Olin Lathrop wrote:
> I haven't found any way to predict quality of instruction.  I go with 
> topics
> that interest me or are relevant to what I'm doing or think I might do.

That's what I've done. I was hoping, though, that the same classes would be 
taught by the same instructors. I took a signal conditioning class that used 
an inverted pendulum system for demonstration (1384 SCE) last year. It was 
taught by a guy with a British (?) accent. Even though it was a "filler" 
class for lack of a better alternative, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My partner attended the 1383 PGN class, and he said there was lots of very 
useful info for proper PCB layout.


> My
> only general rule is to stay away from the hands on classes.  You get half
> the information in twice the time, and things inevitably get held up 
> because
> someone's ICD2 doesn't work right or whatever.  Even if things do go 
> right,
> all the hands on parts I have tried are so cookbook to be useless.  Yes, I
> can copy that piece of code from that other file into this template, but
> doing that exactly their way using the MPLAB editor on their machines with
> their setup doesn't teach me anything.
>
> Unfortunately there are many of these hands on classes, so you will find
> some topics you'd really like to hear about only taught that way.  When I 
> do
> attend one, I just sit and watch and let someone else use a workstation.
> That actually makes it easier to learn the topic because you aren't
> distracted by the details of what keystrokes do what in a editor you never
> plan to use.

True. We do use MPLAB IDE for development, so it wasn't a total waste for me 
last year -- I ended up learning a few tricks.


> The other thing I do a lot at Masters is to browse around.  If I don't 
> like
> a class, I leave and look around at the posters to see what else is going
> on.  Signing up for classes is only so that Microchip can plan the size of
> room and number of sessions a class is taught.  You are free to walk in 
> and
> out of any class at any time.  If I go into a class I didn't sign up for 
> and
> find it's full, I understand I may have to stand in the back so as not to
> take a seat from someone that did sign up.  The hard part is keep the
> Microchip folks from getting up and trying to give you their seat.  It 
> seems
> a edict went around that a Microchip person must always yield their seat 
> to
> a paying customer when it's standing room only.  Most classes have room
> though.
>
> Standing in the back also makes it easy to bug out if the talk is boring 
> or
> the speaker can't speak english.  Yes that happens.  There was a guy last
> year who clearly knew what he was talking about in regards to RF antennas,
> but his accent was so thick that I wasn't getting anything out of the 
> class,
> so I left.

I was in that class, it was taught not by Microchip, but by an outside 
company -- correct? The accent wasn't that bad, IIRC -- maybe you just 
needed to move up closer so you could hear him better. :-)

Vitaliy 

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