My name is Jordan Peace and I'm studying Electronics
and Communications Engineering at ECU. Just
studying electrical units I found that understanding
the theories is one thing but applying it
is another one. And we have a few laboratories
where they've got circuit boards set up like
um we did one section on filters and I didn't
really understand the kind of work that plugging
in an oscilloscope and sort of measuring the
decibel cut-off sort of you know really the
system I'm learning and getting an understanding
of how circuits act the way they do. And um
with the robotic side of things if I wanted
to pursue robotics and engineering they've
got a robot set up upstairs that you can go
in and program um I've recently finished a
digital course and for that we had to go in
and program a FPGA sort of learn about logic
gate s and timing and that sort of thing.
So the lecturers are very very down to earth
very approachable and I've often gone to a
lot of my maths lecturers with questions about
um what they're teaching and they're very
willing to explain things in more detail and
simplify it for you. And again the practical
side of things of why you know the specific
and functional you know is has derived or
where it came from and then how to apply that
in practice. I entered as a mature age student
so I didn't come directly from high school
and so I did a lot of the pre-requisites to
sort of get me up to speed and make sure my
understanding was what they required. In the
beginning they sort of cover everything first
is just you know give you a broad sense of
what all fields of engineering were so I've
done a lot of mechanical units and structural
units that kind of thing but now in the second
year it's very as I said practical, so you
start to apply the things you've learned and
its now starting to focus on my specific field
so I'm doing a lot more um electrical a lot
more communications side of engineering. And
the structure is very helpful too it doesn't
sort of throw you in the deep end. All the
units key in together and build upon each
other. There's a variety of real work placements
um at ECU engineering such as in the final
year you go for a twelve week ah work placement
to give you sort of um an idea of industry
standards and that kind of thing that you're
expected to be performing in the field so
that when you leave your degree you're not
sort of thrown into the deep end as not knowing
what you're doing but you get an idea of the
skills you need to have and basically what
it's going to be like in the real world. So
a lot of the units are recorded online so
if ever you're either sick or you want to
re-go over them you're able to review the
lectures from week 1 all the way through to
week 13 and get a better understanding. Being
a guitarist I've had this one circuit that
I've wanted to design for ages, and after
taking two or three units I've now sort of
understand the fundamentals of how it works
and sort of how I can apply that and once
I've finished I'd really like to be able to
design my own amplifier and equipment and
I believe that ECU can you know fully help
me on the way to building that.
