6.331 Advanced Circuit Techniques Fall 89 Hours: 4-6-8 Prerequisites: 6.301, 6.302, 6.012, lots of time Lecturer: J. Roberge Difficulty: 7.4/10 Subject Overall: 6.8/7 Lecturer Overall: 6.7 Pace: 4.5/7 Response Rate: 10 of 15 6.331 is a graduate class that presents an engineering approach to the design of high-performance analog circuits. It provides an overview of analog design techniques intended for ``real-world'' applications. J. Roberge was universally acknowledged as an excellent lecturer. Lectures got to the point quickly and efficiently. They were considered an absolute must and required solid concentration, but they were also interesting and entertaining. According to one student, ``The only problem is that so much information is imparted that it is hard to take notes and catch it all.'' For this reason, and since there was no text, lecture notes would have been helpful. TA T. Clark was friendly, helpful, available, and exceptionally knowledgeable. Although his recitations were somewhat different from the lectures, they covered useful material and complemented the class well. The coursework consisted of a few problem sets and three major design problems and labs. The design problems and labs were the primary focus of the course. Although time-consuming, they were extremely educational. The general consensus was the design problems were where you learn the material. There were no quizzes or final. The subject had no syllabus. Some felt that a syllabus would have been helpful while others felt that a syllabus was unnecessary since topics followed a logical progression. Despite being very time-consuming, the course was undoubtedly worthwhile, ``especially if you plan to design circuits in the real world.'' It was cited by some as one of the best classes at MIT. ``Start planning your freshman year to leave room for this course.'' ``Everything you ever wanted to know about analog circuit design.'' ``What the hell is an Inductor, anyway?''