ECE-590D
ADVANCED TOPICS IN ECE
Offered Fall 2026
Term
Instructor
Overview
Feedback leans negative. The main complaint is that the ratings are soft even if the comments do not converge on one neat complaint. The clearest upside is that students say they actually learn something useful. Best for students who want substance, not a disposable elective.
DepartmentELEC&CMP
Terms offeredFall
Typical enrollment6–51
Semesters of data2
7.2
Hrs / week
55
Responses
93
Enrollment
59%
Response Rate
Evaluation Scores
Overall quality
Teaching, content, and experience combined.
3.5
Intellectually stimulating
Challenges students to think deeply.
3.6
Instructor effectiveness
Explains concepts and facilitates learning.
3.5
Difficulty
Higher means harder.
3.2
Feedback Analysis
Feedback Analysismedium
Analysis based on student evaluations
Based on 64 comments across 4 sections
Feedback leans negative. The main complaint is that the ratings are soft even if the comments do not converge on one neat complaint. The clearest upside is that students say they actually learn something useful. Best for students who want substance, not a disposable elective.
Student Reports
How hard is the A?
A is doable but not automatic
The signal here is more do-the-work-and-you-should-be-fine than easy-A chatter. Students do not describe the A as automatic, but the evidence also does not paint grading as punishing.
Homework Load
Moderate homework load
Homework load looks moderate. The recurring signal is steady weekly work, but not a course that turns every assignment into a grind.
Lecture Load
Regular lecture load
Lectures matter here, but the evidence points to a fairly standard lecture burden rather than a course dominated by long or exceptionally dense lectures.
Strengths
• Students repeatedly say the course teaches something concrete, whether that is content mastery, research skill, or a strong foundation.
Tradeoffs
• The numeric ratings are soft even if the comments do not converge on one dominant complaint.
Best fit for
Best for students who want substance, not a disposable elective.
Watch out for
• A large share of the evidence comes from one instructor's version of the course, so this may not generalize cleanly.
Student Responses
I believe that the most important things I learned in the course were best-practices for software development, object oriented programming skills, and varying types of ML models.
Fall 2024 · Pastorino, Javier
For a Python novice, I learned from 0 to make a librarian system in just one semester. The skill is naturally learning to use Python.
Fall 2024 · Pastorino, Javier
Python programming skills
Fall 2024 · Pastorino, Javier
No
Fall 2024 · Pastorino, Javier
Import re to test string Data structure Pytest
Fall 2024 · Pastorino, Javier
Rating History
Rating history
Error bars show \u00B11 std dev
| Term | Instructor | Overall | Difficulty | Hrs/wk | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2025 | Pastorino, Javier 1.9Rate My ProfessorsQuality1.9Difficulty3.7Would retake21%Based on 43 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.6 | 2.8 | 6.7 | 60 |
| Fall 2024 | Pastorino, Javier 1.9Rate My ProfessorsQuality1.9Difficulty3.7Would retake21%Based on 43 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 3.0 | 3.3 | 7.7 | 33 |
Instructor
Pastorino, JavierELEC&CMP
Also teaches
ECE-590 ADVANCED TOPICS IN ECE2.1EGR-105L COMPUTING FOR ENGINEERS3.4