ECE 2066

Professor Williams is a great teacher who is very enthusiastic about all the concepts he teaches in all of his courses. He enjoys taking the concepts learned in class and finding outside examples to convey how the topics work in the real world. He would offer extra credit to students who would give a presentation on different applications of the concepts learned. Overall, the course was a good intro if encryption is interesting to you, but I wouldn't take it expecting to be a master by the end. The main concepts touch on probability and linear algebra basics, with a little application to information theory. Some other small topics about information gain and quantum information were covered, but not in great detail. This is the second class I've taken with Professor Williams, and I think he did more to engage with the class by having more interactive activities, such as a blockchain exercise. One issue I had with the class was its structure. First, you receive a schedule at the beginning of the semester, and we had a completely different schedule at the end. There were some assignments taken off, but you couldn't really count on when things were going to be due / assigned. A lot of the exam questions would also be fairly vague, with few ways of checking your answers. While Professor Williams usually gave credit, it would be stressful during exams, trying to think of the correct way to approach the problem. There were two midterms and a non-cumulative final, and overall, the class is not too demanding. Professor Williams does a good job of teaching the class.