Why I'm Bringing Oral Exams to Circuits 1

Almost all engineering students take an introductory electrical engineering course commonly referred to as "Circuits 1". It's a foundational requirement across disciplines, from mechanical to computer engineering. This coming spring 2026 semester, I'm planning something new: I'm adding oral exams to my Circuits 1 course. Why?

UC San Diego researchers found that engineering students who took oral exams scored 14% higher on subsequent written midterms compared to students who didn't take oral exams. That's not a marginal improvement. That's significant learning gains.

The motivation numbers are even more striking. 70% of the UCSD students reported that oral exams increased their motivation to learn, with first-generation students showing the strongest response at 78%. In a discipline where we hemorrhage students after the first circuit analysis course, motivation matters.

Here's what sold me: oral exams test conditional knowledge, not just procedural knowledge. You can memorize Kirchhoff's laws and plug numbers into equations. That gets you through a written exam. But can you explain why you chose mesh analysis over nodal analysis for a particular circuit? Can you justify your sign conventions when I change the problem slightly? That's where oral exams shine.

One student in the UC San Diego study captured it perfectly: written exams let you prepare through memorization and notes, but oral exams require deeper understanding because the instructor can ask follow-up questions. You can't fake your way through a conversation about why a capacitor blocks DC current while passing AC.

I know the objections. Oral exams don't scale. They're time-intensive. How do you maintain consistency across different examiners? These are valid concerns, and UC San Diego's team is working on standardized rubrics and TA training protocols to address them. For my Circuits 1 class of a dozen students, scalability isn't my main problem.

The AI challenge is my main problem. Students can now generate circuit solutions, proofs, and explanations with Claude or Gemini. I'm not interested in playing whack-a-mole with AI detectors or creating ever-more-baroque written exams. I'd rather assess what matters: can you think like an engineer?

My plan is straightforward. Students will take traditional written exams for procedural competency. But they'll also sit for 15-minute oral exams where I'll give them a circuit problem and ask them to talk through their approach. I want to hear their reasoning before they touch a calculator. I want them to explain why they're applying superposition or why they chose a particular reference node.

This isn't about catching cheaters. It's about pushing students toward expert-level thinking. Experts spend more time on problem planning and strategy than beginners, who rush to plug in equations. Oral exams force that strategic thinking to the surface.

Will it work? I'll measure overall exam performance as best I can. I'll survey students about motivation and confidence. I'll track office hours and optional help session attendance. And I'll be honest about the results, positive or negative.

In an age where AI can solve circuit problems faster than any human, the skill that matters is knowing which problem to solve and why. Oral exams test that skill. Everything else is just calculations.