The first step towards success – Ethics in ECE

Prospective ECE Students,

When I was in your shoes, 3 years ago, I had a dream of being a successful Computer Engineer. I am now only few steps away from my dream. I knew this path would be one with a number of roadblocks and challenges however I was ready to fight them. “Honesty is the best policy” is something we always hear, but we must realize that it has an underlying message. If you are considering being a part of ECE, I am sure you would have heard a lot about the challenging and difficult classes that you will be taking. I have experienced some of the hard ECE classes, and I can tell you that along with being hard they can also get you thinking, and once you get into that mode, you will not stop until you have solved the problem. This excitement keeps me going. However, with fixed deadlines and a number of classes it becomes difficult to keep up. In some cases, you may be tempted to cheat on a homework which is due in 30 minutes and you have no idea what it is about since you did not get time to read up because of a busy week. My suggestion would be to control your temptation. The short term happiness of getting a good grade on your homework without working on it yourself would lead to the long term distress of feeling guilty about it and also performing poorly on your exams. Not to forget, that you have a chance of getting caught, which would lead you into further problems such as probation or even getting expelled. Why go the wrong path for one small assignment, when you could rather skip it, learn from it and perform better on the next one?

Being in ECE, I understand the pressures you are going to go through. Hence, I would say that you must always reach out to your professors, Teaching assistants and even upper level class-men whenever you need help. They are all here to see you succeed, and will be more than happy to help out – all you need to do is ask. Even then, some classes might frustrate you. For example, being a pure Software lover you may try to put off work for all your hardware classes. However, taking interest and learning a subject such that you understand it, will make you love it even more. I did have an experience with one my classes that I did not like at all. However, once I started understanding the material and putting in effort and doing well in the class, it made a huge difference. In fact, I actually started liking the class.

ECE is all about your passion, hard work and honesty. If you have a good mix of these three key ingredients, nothing can stop you from succeeding.

BOILER UP !

Alumni Liaison

Correspondence Chess Grandmaster and Purdue Alumni

Prof. Dan Fleetwood