Looking for a gentler semester? Start with courses where students have earned higher grades.
Highest historical GPA first. At least 100 letter grades over the five years through the selected term. Grades reflect past outcomes, not workload or a guaranteed result.
47 courses
Ranked courses have at least 100 recorded letter grades.
Introduction to doctoral research in ECE covering energy, physics, fields, plasmas, comms, controls, photonics, devices, computing, plus writing and ethics skills.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Hands-on lab course introducing various sensor types and addressing implementation issues like interference, isolation, linearity, amplification, and grounding in electronic circuits.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introductory Microprocessor Laboratory covers software and hardware experiments with microcomputers, including assembly language programming, I/O interfacing, and interrupt processing.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Michael Morrow
Students reported needing to work quite a bit to earn an A in this course.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Optoelectronics Lab covers light detection, generation, and transmission with LEDs, lasers, and optical fibers; students perform optical characterization measurements.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Srdjan Milicic
The primary burden came from writing 5-8 page individual lab reports after each session. Students noted these reports required detailed sections and took approximately five hours to complete.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introductory course covering electrical devices, circuits, and systems with a focus on a real-world project involving both software and hardware.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Hongrui Jiang
One student said the class was ridiculously easy and a blowoff, though they felt it did not teach anything.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Advanced Laboratory course involving experiments related to required core material in electrical and computer engineering.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Mark Allie
The course relies heavily on oscilloscope usage, and students reported that they could never guarantee completing an experiment on time.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Advanced Computer Architecture II covers parallel algorithms, vectorizing compilers, interconnection networks, MIMD machines, synchronization, data coherence, dataflow machines, and special purpose processors.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Joshua San Miguel
The workload involved reading papers and completing a semester-long project. While students found the paper readings challenging, they described the exams as straightforward or easy relative to the course content.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Advanced topics in the mathematical foundations of data science.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Laboratory course on terminal characteristics, speed control, voltage regulation, and system applications of electric machines, emphasizing experimental problem-solving.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Computer Vision covers fundamentals of image analysis, including acquisition, geometry, enhancement, scene characteristics, segmentation, shape and texture analysis, and parallel algorithms.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Mohit Gupta
The course included seven challenging homework assignments, with the third and fourth considered the hardest, and required Matlab proficiency.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Digital Engineering Laboratory covers practical computer system design, including designing, constructing, testing, and programming pipelined digital computers and significant digital subsystems.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Parmesh Ramanathan
Students reported that answering simple yes/no questions took up to 30 minutes, contributing to a frustrating in-class experience.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Special advanced topics across Electrical and Computer Engineering that vary by semester and section, reflecting state-of-the-art ideas and research.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Kangwook Lee
The class was rated as difficult, with a difficulty score of 4 out of 5.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Embedded Microprocessor System Design covers hardware and software design for modern microprocessor-based embedded systems, focusing on the design process and a major team project.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Joseph Krachey
The class required working early and often, and students noted that ordering components was critical due to late arrivals.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Capstone course applying prior ECE knowledge to real-world design projects.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2025–Spring 2026Advanced solid state power conversion covering switching converters (DC/AC types), commutation, control, and interfacing with sources and loads.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Steven Fredette
Homework was reported as excessive, even when completed in groups of four, with students finding the coding assignments demanding despite the perceived lack of educational value.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Explores computational approaches to learning, covering inductive inference, connectionism, formal models, algorithm comparison, and cognitive modeling.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Mark Craven
Programming assignments covered around 60% of the grade, complementing the mostly theoretical nature of the course material.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Covers power converter principles, two-axis models, and dynamic behavior of AC drives. Includes simulation and analytical modeling of induction and synchronous motor systems.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Electro-acoustical engineering covering sound wave principles, analogies, and transducer materials/techniques including microphones and loudspeakers.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Covers semiconductor device modeling, amplifier feedback analysis, and CMOS digital circuit design.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Giri Venkataramanan
Students described the course as not the easiest and requiring a lot of work, though they found the effort completely worth it.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026A laboratory course covering Kirchhoff's laws, inductors, operational amplifiers, and frequency response through hands-on circuit assembly and measurement.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Mark Allie
The labs were described as lengthy, and the final test was open book, open note, and open internet. However, students noted that the practice bench exam did not resemble the actual exam.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Covers probabilistic, algebraic, and geometric data models, mathematical analysis of learning algorithms and optimization methods, and ML applications.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Grigoris Chrysos
Homeworks and exams were challenging but commensurate with the proof-based, graduate-level nature of the class.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Software Engineering covers designing and modifying large software systems, focusing on processes, architectures, design patterns, and testing, with a substantial team-based programming project.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Scott Swanson
Lectures and reading materials were described as tedious, but the class required consistent effort to get value from the content.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026VLSI Systems Design covers MOS devices, IC fabrication, topological design, graphics layout, circuit simulation, system timing, and a design project.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Umit Ogras
A major project accounted for approximately 50% of the grade and was described as time-consuming.
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Covers sampling, reconstruction, DFT spectral analysis, FFT, z-transforms, FIR/IIR filter design, signal flow graphs, and filter implementation in digital signal processing.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Robert Nowak
Homeworks ranged from time-consuming to nearly impossible, and tests were difficult. You had better know MATLAB really well, as it was expected.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Introduction to Computer Architecture covers processor design, instruction sets, control structures, memory management, caches, and I/O structures.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Setareh Behroozi
The course was described as extremely hard, particularly for undergraduates, with one student noting it made their brain hurt. TAs and the professor went the extra mile to break down difficult concepts.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Computers in Medicine covers microprocessor-based medical instrumentation, emphasizing real-time ECG analysis through labs and projects involving biomedical digital signal processing algorithms.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026Hands-on Introduction to Robotics covering concepts and tools for robotic systems, including actuators, sensors, manipulators, and control systems.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Peter Adamczyk
The course demanded substantial effort outside of class time, as classwork alone did not provide a deep feel for the code or mechanics. One student suggested that mastering Linux and ROS before enrolling would have made the material easier to manage.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2025Intro to signals, information, and computation in EE. Covers Fourier series, DFT, sampling, digital filters, and coding for signal manipulation.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Bernard Lesieutre
Exams were described as fairly straightforward if students completed the review assignment and period exercises. Preparing adequately for class was considered sufficient for success.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026Matrix Methods in Machine Learning covers linear algebraic foundations including SVD, regression, and regularization applied to classification, clustering, and neural networks.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
Past student reviews · Robert Nowak, Eduardo Arvelo
Homework assignments were challenging but graded on completion, while summer terms were described as crammed and intense.
historical GPA · grades
Fall 2022–Spring 2026State Space Systems Analysis covers matrix methods for solving state-variable differential equations, focusing on stability, controllability, observability, and controller design.
Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2023–Spring 2026