My undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Engineering. That's one degree, not two. I haven't heard of that degree elsewhere, but it is equivalent to a degree in Computer Engineering. Basically, it's comprised of the computer science curriculum along with enough electrical engineering to be able to start building devices that do computation. I've drawn on my computer science background heavily, but not the electrical engineering coursework. As a consequence, I feel like I'm restarting from zero.

There are lots of reasons to restore my electrical engineering knowledge. First and foremost is that I'm a co-owner in a company that designs and manufactures electronics. I know enough to participate in design discussions and to understand the electrical engineers we work with, but I want a deeper knowledge.

My college coursework also heavily revolved around digital design. There was a point when I could have constructed a simple computer from basic electrical components (latches, logic gates, transistors, etc.), but I wouldn't have known how to power it. Truth be told, most of the snarly design problems my company comes across relate to the power circuitry or to managing high-speed data lines. I'm in the dark on both of those.

I have a book called The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill. I also have the companion book, Learning the Art of Electronics, by Thomas C. Hayes and David Abrahms. The second book is a hand-on course that you can follow along with. These books are considered the gold standard for learning electronics and are at the core of the Harvard University electronics curriculum.

I plan to just hunker down and go through Learning the Art of Electronics from front to back. I have all of the equipment and components required, so there's nothing really standing in my way.

On a side note, I just learned that there is an updated version of Learning the Art of Electronics coming out in April of 2025. I plan to pick that up before starting.

I'm going to consider this done when I accomplish two milestones. The first is making it to the end of Learning the Art of Electronics. The second is that I want to design and assemble a circuit board that incorporates a microcontroller, some sort of peripherals, and power management circuitry. The power management circuitry either needs to change the input power to match what the circuit requires or it needs to create a few different voltages for different parts of the circuit board, so it is non-trivial.