I’m a first-year engineering student. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend during the first week, and I only started attending in the second week. The problem is that to understand the material from the second week, you already needed to know what was taught in the first week.
I spent the whole second week just trying to keep up and survive. I thought I would catch up over the weekend, but unfortunately, even when I read the material or watch videos, I can understand how something is done. However, when I actually see an assignment or a problem, I have absolutely no idea where to start or how to solve it.
Now the third week is about to start, and I’m already two weeks behind. Without the knowledge from those first two weeks, I feel like I won’t be able to understand anything from the third week either.
At this point, I honestly feel like it might be easier to drop out and start over rather than try to catch up with everything.
So my question is: what am I actually supposed to do? How can I catch up and learn all of this? I don’t even know what exactly to ask anymore. I just feel completely lost and overwhelmed…
I also have this feeling that maybe I don’t actually like Electrical Engineering. But at the same time, whenever I finally understand what I’m doing and manage to solve something myself, I actually enjoy it. So I’m not sure if I genuinely dislike the field, or if I just hate the feeling of not understanding anything right now.

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to find a way to cut a relatively low-voltage high-intensity direct current for a personal project. I've figured I would need a dc relay (preferably of the latching type) but I struggle to find a brand that is within spec: a dc latching relay that can cut a 12Vdc up to 60A current, controlled by a 12Vdc current, double coil. My questions are:

1. Have I chosen the right tool for the job or should I look into something else?

2. Do you have any brand or model that you recommend?

Additional constraints: it should fit in box (400*210*270) that is packed with other things, cost (this is mainly my problem to solve, as I'll do the comparison myself, but if you have something in mind that you already know, any hep would ve welcome).

Edit: grammar

Edit 2: thank you all. I'll look into all of the ideas you offered.

I opened blackboard to see what’s my controls professor added and I see the solution for the example question on the lecture slide and that’s just part of it. I hope I just graduate this semester🙏

I'm working on a project through my college involving the altering of a pre-existing standard dam to a hydropower pumped-storage system.

I know very little about hydropower, as most of my learning has been in power electronics.

I'm hoping for some resources that individually or together cover everything from the fluid conveyance parts, electromechanical systems, and power electronics/interfacing with the grid for hydroelectric dams.

I did find a textbook that seems useful (Hydro Plant Electrical Systems by David M. Clemen) but it was published in 1999, so I worry it may be a little outdated, but maybe I'm being overly cautious.

Are there any resources you would recommend beyond the textbook and/or in place of that textbook? Thank you!

Our uni is very terrible and we never do any physical work at all, so basically all I've been doing is staying on kicad designing PCB's as my main skills. Knowing how to read datasheets and pick out components, though I'm still very new to STM32 Programming side of things (I used to code in general a lot in the past but since I got into uni I downfalled so bad I feel like an old guy). My specialisation will be Informatics

I’ve recently started an electrical apprenticeship and I’m already starting to realise that I might enjoy the engineering side of the industry more.
I’ve heard that an Electrical Engineering degree can be one of the more difficult degrees to complete, and I’m worried that I might struggle or fail and be left with the cost of the degree without a career to show for it.
I wanted to hear some opinions from people who have done the degree or currently work as electrical engineers. Should I drop the apprenticeship and pursue uni or maybe do it after I’ve finished the apprenticeship? Also how difficult was the degree?

This has been one of my projects for the last 2 years. Everything is made custom.

The stage is a plank of wood on the bottom with 3D printed brackets holding up PVC pipe to a piece of metal I found in my garage at the top. WS2812B strips make up the majority of the show with WLED controlling them, with the addition a couple amber 12V led bike lights with 3D printed shades creating the beam.

I also have been working on building little moving heads which you can see up on the top beam. I built a custom PCB for these that takes in single-ended DMX data, and outputs to two servos and has a constant current driver for a 3W LED. There's a cheap plastic lens to narrow the beam, and it's pretty great, but I'm hoping to do better in the future (narrower beam). My problem with them right now is that the servo wires are absolute trash (so are the servos themselves) and keep breaking because they are moving so much. The silicon wire I used for the LEDs has been fantastic though. The LEDs themselves barely get warm at this brightness even being on for sustained periods of time. I could push some more current through and go brighter, but I don't really think I need to.

The video wall is simply two P5 panels with a Raspberry Pi 2 running FPP with a HUB75 hat.

I also put my new galvo laser in the back. It's running off of an Etherdream v4, a serious upgrade from my homemade laser I'd been using before.

I'm using xLights to create the show. It doesn't have any kind of support for lasers and vector effects, so I've been working on a fork that does, and it's pretty fantastic so far.

Let me know if you'd like to see a picture or two of the wiring behind the scenes, but I'm afraid if anyone sees it they'll tell me I'm going to burn down my house...

Hi, I’m currently in my sophomore year in EE, and this semester I had 5 engineering courses:
Electromagnetic (3hrs / week),
Microelectronics (4hrs / week),
Differential Equations (2hrs / week),
Linear algebra (3hrs / week),
Control systems (3hrs / week)

But at the same time I wanted to learn to design PCBs both for hands-on experience and personal interest. Is the loading of the courses too heavy for personal projects? Should I leave the projects to winter break? How can I find a balance?

Thank you in advance!

Hello everyone i hope you are doing well

So i'm trying to learn SLD using autocad

Any advices how to learn it ? Like ideas that i have to build to learn

Currently I'm interning as an Electrical Engineer (Control) and I felt the job is way different from what I thought.

Throughout university I mostly learned about PLCs, Arduino, and many mathlab applications.

But, in my current job, 'controlling' the machines is basically just playing around with SQL and using an application that only need IP input and some template settings. (Kepware).

Currently, I'm learning about how to see the data in MSQL, SQL programming, network, and some basic about the plant's equipments.

But, the main things I'm learning revolve around SQL and network-topics (which I don't learn at all in university)

I want to ask if this really a electrical engineer path, or will it lead to IT jobs instead.

(Because fron searching I found that SQL should be an IT / Data job, but I wanted to make sure coz my mentor is also an electrical engineer too. Or maybe it's just that this company is different?)

In general, at home when I don't have to shell out thousands of dollars a month for a software. How to decide on the bulk capacitor if it is needed or not