Prof Personalities: Professor Carol Hulls

Dr. Carol Hulls began her journey at the University of Waterloo as an undergraduate student in the fall of 1984. She has now been a part of the Waterloo family for over 30 years, completing her Master’s, PhD, and Postdoc at the university, and eventually transitioning from a part time to full time faculty member, working in the department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering.
This month, the Iron Warrior took some time to chat with this incredible professor.
Here’s what she had to say:
Which courses do you teach?
I primarily teach first-year programming for mechatronics and mechanical students, so GENE 121 and ME 101, which is new this winter. And sometimes MTE 262, which is Introduction to Microprocessors and Digital Logic.
Why did you choose to pursue a career in Engineering, and why Waterloo?
For me when I went through high school, which was in the early 80s, there were no tech courses for girls; we took home economics and the guys took tech. So up until about grade 12 I wasn’t even considering engineering. I liked math and I liked science, but girls didn’t really go into engineering then. So what happened is, partly because I was struggling to fit courses into my high school time table, I took an electronics course, and I got into the course, and I just loved it. After that I told my parents I want to go into engineering, which was a bit of a shock to them.
There was two reasons why I decided to come to UW. One was that my older brother was studying here, and the other thing was really the reputation of engineering here. Another thing that Waterloo used to do a lot was they had these programming days, where if you did well in the math contests they had, you’d get this invitation and you could come to Waterloo and spend the entire day where they’d give you little tutorials and you’d get to program on the main frame computer. So those are the things that really influenced my decision.
So I came to Waterloo as an undergrad in 1984. I was in the first class of computer engineers, and there were only three girls in my class, including myself, out of about 90 students. Chemical engineering had about a quarter to a third female students at the time, but the rest of them, there was hardly any women around. The only women I had as professors were my English professor and my Math professor, but there were no women electrical and computer engineering professors.
What made you choose to do graduate studies?
I was sure I was going to go out to work after graduation, but I found that when you are a junior engineer out working, you don’t get a lot of control over your projects or much say in what you do. I didn’t like that level of control over things, and at the same time I was talking to some of the professors in the department, and they suggested that I look into the option of going to grad school. I went around and talked to the professors in the ECE department and eventually came across my eventual supervisor who was doing this cool thing with robots and when I got there, I really loved it.
After my post doc, I was a faculty member briefly in ECE, but that’s when mechatronics started coming in as an option and program, and I eventually I moved over to the MME department.
What are your current research interests?
Having worked part time, a lot of what I’ve done has been collaborative research in terms of working on the multisensor fusion and optimization and things like that, but I would say probably in the last year and a half, my research has been focused on engineering education, more than the robotics. There’s a thing called the Engineering Ideas Clinic that myself and a couple other faculty members are trying to get going. It’s this idea of combining ideas from multiple courses, having a bigger project, being more hands on, and so we started trying to do various things with the first year engineers. It’s like ok, they have to dissect a car engine and put it back together, they have to use Lego robots and build an open ended project and program it, those kind of things. So very much trying to take those ideas and figuring out, is it effective, is it a good way of teaching? So I would say at the moment my research area is focused on experiential learning.
How do you approach the challenge of teaching a class of first year students with all different levels of programming experience?
I find it’s a challenge both working with the students, and even talking to the students in lectures. Because some of it’s that idea of knowing, should I be answering this question in lecture, or should I be talking to the student afterwards, because sometimes the questions can be going a bit further in depth, and some of the students have never programmed before. That’s where I think the course project is wonderful, because it’s allowing the beginners a chance to practice what they’ve learned in class, but for the experienced ones, it’s like, this is what you have to do to get a good mark on the course project, and a lot of them they go way above and beyond. So it’s a way they can challenge themselves.
Another idea that is in the draft stages right now is that myself and a few other professors, what we are trying to do for Fall 2015 is run the electrical and computer engineering students, system design students, and mechatronics students, through a programming test, essentially like a final exam for a first year programming course, given to you either in frosh week, or like second day of classes. If you can pass that final exam, as in like a 70 or 80%, somewhere in there, we are trying to gather that group of students, which we think will be about 40 or 50 of them across the 4 disciplines, and say, would you like a credit for your first year programming course, and go into this second course over here. So that’s something that I am hoping to do because that would give me bring a bit more uniformity to the classes.
