My dissertation will focus on this topic, which is why I'm trying to make a head start on learning the required skills. The method will not matter as long as the result is correct and relevant. Plus, the sooner I get this done, the sooner I can concentrate on other bits of work

What is "this topic" with respect to what your dissertation will focus on?

Dissertation at what level? Different educational systems mean different things for the same word. In most places here the word "dissertation" usually means the formal document of a significant body of original research submitted for the awarding of a PhD. But other countries use it as the final paper in any degree program at any level.

If we have a better idea of the context of what you are doing, it will help us help you better.

In any event, you will want to try to use terms properly. Calling this a "mod-20" counter without clarification caused difficulty with your readers because you used it to mean something that this common nomenclature doesn't mean. I better description would have been a "20-state counter" or even an "arbitrary 20-state counter".

Something to keep in mind going forward.

 

Basically this will be my final year project at a BEng level. I have been using the term 20-state counter in my theory write up, the mod-20 description is just what was given on the brief.

Just to clarify, this is all the information that is given to students when undertaking their final year 'dissertation', nothing more.

I've got 5 kmaps for the D type, I need to simplify the Boolean expression and derive the circuit I think!

 

Basically this will be my final year project at a BEng level.

How many years is your program, and what year are you at?

In my region, that degree has fallen out of favor, but is the equivalent of something between a Masters and PhD. I find it difficult to believe that a 5 bit counter design would be considered sufficiently advanced for a final year project.

 

How many years is your program, and what year are you at?

In my region, that degree has fallen out of favor, but is the equivalent of something between a Masters and PhD. I find it difficult to believe that a 5 bit counter design would be considered sufficiently advanced for a final year project.

It’s 3 years and i’ve just finished my second year. It’s just a BEng Electrical and Electronix Engineering.

I’m flying through this now, and I agree that it is quite easy for a final year project. Not that I’m complaining!

 

I agree that it is quite easy for a final year project. Not that I’m complaining!

You should be complaining. You're not getting what you're paying for and will be at a disadvantage when competing with people who got a better education. Like I said, BEng in my area is the equivalent of about 6 years of college.

Your project is at the level we cover in our 2 year Associates Degree programs.

 

You should be complaining. You're not getting what you're paying for and will be at a disadvantage when competing with people who got a better education. Like I said, BEng in my area is the equivalent of about 6 years of college.

Your project is at the level we cover in our 2 year Associates Degree programs.

6 years??! Where are you from if you don’t mind me asking? A degree is only 3 years in a university.
That’s very true, maybe i’ll ask them to ramp up the difficulty when I go back..

 

Where are you from if you don’t mind me asking? A degree is only 3 years in a university.

USA.

• Associate degree, 2 years plus high school diploma.
• Bachelor's, typically 4 years plus high school diploma or Associate's plus 2-3 years.
• Master's, typically 1-1.5 years plus Bachelor's.
• PhD, varies plus Master's.

 

How many years is your program, and what year are you at?

In my region, that degree has fallen out of favor, but is the equivalent of something between a Masters and PhD. I find it difficult to believe that a 5 bit counter design would be considered sufficiently advanced for a final year project.

Isn't BEng a Bachelors of Engineering?

If so, then it would be largely the same (in the U.S.) as a Bachelors of Science as far as number of years and credits and work expectation. In fact, it would mostly be a matter of what name the department and school chose to give it when (and if) they sought accreditation from someone like ABET.

But regardless, I have to agree that this is an extremely weak final project for any kind of a degree program. In fact, it is nothing more than one problem on a single homework assignment consisting four or five similar problems given midway through a first course in digital circuits. In fact, it would not be an unreasonable problem to give someone on a job interview for an entry level EE position.

Frankly, and not trying to pile on but rather truly trying to help you in the long run, the fact that you struggled with it at all, particularly in the manner that you did, indicates that it IS expected to be (or might be, depending on how much of an outlier you happen to be) a challenging problem for people going through YOUR degree program. The problem is that this only says bad things about your degree program and possibly your school overall (and we have plenty of such schools over here). So someone (you, your parents, the government, someone) has been paying a lot of money for you to get a piece of paper that is likely to be largely worthless because, if this is the case, then you can bet that most employers are fully aware of what to expect from graduates of your program and will probably not even waste their time by talking to them.

So what to do?

With this in mind, try to take an honest look at your program and also at yourself. Either your program is seriously lacking, or you are seriously deficient despite a reasonable program (or both). Once you determine which it is, make a plan to correct the problem. If it's the program, then you might need to bite the bullet and change schools -- don't throw good time and money after bad. If it's you, then think carefully and seriously about whether you really have what it takes to be an engineer, meaning both the aptitude and the desire (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with discovering that engineering just isn't for you, for whatever reason, and the sooner you determine that the better off you will be). If you do believe you have what it takes, the devise a get-well plan and pursue it aggressively to overcome any and every deficiency you can identify.

 

Isn't BEng a Bachelors of Engineering?

