I took 5 courses in Winter 2025 at the University of Ottawa, in my second term as an Electrical Engineering major.
They were:
- ENG 1112 - Technical Report Writing
- GNG 1103 - Introduction to Engineering Design
- ITI 1100 - Digital Systems I
- MAT 1322 - Calculus II
- PHY 1124 - Fundamentals of Physics for Engineers
Let’s go through them 1 by 1.
ENG 1112: Technical Report Writing
Practice in the writing of technical reports. Topics include exposition, argumentation, presentation of technical data, and effective communication. Frequent written exercises and development of composition skills. Use of Writing Centre resources required outside regular class hours.
I enjoyed this class a lot more than I thought I would. Even though the writing isn’t free-form in the slightest (the emphasis is on following a set of described rules) - I had a lot of creative liberty to come up with situations in my reports. Further to that, I had a great experience with my professor, Miles Tittle, who I thought was excellent.
My specific section of this course consisted of four written reports culminating in a take-home final exam. The take-home exam was much appreciated with the amount of work from other classes. The grading was super fair and although the content was boring, the professor did his best to make it engaging. Highly recommend.
GNG 1103: Introduction to Engineering Design
A hands-on, team-based, introduction to engineering design for engineers and computer scientists. A modern engineering design process is used to solve open-ended client-based design projects, by learning and practicing different types of modern prototyping and testing tools and processes, oral presentation skills, user-based design, personal time management, team conflict resolution, as well as giving and receiving personal feedback.
Your experience in this course depends almost entirely on the section that you are in. The goal of the course in essence to create a project that solves a problem outlined by the professor. You do this by working with a team to submit deliverables (weekly) that go through the engineering design process.
My section did a project to display the use cases for the Robomaster S1 in a positive light as opposed to the harms associated with robotics and AI. Overall it was enjoyable, but it was not the typical “engineering” experience that many were looking for since the burden to build something was quite low. I didn’t enjoy the deliverables aspect of this course the most, though I thought it at least made sure your group did work each week.
ITI 1100: Digital Systems I
Digital computers and information. Number systems and alphanumeric codes. Binary arithmetic. Boolean algebra. Logic functions representation, minimization and realization. Analysis, design and implementation of combinational circuits. Basic sequential circuits. Latches and flip-flops. Analysis and design of simple sequential circuits. Registers and counters. Implementation of digital circuits.
I don’t have much to say about this course except that it’s quite easy to do well. Almost all the questions tend to be the same, and once you do a couple of questions using different types of Flip-flops, counters, and the corresponding truth tables - you really can just do them without thinking too much.
I would say one thing I wish I payed attention to more was the labs in this course. It’s a pretty great opportunity to understand how different hardware components are made (albeit at a very low-level). Other than that it was a easy course to do well, very basic but important stuff related to computer architecture.
MAT 1322: Calculus II
Improper integrals. Applications of the integral. Separable differential equations. Euler’s method for differential equations. Sequences, series. Taylor’s formula and series. Functions of two and three variables. Partial derivatives, the chain rule, directional derivatives, tangent planes and normal lines.
Another pretty boring and mundane course. I think it’s quite easy to do well if you use the textbook well, or any other resource. Point would be to practice a ton and the problems become the same after a while. When it comes to Sequences & Series, make sure to not get caught up in the theory (unless it interests you). There is no real point to it and the application of it is really just applying techniques to understand if something converges or diverges. I had Professor Kianoosh Shokri and thought he was excellent for this course.
PHY 1124: Fundamentals of Physics for Engineers
Review of kinematics, reference frames and relative motion. Newton’s laws of motion, forces, and fields. Work, energy and power. Oscillator motion. Electrostatics and Gauss’ law. Magnetic fields and forces. Introduction to special relativity. This course is intended for students in electrical and computer engineering. An additional problem class of one hour per week is offered with the course. Includes a 3 hour lab in alternate weeks. Previously PHY 1104 and PHY 1304.
Probably my least favorite course this semester. Very hard to get behind the content here because it covers almost all of Physics 1 and 2 for the exception of a few concepts so almost nothing seems related. I would say it’s a little like high school physics but your milage will very depending on how rigorous your education was in that realm.
Generally speaking the textbook can help, but I would really spend some time understanding the theory as I think it serves you a lot better than understanding how to solve problems well. It’s simply the nature of a class like this that it’s not possible to know all the question types (in Calculus it is) - so understanding why you do something is maybe more important than how or when to do it.