Making Embedded Systems

One of the many benefits of this course was learning directly from the author of the book. That was absolutely incredible, Elecia's a genius at this. And the TAs went above and beyond to help us out. Any time I had a question, another student wanted to jump in and help put our heads together and try to figure it out and if we weren't figuring it out, we knew a TA was monitoring the conversation and wanted to jump in and help us out. And it was really great to be able to talk to people who were just learning the topic and people who were already very advanced at this working in a professional setting and just wanted to take their skills to the next level. So the range of classmates that I was working with really I think benefited the experience.

In addition to the lectures, when we had weekly meetings and broke into discussion groups. I learned a lot from the other participants in my cohort, listening to the questions in the discussion groups, reading the questions in the channel. For me in particular, when I found a topic challenging, it was really helpful that other people would say "Yeah, I find this tough too". That was encouraging. It was a nice learning environment. I learned a lot from the other people. As well as the lectures and the homework. And I'm really pretty impressed with the progress I made and how much I was able to use material I was learning in building my final project. So all together, those elements of the class provided a really motivating and helpful synergy to tackle what is not an easy topic, but I learned a ton and really enjoy the process, the classmates are great.

I've never had the opportunity to learn in the context of working for a company, having a project, mentors, a framework. So when I saw Elecia was teaching a class and that there would be a live component to it, I was like "Oh man, this is the perfect opportunity for me to actually learn in a structured environment, from somebody who's been writing embedded software for over 20 years". And there's just really nothing like it, there aren't many classes specifically in embedded software which is really different. The course was everything that I hoped for, I got to ask all of my obscure questions I have been wondering for a while. We got into compilers, optimization, there was lot of stuff about C syntax, style, conventions that I never knew and it was just this rare opportunity to get to nerd out with a ton of other people to ask all of your software questions that I have been collecting over the years. There's Stack Exchange but you never know who's answering the questions.

I am working as an embedded software engineer in parallel with my studies. I got interested in embedded systems in 2019 and started side projects. At the exception of this one and only class, my knowledge was never formalised. When I read that Elecia White was giving a class, I asked to join. I developed many valuable skills, for example visualising data with a logic analyser (it was a big deal for me!). And mostly, navigating libraries of STM32, and their documentation. This is an essential skill that I will need to practice more, but the head start is priceless. It was extremely valuable to learn directly from El. She is of course very competent but nobody tells you she is fun to hang out with! The atmosphere of the class was very open and everybody was willing to cooperate and help each other out. It is a great community to be with. I highly recommend this class for anyone in need of structure and formalising knowledge that they picked on their journey, and who want to just hang out with other people to share a passion.