Taping my lectures also seems to have helped, especially with my beginner students, because if they need to go back and hear what I said, they have that resource.
What is your favourite part about being a lecturer?
Particularly with the first year courses, it’s Project Demo Day. What it is, for both of the programming courses, is effectively you get your Lego robot, and you’ve got a bunch of pieces, and we pretty much say, it can’t look like what it is originally, and it has to do something. And I mean every year I think they can’t possibly do something new. But each year I’m continually impressed. Some have their robots playing poker, which flip cards on the deal, some have turned the robot into a CNC milling machine, we’ve had gumball sorting by colour, record players, and so many more. Last fall, there were about 200 Trons, so we had probably about 50 projects. And I mean we had drink serving, and Mario karting, and we had keeping ourselves balanced, there was one that was kind of playing table top soccer, and it’s just so much fun. I mean it doesn’t matter how difficult or challenging the term has been, you go around and it’s like, oh this is great. Students are always excited about it, and they’ve always exceeded my expectations.
What was your university experience like as an undergraduate student, and what was your favourite memory?
It was a lot of work, and undergrad was a challenge because we were the first class of computer engineers, and sometimes it felt like they were making up the computer engineering program as we were taking it. I think another thing coming into this program that I did not realize as an undergrad, is that I should have done more with the class. Because I got into the program and it was like, wow, I think everybody in my class has probably done everything with programming, and they know all this and they know all that, so I was very much of the, I have to study all the time, type. Whatever I do, I have to study study study, and I didn’t really take time for me, didn’t take time for that break. So I think back and I say, I didn’t have a lot of fun as an undergrad. And so that’s what I’d say I did wrong as an undergrad, is being so focused on academics and I didn’t really get out and enjoy what was happening at UW. Whereas with grad school, I did get more involved with me fellow grad students, and joined a sports team, and it was so much more fun.
However, during undergrad, every winter I would join FASS, which stands for faculty, alumni, staff and students. And they put on this rather ridiculous play every year, making fun of UW and things like that. So certainly that was a highlight of undergrad. I think the other highlight, in terms of academics, was in 4th year in my digital controls systems lab. And it was the realization that, I do this, and the series says I do that, and I do this, and it worked! And it was like, I need my physics, I need my controls systems theory, and I need my programming, and I need all this knowledge and it’s like all these light bulbs go on and I see how it all fits together. So that would be an academic highlight, is getting the digital control labs to work correctly. But on a personal thing it would be joining FASS in the winter.
Any advice for your students?
One big thing is definitely “don’t panic.” You have all these worries of will I get employed, will my exams be alright, and it’s just that realization that everything will work out, it really will. I mean I didn’t always see that as an undergrad, but, you will get the job, and it’s not the end of the world to fail anything. So I’m here, and I can say, Dr. Carol Hulls, PhD, got a 16% on one of her midterms. Now admittedly I had to learn how to study and I did eventually pass the course, so I was ok, I don’t actually have any failures on my transcript, although I did have one course that was a little close. But it’s that realization of it’s not the end of the world. I got 16% of a midterm, and one term I failed all my midterms. It’s not even the end of the world to fail a term, because, you start to look at it and say, well if you fail a term, you might lose a year, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not very long. But ask us for help early in the term if you need it. Some of it is also realizing if you are in the right spot or right program. Time management is another big thing, which comes into keeping a good study-work-life balance.
Do you have any hobbies?
There’s a number of things. If the weather cooperates, things like skiing and camping. I’m still with Girl Guides of Canada. I started at 7, and I never actually left. So I did Sparks for many years, which is working with the 5 and 6 year olds, which was great. Now I’m currently doing Pathfinders which is from 12-15 years old, so that keeps me busy. Reading, needle work, there’s playing Neopets, which is my kids’ fault. I mean they got started when they were little and they’ve all since abandoned their account, but I’ve got 83 million Neopoints, I’m not ready to abandon it! But yeah there’s certainly the video games, I’m probably addicted to computer Solitaire. Doing stuff with my hubby, I’ve also had to learn to play Dungeons and Dragons, and some of the card games that my kids wanted to play. I also try to get out to do Aqua-Fit as much as I can.