#52 overall
6.002x Circuits and Electronics
edX
9 recommenders · 10 threads · recommended in 5 years, 2012–2018 · score 9.9
An introductory MIT course, offered on edX as the first MITx offering, covering circuits and electronics from basic components through devices that underlie modern computers. It includes computer-graded exercises and an integrated online circuit simulator.
Commenters call it one of the best online courses they've taken, praising the lectures, the interactive exercises, and how well it explains how electronics and computers work.
CS Fundamentals & Systemsbeginnerfreeinteractive MOOC#circuits#electronics#analog circuits#mit#agarwal#sussman
Recommendations by year
20062026
Circuit and electronics MITx 6.002. Great lectures, a joy to watch. Put me on the path to EE full-time.
Now the MOOCs are all popular, there are a lot of interesting courses out there, but I feel the best one is still the first online course I took in 2012, the pilot from edX (MITx at that time) - 6.002x Circuits and Electronics (https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu) by Dr. Anant Agarwal and Dr. Gerald Sussman.
It's an awesome course that introduces one to the electronics that goes behind modern day computers and smartphones. It really helped me understand how things work and what questions to ask.
I took (and thanks to how great the course materials were, nearly aced) the first MITx course, 6.002x (circuits). Each lecture sequence had computer-graded exercises, and they had an online schematic editor and circuit simulator that was integrated into some of the homework and tests.
I thought that was an adequate use of digital technology to enhance learning, and I learned significantly more than I did from my failed attempts at taking introductory electronics in a live lecture setting. The ability to pause, rewind, and speed up the lectures was priceless.
Have subsequent MITx and edX courses been less impressive?
I've done several of these online courses so far.
The Udacity ones are definitely the easiest of the bunch. I think they aim to be. That's ok, it seems to be their market, at least at the moment.
Cousera courses seem to be more challenging, though I suspect they still fall somewhat short of the demands of the actual Stanford classes. But I get more out of them and prefer them to the Udacity classes.
The best class, by far, was the MITx Circuits class. I found it very demanding and felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when I completed it. Again, I'm sure it wasn't as tough as the actual MIT class since the exams were longer and open book, but it was by no stretch of the imagination easy.
If all the classes at the various options were like the ones that have completed thus far, I'd pick the EDx (formerly MITx) courses hands down.
You can take the MIT sequence of courses on edX (taught by, I believe the CEO of edX, so, in a sense, this is the original flagship edX course) https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-1-basic-circ... https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-2-amplificat... https://www.edx.org/course/circuits-electronics-3-applicatio...
Speaking of EE educational material, for the basics this MIT OCW course[0] is really good. There's also an MITx version[1] that's super interactive and even features Gerald Sussman of SICP fame.
[0] - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...
[1] - https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/
Yes, I found the class somewhat slow going, and the programming environment fairly unpleasant (I’m not used to working in Eclipse). I ended up dropping the class somewhere in the middle.
Generally, I learn better from books than from lectures, but I found that some of the lecturers in online courses are truly outstanding (Prof Agarwal in Circuits and Electronics at MITx, Profs Ng (Stanford, Machine Learning), Egerstedt (Georgia Tech, Control of Mobile Robots), Pattison (Berklee, Songwriting)), so listening to their lectures was worth it. I did not quite find Odersky as strong as a lecturer.
Also check out the MITx/edX introductory electronics course:
https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.002x/2013_Spring/about
(I did the prototype version last Spring: https://6002x.mitx.mit.edu/)
I'm signed up for CS50x and 6.00x (Introduction to Computer Science).
6.00x has started and is great. It's taught in python, which I've had some exposure to before (having done the exercises in Learn Python The Hard Way). So far, I'm finding edX's delivery to be superior to Coursera's. I'm looking forward to starting CS50x.
My housemate started the 6.002x course last session, and said it was great (but did not have the time available to finish it).
For people interested by this subject you can look at the free online MIT course "6.002x: Circuits and Electronics". See https://www.edx.org/courses/MITx/6.002x/2012_Fall/about It is a good course covering all the "Middle Age" part from the answer linked on stackexchange.com