Tips for Taking the Board Exams

Hi there! I recently passed my licensure exam last October 15-17, and I'm going to share my tips and experiences during our review and the examination period. Do take note that while these activities worked for me, it might not work for others. Read my other post for my "Journey" of becoming an engineer.

1. KNOW YOUR and UNDERSTAND SELF.

This is probably one of the most important tip, because it will be a factor in making your review routine. "Knowing oneself is basic to knowing others." haha. But seriously, you have to know your self, and know yourself well. What is your most efficient time to review? How do you review efficiently? Are you a fast learner or a slow learner? Do you prefer noisy or silent places? It all starts with knowing yourself. 

The Journey

Hey! I took a short vacay just after the exam because,

IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE HOME! 😌 

So, let me tell you what I had to go through during the 5-month reviewing spree. It was May and I had no freaking idea what was going on with me. I was excited and anxious at the same time. I am about to embark on a journey that will potentially change my future.
WARNING: Long Post 😀

All of us in 1 photo. Yes, we did not have beds. We slept on the floor. Sad lyf. 😢

The Journey. It wasn't easy. It wasn't hard either. It just depends on yourself. It's whether you make it hard, or easy. LOL I don't know what I'm saying. Okay, so there were 5 of us in our dorm. 3 of us went to the same review center, while the other 2 went to another review center. This allowed us to share our materials and knowledge, and "tricks" learned from each respective review centers. Another advantage of sharing the room with friends is the teaching and learning process. Of course, no one person can know it all. There were times when one of us, at random, just begin shouting questions and the others, sometimes, will respond. It was fun, spontaneously answering questions. 

The Review Starts!

Hi guys! I apologize for the lack of content the past few months. I just graduated college. Yes! And not yes. Yes, because I am finally a degree holder. Not yes, because I think the knowledge and experience I gained in 5, 17 years of education is not yet enough to prepare me for the real life. 

My girlfriend is already preparing for her life as a professional, and it makes me think of mine. I will still be taking my licensure exam, so I will have to review for about 5 months. By then, Andrea will already have a career. 5 months is a long time to think for my career, because as of now, I am still wondering what field am I going to specialize in. 

As an ECE graduate, there are a couple of fields of specialization to choose from: telecommuncations, semicon industry, aviation, medicine, navigation, broadcasting, audio, and networking, among other fields. 

I am personally interested in computers, so I am thinking of joining the IT bandwagon. Specifically the in the Networking field. I have little to no experience about networking though, as we barely scratched the surface in our lectures and limited lab equipments. I am planning on taking a cadetship or any job that has a training before employment. I also plan on becoming a CCNA. (Cisco Certified Network Associate) And continue that path.

The ECE board exam has a lot of pressure in it. Our school had passing rates below the national passing rate I think for the last 3 years. I hope this batch will break this rating. In the previous April ECE Board Exam, only 2 out of 12 first timers passed. (8 failed, 2 conditional) 6 out of 14 repeaters passed. (7 failed, 1 conditional) with an overall performance of 8 out of 15 passed and 3 are conditional. Wow. Our board exam is dubbed as "One of the hardest board exams." and I accept this challenge!

Anyhow, I apologize for the lack of posts for the next few months. We will undergo rigorous training (loljk) to finally become a registered ECE.

To my friends who's also reviewing for their board, good luck to us and may God help us!

To my readers, thank you for understanding!

And to everyone else, cheers!

Arduino Robot Part 1: Wall Follower

Hey guys! It's been a really long while since my last post. And trust me, a lot has happened. Well, as promised, this is the "making" of our 'bot. It's a partial requirement for the subject Embedded Systems. 

The subject mainly focused on Arduino, which is an open source microcontroller. The first project was kind of a Maze Solver type robot, in which the robot needs to find it's way out of a maze. While searching for possible inspirations, I came across this little robot called a 'micromouse', which does the same thing, only better. The micromouse maps the maze until it reaches it's end point, which is usually the center of the maze. It then goes back to the starting point, and finds the shortest path to the center. The process of using the shortened path from the starting point to the center takes more or less 5 seconds. My jaw just dropped and I spent the next seconds pulling it back up. But that's a different story. The micromouse is a special robot. It uses complex algorithms to solve the maze.

