Late 90s' UW Engineering grad here. First mistake, as a non-EE I thought I would enjoy this course as an elective. Second mistake, not attending lecture. Third mistake, waiting till the last minute to do the final project. Bad times. It really struck true to me. As a developer today, looking back the 'hardest' part of my CS and ECE courses there, was that they completely focused on the theory, and not the practice. Knowing how to debug my code would have maybe made the difference. At the time, I was told in the lab, by a TA that we were being left to 'sink or swim' so as to weed out the scrubs. This combined with requiring us to sign a 'no cooperation / or sharing' pledge made the experience a failing one. It took me nearly 5 years after school to rekindle the interest.