When I enrolled as this class (which I did as an elective course), I was expecting to learn more about the technical details of the development of different types of devices themselves. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this course was a more “big picture” lesson in what types of professions are necessary to produce a device. While I personally already work in industry (and I have had previous experiences, mainly internships, where I’ve been lucky enough to discover what I really enjoy doing), I think that getting the overview of all of the critical pieces is very helpful for someone who has never experienced an industry setting.

I particularly appreciate the amount of “realness” present in this course. For example, I remember being a little shocked at my first internship when I noticed that an employee was copying & pasting sections of one report into his own. In school, you’re taught that that’s plagiarism, but as Dr. Simon mentioned multiple times.. its not cheating, its the more time efficient way to do things. Also I’ve noticed firsthand in my job that the people that can work well with other people get farther than the “difficult” people, which I think Dr. Simon did a great job of enforcing with the assignment of the group project. Overall, Dr. Simon teaches things that took me a little bit to learn when I joined industry, so I think that anyone looking to find a job in the industry will be well prepared after taking this class.