Should I Take Signals and Systems Without Differential Equations?

[Ryuk1990]

Hi all, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I have an opportunity to take Signals and Systems over the summer. However, I have not taken Differential Equations yet. A course on Electric Circuits is a prerequisite for this class and I ended up taking that last semester without any DE knowledge LOL! Luckily the first order and second order DEs we used in transient analysis weren't too ugly so I managed to get by with that.

I've heard Signals and Systems goes a lot more in depth with differential equations however. Would it be a bad idea to take this class without taking DE first?

I also have an internship over the summer. We deal with power electronics/inverter drives/electric machines. Would the material you learn in Signals and Systems be very helpful for my internship? Or is this class very mathematical instead of practical? I've heard some students state the class feels like a math class instead of an EE class.

 

[MisterX]

I was able to do well in a signals and systems course without taking a DE course. The signals and systems course only involves linear systems/linear differential equations (from my experience). You might be able to handle it just fine.

However, this might be an important course, and there is the potential for summer courses to perhaps be rushed or not cover as much. You might get a better education in signals and systems if you took it during a regular semester.

It's a mathematical class, but it has practical applications - in particular for control and signal processing, but the concepts may be useful in other areas as well. Fourier analysis might be useful for parts of power electronics such as filtering. The power electronics circuits are often nonlinear circuits with multiple states of operation, though. Knowledge of linear systems could be applied to control systems for electric machines perhaps.