5 Online EE Resources I WOULD Have Been Thankful For
On this Thanksgiving Day, Jeff wonders what his EE college days would have been like if he’d had access to All About Circuits’ rich online resources.
The holidays are upon us. Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States, a time when we reflect on what we’re most thankful for. For those of you around the world for whom today isn’t a holiday, we’re grateful to you for being part of our global community.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our All About Circuits readers, old and new! Image used courtesy of George Mason University Life
Last month, I was at a tradeshow called “The Vision Show” in Boston, MA. At one point, I found myself in a conversation with a product manager for a robotics company. He was a young guy, I’m guessing in his 20s. When he saw on my show badge that I was with All About Circuits, his eyes lit up and he exclaimed “All About Circuits! Your website is what got me through college!”
Naturally, that made my day. I did the math in my head, and thought to myself “Oh yeah, he’s probably just at that age.” He would have been able to make use of All About Circuits’ rich set of on-line educational resources when studying for his EE degree.
Since that encounter, I’ve thought a lot about how great it would have been to have All About Circuits around back when I was an EE student at Northeastern University. At the risk of dating myself, let’s just say that those of us now in our 50s didn’t even have the Internet in college, much less anything like All About Circuits to rely on.
Maybe you’re new to our website, and would like to know more about those resources. Maybe you’re in college now yourself, home for Thanksgiving break. Or maybe you’re a parent whose kid is studying for his EE degree and needs a little help. Or maybe you’re a working EE and just need a refresher on some key concepts. With all that in mind, on this Thanksgiving Day, I thought I’d share a list of five All About Circuits resources that I WISH I had when I was in college.
1. Useful Calculators for Engineers
When I was in college, I didn’t have much beyond my handheld scientific calculator to aid me in my homework. All About Circuits offers the best calculators on the Internet. There are ones that can help you design circuits or aid you in your EE homework.
Our Resistor Color Code Calculator helps you read resistor color code values.
There’s lots to choose from, but here’s a popular one as an example: Resistor Color Code Calculator
Go to our Calculators & Tools landing page to search for the calculator you need.
2. Online EE Textbook
I remember leafing through my hardcover EE textbook when I was in college to bone up on Kirkoff’s Laws or review how a voltage divider circuit works before an exam. Would have been nice to be able to go online, and get right to the information I needed.
Fast forward to today, and All About Circuits provides a comprehensive six volume textbook covering electricity and electronics. Go to our Go to our Lessons in Electric Circuits landing page to check it out.
3. Our Homework Help Thread
When I was in college, I could ask my fellow EE students for homework help, or ask my professors. Of course, my friends had their own homework to do, and the professors were only available during their office hours.
Today’s EE students can access the Homework Help thread on the All About Circuits forum. No, they won’t do your homework for you. But they are a community of experienced engineers that can guide you through questions you’re stuck on, school projects, and other coursework challenges.
4. Our Rich Crop of Technical Articles
Pre-Internet, it wasn’t easy for a college student to track down technical articles. The time needed to search the university library for periodicals and academic papers was problematic. And good luck finding clearly written articles that dive into basic EE concepts.
On All About Circuits, we have a rich selection of Technical Articles. EE students can use them to solve problems they hit in their studies, and professional EEs rely on these as well.
There’s lots to choose from, but here’s a couple examples to whet your appetite:
Electronic Component Aging—Long Term Drift (LTD) in a Voltage Reference
Understanding, Calculating, and Measuring Total Harmonic Distortion (THD)
Fourier Series Circuit Analysis—An Intro to Fourier Series Representation
We keep adding more TAs each week, so be sure to check back often.
5. EE Worksheets to Test What You Know
When I was in college, students in other majors could use things like flashcards to study for exams. Yeah, I mean physical pieces of cardboard with questions on the front and answers on the back. Such methods didn’t quite work for complex questions typical for EE exams.
Example of a question from our All About Circuits Engineering Worksheets
Today, All About Circuits has a digital solution for that in the form of our extensive selection of Engineering Worksheets. There are hundreds of worksheets collected in 8 different categories ranging from basic electricity to digital circuits. Each worksheet comprises several questions and there’s an option to download each as a pdf…so, yeah, you can even print them out!
Happy Thanksgiving to All!
Here’s wishing all of you All About Circuits readers and our industry partners a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season, and Happy Thanksgiving Day for those celebrating today.
