved hard problems. There likely won't be a straight-forward path since this stuff isn't commercialized yet.

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#12

Post by zxexz » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

exmadscientist wrote: post #8

Why push yourself through a degree-style path? So much of what EEs learn in their coursework is of low utility. (I'm a physicist who transitioned to working as an EE. I have never had a single EE course, and yet I find myself with no obvious deficits compared to my colleagues who have.) There are two ways to learn an existing technical-ish subject: you can spend a lot of time reading textbooks, then do some projects…

I can't recommend The Art of Electronics highly enough - it's way more intuitive and informative than any other resource on the subject I've found. It's exceptionally great when paired with the self-paced lab manual Learning the Art of Electronics[0].

[0] https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/edu/harvard-lab-kit

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#13

Post by WillSlim95 » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

I have some recommendations for you as an EE graduate, you can club Digital Circuits and Systems, Embedded Systems and Digital Hardware with one book in one continuous course with

the book Digital Design and Computer Architecture by Harris and Harris (A RISC V Edition will release soon in 2-3 months, buy that one)

For Electronic circuits choose Microelectronics by Behzad Razavi. Instead of Purcell go for "Engineering Electromagnetics with Ida", it is more intuitive.

And th first book you should start with is "Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits"

Then you go for DDCA and Ida in parallel.

The list does give me head scrather, this is too broad to be ever accomplished. My recommendation to redo the list is first find out what piques your interest in EE, Digital hardware, analog hardware or control systems or embedded systems and try to have a self study focus in that concentration.

The way I see it with this plan you are setting yourself up for failure.

Edit:Removed the ditching recommendation as I see it relevant to OP's goals.

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#14

Post by krapht » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

exmadscientist wrote: post #8

Why push yourself through a degree-style path? So much of what EEs learn in their coursework is of low utility. (I'm a physicist who transitioned to working as an EE. I have never had a single EE course, and yet I find myself with no obvious deficits compared to my colleagues who have.) There are two ways to learn an existing technical-ish subject: you can spend a lot of time reading textbooks, then do some projects…

> (I'm a physicist who transitioned to working as an EE. I have never had a single EE course, and yet I find myself with no obvious deficits compared to my colleagues who have.)

Not to dunk on the rest of your reply, which I agree with, but there is a humongous overlap between your typical undergraduate physics and electrical engineering degree, and I think you're able to be successful because they're so similar. Academically, the required courses are mostly identical until your 3rd year and if you choose an RF, microwave, or semiconductor physics specialization it's just more of the same applied physics, so it would make sense you would easily be able to pick up the concepts necessary with experience.

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#15

Post by lnsru » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

spapas82 wrote: post #6

I don't see any mathematics nor psychics books. During the first two years of our 5 year ECE degree we mainly did theoretical courses. Some examples: single variable analysis, multi variable analysis, differential equations, arithmetic analysis, algebra, mechanics, electronagnetism, waves. All these were full semester courses. These courses were actually needed if somebody wanted to properly understand the whole theo…

This gentleman has an applied mathematics degree. So he lacks only physics. To work on that brain computer interface this gentleman needs basic chemistry and basic biology. For interaction on that interface solid understanding of analog electronics is needed. These topics aren’t trivial, I wish good look and strong motivation during this few year long journey.

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#16

Post by sobriquet9 » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

Electrical engineering is very hands-on. Reading the textbooks should not be #1 on your list. You do need a solid base, but once you have it, you'll get more from building and testing circuits than from reading more textbooks.

I recommend "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. It strikes the right balance between theory and practice. You will need to dig deeper in some theoretical areas later, but this will give you a very good starting point.

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#17

Post by cameronperot » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

I would suggest leveraging MIT's OpenCourseWare [1]. You can filter for courses that have lecture videos, notes, etc. These courses are usually very well organized and taught by some of the best professors in the world.

[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#18

Post by vvanders » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

zxexz wrote: post #12

exmadscientist wrote: post #8

Why push yourself through a degree-style path? So much of what EEs learn in their coursework is of low utility. (I'm a physicist who transitioned to working as an EE. I have never had a single EE course, and yet I find myself with no obvious deficits compared to my colleagues who have.) There are two ways to learn an existing technical-ish subject: you can spend a lot of time reading textbooks, then do some projects…

I can't recommend The Art of Electronics highly enough - it's way more intuitive and informative than any other resource on the subject I've found. It's exceptionally great when paired with the self-paced lab manual Learning the Art of Electronics[0]. [0] https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/edu/harvard-lab-kit

I'll second this, despite the first version being written over 40 years ago it's still one of the best books I've seen on the subjects.

The more recent versions bring it up to date well, it's a dense book but one I find myself coming back to more than any other for the incredible depth of practical engineering knowledge.

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#19

Post by OJFord » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:54 PM UTC

exmadscientist wrote: post #8

Why push yourself through a degree-style path? So much of what EEs learn in their coursework is of low utility. (I'm a physicist who transitioned to working as an EE. I have never had a single EE course, and yet I find myself with no obvious deficits compared to my colleagues who have.) There are two ways to learn an existing technical-ish subject: you can spend a lot of time reading textbooks, then do some projects…

I think it's way more about what suits the learner than what suits the subject.

I studied EE, and got on better with the the more theoretical textbooks than I did practicals ('huh, ok.. why?!').

Re: My self-study plan for electrical engineering

#20

Post by phkahler » Sat, Mar 20, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

I would suggest a dive into neural networks from the bottom up. Getting the electrical interface is the physical part. For a real brain interface though it's probably going to look like NN at the interface from a software point of view.