I had to google it to find the equivalence. This is one of the references I found:
http://tryengineering.org/ask-exper...ineering-and-how-long-does-it-take-study-them

Item (C) covers the "Engineering" degree.

 

I had to google it to find the equivalence. This is one of the references I found:
http://tryengineering.org/ask-exper...ineering-and-how-long-does-it-take-study-them

Item (C) covers the "Engineering" degree.

I've never heard of just an "Engineering" degree (which is probably not surprising since it says that it has become quite rare).

I also had to take a second look when it said that a B.Eng. is considered a higher degree than a B.Sc. in Britain. That's backwards from here where a B.Sc. program will generally have a heavier math and theory component than a similar B.Eng. program at the same school or in the same department.

But then it appears that Britain does a few things odd in this regard. Their M.Eng. (MASTERS of Engineering) degree is NOT a Masters degree at all, but rather an undergraduate degree? Talk about grade inflation!

 

I asked for help for a bit of extra work, and you’ve got me questioning myself, my course, and the decision to stay in education..

As a 19 year old trying to learn, this is very off-putting.

 

I asked for help for a bit of extra work, and you’ve got me questioning myself, my course, and the decision to stay in education..

What you learn in school is only part of the equation. Many concepts won't become crystal clear until you have to apply them to a task.

If people in your region are expected to get the degree you're working on and you don't care if you're competitive in other countries where companies have different educational requirements; don't be concerned (as long as your school ranks well up in the pack).

Different jobs require different degrees, skills, and experience. The last group I worked in wouldn't even do a phone screen if you didn't have a PhD or equivalent work experience.

A group I worked in prior to that wouldn't consider anyone who didn't have at least a Master's degree. But they did make an exception and hire someone who was interning while working on his Master's degree. He let them talk him in to dropping out. He was smart and it worked out okay for him; I'm still in contact with him 20 years later...

Post the work you've done for the D flip flop example and we can guide you past any difficulties.

 

I asked for help for a bit of extra work, and you’ve got me questioning myself, my course, and the decision to stay in education..

As a 19 year old trying to learn, this is very off-putting.

You are in the final year of a 3-year degree program at 19?

Be that as it may, it's far better to be facing this now than down the road. I remember working with a gal that was just trying to graduate after spending years and years failing courses and then taking soft courses to pump her GPA back up into striking range of the required 2.0 cum. She simply never questioned whether or not she had what it took to be an engineer until after she had gotten herself into a mess she saw no way out of. She was $50k in debt (which was a serious debt load in 1990) and believed that the only way she could ever make the payments was to finish the degree and get a job as an engineer. So she kept taking out more loans and kept getting further and further from graduating because she had accumulated so many credit hours that getting a B in a course simply wasn't moving her cum enough to matter. The school as also to blame because they were getting caught up in the "must't shatter students' dreams by telling them they aren't good enough." A decade earlier and they would have long since kicked her out when she had just a fraction of the debt load.

In the years since I've seen countless people that have ended up in similar situations (and she wasn't the worst, though she was on that side of the line). I worked with an entire class of students that had each gone, on average, about $60k in debt to get worthless degrees from a well-known diploma mill and, after discovering that prospective employers were actively NOT even interviewing them because of where their degrees were from who were now going another $60k, on average, in debt to another worthless degree mill (that I had gotten suckered into teaching at for one semester) all because they wouldn't face the fact that they weren't cut out for the degree they were pursuing and weren't willing to put in the serious time and effort it would take to start over nearly from scratch to do it right.

Now, it's up to you what you do with information that is offered to you. Sticking your head in the sand and pretending that the current situation is just fine is always and option -- and it may even work out for you in the end.

 

<facepalm>

Yeah, I’ve already completed it anyway now.
And yes I’ll have finished my bachelors at the age of 20. That’s the norm here.

 

Also, your education system makes no sense. ‘Worthless degrees from a well known diploma-mill’.. what even is that? What’s the point?
There isn’t an institution is this country that churns out ‘worthless degrees’. You either work for it and get it or you’ve paid for a big fat failure.
My course is accredited by top engineering institutions and is considered one of the top 10 in the country.

Not sure how this was brought about in a thread about simple flip flops.

 

Also, your education system makes no sense. ‘Worthless degrees from a well known diploma-mill’.. what even is that? What’s the point?

The point is for the worthless diploma mill (of which there are many) to suck lots of money from students that, more often than not, cannot get accepted into a decent program. Sadly this is often done by preying on veterans because of the rather lavish and poorly monitored veterans educational benefits. But it's always been around in one form or another.

There isn’t an institution is this country that churns out ‘worthless degrees’. You either work for it and get it or you’ve paid for a big fat failure.
My course is accredited by top engineering institutions and is considered one of the top 10 in the country.

Not sure how this was brought about in a thread about simple flip flops.

Because this top-10 school is using one problem from one assignment in an introductory digital electronics course that should take an hour or so to work as the final dissertation in a B.Eng. program.