A Great Recipe: Collaboration, Motivation, and Design Classes

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

John Watson, CID, is a professor at Palomar College near San Diego. John teaches a basic PCB design class and an advanced class, and graduates from these classes are ready for their first PCB design job. These appear to be the only classes of their kind in the U.S., and as more designers retire, the demand for classes like this will continue to rise.

I recently spoke with John and one of his students, Mehdi Kacem, a junior embedded systems engineer intern at Avempace in Tunisia. In this interview, Mehdi explains how his desire to collaborate and his motivation to succeed helped him get the most out of John’s courses.

Barry Matties: Mehdi, tell us how you discovered John Watson’s class and why this course was important to you.

Mehdi Kacem: I was involved with embedded software and wanted to extend myself to the hardware side of embedded systems. I was watching the Altium Academy channel on YouTube. I found John talking with Zach Peterson about opportunities for designers. I then reached out to John on LinkedIn, and we talked a bit. He told me about his classes, I enrolled, and here I am.

Matties: So, you were already collaborating before the class. Did you start with an online course? 

Kacem: Yes. I was enrolling from my home country of Tunisia, so I had to fit it into my schedule. John’s course goes from 2 to 5 a.m. in my time zone.

Matties: So, you were serious about taking this class?

Kacem: Yes. I love PCB design.

Matties: What is so appealing about design that makes you love it?

Kacem: I like to be creative.

Matties: This course really challenges your creativity and skill set. John, tell us more about the course that he started with.

John Watson: First, this is probably one of the few courses in the entire nation dedicated solely to PCB design. Part of our focus is trying to fill this gap in our industry. I know that I’m preaching to the choir right now, but we have seen PCB designers leaving our industry in droves, and these are the senior people who have so much knowledge and experience. They're retiring out. What we're doing here is filling a gap in the need for PCB design instruction.

Our curriculum is broken down into two courses, both 16 weeks long. The basic PCB design course goes through the entire PCB design process from start to finish. In the advanced class, we go deeper into that process. First, we look at the fabrication and assembly process. In the second quarter of that semester, we look at rigid-flex designs, and then at advanced PCB design. We finish it out by doing system design.

To read this entire conversation, which appeared in the June 2024 issue of Design007 Magazine, click here.