I thought we didn't have enough time to study the algorithms and figure it out. So we just resorted to the wall follower algorithm, which is really really simple. It follows either the right wall, or the left wall. In real life, if you raise one of your arms: the left or the right, and touch a wall, eventually you will reach the end. That's the process of this algorithm, hence the name.

On-The-Job Training at RPN 9

Hey guys! Yes, it's been a while. Really. This first semester of AY 2015-2016 is our OJT, ECE200B. They recently moved it from 2nd semester, to the 1st semester. According to the department, placing the OJT in the 5th yr 2nd semester (final semester for graduating students) breaks their concentration on academics. I agree. I can attest to that. Going to OJT really breaks the academic concentration of a student. Mainly because he/she is now focusing on his/her work rather than his/her studies. And there is A LOT of leisure time which made the focus (on studies) really difficult. They did this because the passing rate of our licensure exam is quite low, and inter changing the 1st and 2nd semester subjects, hopefully, will help the students focus. 

Okay. We did our OJT at Radio Philippines Network Inc., Manila. We didn't really decide, though. A friend asked us if we want to hold our OJT at CNN Philippines. Since it's new, (it only came to the Philippines last March 2015) we said, "Yeah, why not?". I was really excited, to be working in CNN. But unfortunately, we were assigned to its transmitter in mega Manila, RPN. If you must know, working in an STL (Studio/Transmitter Link) or in a transmitter in general, is not really exciting. And as a young, future engineer, I would like to make the most of my OJT. The hunger for action, adventure, and excitement. The only action we get during our stay there was during emergencies: power interruptions and fluctuations, and signal losses. 

RPN Tower.
"Tower of Ispleketengteng"
-Jonathan Mina

Anti Virus?

Hi guys. I'm going to share why I stopped using Anti Virus softwares. We recently concluded our PIIC (Philippine Institute of Integrated Circuits) training, and just this afternoon I felt the urge to share to you why I stopped using AV (Antivirus) softwares. Earlier, when they inserted a flashdrive to the PC, the contents were all shortcut files (*.lnk), and I thought I saw the user clicked on it. :O He had quite a struggle restoring the files. I know because it was projected on a projection screen using a projector. Haha.

Okay, so first, where do viruses (mostly) come from? The number one culprit (according to my experiences) are flashdrives. Flashdrives carry CTD's (Computer Transmitted Diseases, lol) since they get inserted into so many PCs. Who knows what kind of malwares (malicious softwares), worms, and other creepy diseases it might have come into contact to? The second cause of viruses are from the internet - downloaded applications. I'm going to share some tips to you to avoid getting viruses and malwares.

Tip 1.

Familiarize yourself with file extensions of your files. For example, executable files has an extension of *.exe or *.msi. Video files have an extension of *.avi, *.flv, *.mp4, *.mkv, and so on and so forth.

Go here and here for a list of file extensions.

To show file extensions, open an explorer (Windows key + 'e', or just open My Computer), click Organize>Folder and Search Options and go to the View tab and uncheck Hide extension for known file types. Now you will be able to see what are the file extensions of your files.

For example, if you are downloading a video from the internet, and the download window shows an extension that is different from what you are downloading, cancel that immediately. It may contain malwares, PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs), or worse, may infect your computer with viruses. Be vigilant.

Rejected!

Hey guys. A lot has happened since my last post. This one will specifically talk about the experience about creating our regulated power supply (Because I forgot some of the things that occurred so, blame my memory). So it has been two weeks. Two weeks that we didn't have class for ECE 136. The instructor discussed a regulated and an unregulated power supply before giving us the instructions of computing, designing, and building our own power supply. We had to gather and compile all our knowledge of electronics to analyze and compute for the resistance values. 

Schematic Diagram of the Split Power Supply
Note: The values in the diagram are different
from the values computed. However,
the same transistors and rectifier diodes were used.