I was asked in this comment on my first post in this series to expand on what classes or courses I took this year.
Nathan, could you tell us what courses you took this year? Were any of them easy from your past experience or was it all brand new knowledge?
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I thought this answer was better placed as a post in its own right rather than a comment reply.
This year, I had to do a foundation year in engineering and technology as didn’t have the UCAS tariff points need for direct entry on to the Computer Science course. Because I dropped out of sixth-form my second year, so I had no A levels qualifications.
The foundation year course was made up of 5 units. These units were Engineering Mathematics, Engineering Design, and Materials, Electrical Engineering, Engineering Principles, and finally Intro to Use of Computers.
Engineering Mathematics was one of the most intriguing units of the year, and arguably one of the most important for computer science. I was under pressure to do well in this unit as the Computer Science course requires a pass of 60% for this unit. I did, however, find most of the material easy to get to grips with. Despite most of the content being new but lucky, it built on my knowledge of maths from high school.
Engineering Design and Materials was the one I need to do a retake for. as this was the most challenging as the first haft was Engineering drawing, and I can't really draw that well. The second part of the unit was engineering materials, which was easier to understand but still quite challenging due to a lack of interest in the subject.
The Electrical Engineering unit was another exciting unit. It covered both digital and analog electronics. I did, however, find the analog side of this more challenging than the digital stuff. That said the whole unit was made easy as I have had previous experience this many of the concepts introduced during the unit as either in my previous study of computer science at high school or stuff I learned my self playing with electronics as a bit of a hobby. The exam for this unit is tomorrow.
The content in the Engineering Principles unit was new but easy to understand partly due to the lecture slide on the principles. This was an enjoyable unit as well; I like physics a lot anyway. I even picked physics as a backup course to Computer Science if I fail to gain the 60% grade in maths.
The last unit, Intro to Use of Computers, was by far the easiest as I have a lot of experience using computers. But did get an ECDL out if it.
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Latest comments (2)
For my math classes, I have some very helpful resources:
Khan Academy which is taught by a brilliant Bangladeshi-American educator. Its explanations are very detailed and easy to follow on that black background with bright color fonts which follow the logic.
Michael Van Biezen is a university engineering teacher who made a lot of very detailed and well crafted videos. There is so much videos about any subject, from statistics to physics to astronomy. His videos really helped me through my electric engineering classes.
3blue1brown is a math focused Youtube channel with lots of easy to follow explanations. It really helped me learn calculus and Fourier series basics.
I have used Khan Academy and watch 3blue1brown on a regular basis. very good content from both of them.