Quick Hello#

Hey everyone! I’m back after a not-so-long break—surprisingly short, given my usual pace. Hopefully, this marks a positive shift!

Today, I want to share a bit about an extra course I’ve joined at university that I’m genuinely enjoying.

It’s called Decoding Life Signals: Innovations in Biomedical Engineering (or simply Decoding Biosignals). The course focuses on understanding and analyzing the electrical signals our bodies produce.

But before diving in, I should clarify: technically, I didn’t join this course through my university—at least not in the usual way.

Let’s start there, just to avoid any confusion.

EUNICE University#

My alma mater, Poznań University of Technology, is part of an alliance of ten European universities, each based in a different country.

This alliance is called EUNICE—the European University for Customised Education—and is sometimes referred to as EUNICE University.

What is EUNICE?#

In short, it’s a collaborative effort to foster a multicultural environment in research, education, and professional opportunities.

The educational aspect is especially relevant here. EUNICE offers blended intensive programs, summer schools, and semester courses.

I’ll focus only on the semester courses—because that’s where the Decoding Biosignals course fits in. If you’re curious, I highly recommend exploring more on the EUNICE website.

Semester Courses#

As the name suggests, semester courses span a full academic term.

They include regular lectures, assignments, and award ECTS points upon completion. If your university recognizes them, they may count toward your degree. If not, you’ll still receive a diploma supplement—and more importantly, gain valuable knowledge (personally, I’m loving it!).

These courses are taught by professors from across the EUNICE universities and are typically held online—understandably so, given the cross-border participation.

How to sign up:#

1. Visit the EUNICE Course Catalogue
2. Pick a course that interests you
3. Apply (you’ll need to meet the study level requirement and use your EUNICE university email)

That’s it.

It’s so seamless that I actually forgot I signed up for Decoding Biosignals 😅.

Now that we’ve covered the setup, let’s talk about the course itself.

Course Description#

As mentioned earlier, this course focuses on analyzing biosignals—specifically EKG (heart), EMG (muscles), and especially EEG (brain) signals. You can read the full course description here.

It’s taught by Dr. Athanasios Koutras, an Associate Professor at the University of Peloponnese, Greece.

What I really enjoy about his approach is the hands-on focus. While we do have biweekly lectures, the core learning happens through assignments—detailed, practical, and a great bridge between tech and biology.

(For an in-depth look, check out the course’s GitHub page where Dr. Koutras uploads all our tasks. Below, I’ll just share a quick overview.)

Assignments#

1. Exploring OpenBCI GUI#

Our first task introduced us to the OpenBCI GUI software, using various pre-recorded biosignals (EKG, EMG, EEG).
Some tasks were straightforward, like calculating heart rate, while others were more creative—such as decoding a Morse code message from a signal!

Decoding EEG data was tricky for me, but after a one-on-one with the Professor, I got the hang of it.

2. Eyes Open vs. Eyes Closed (EEG Analysis)#

In this assignment, we analyzed EEG recordings from this dataset, featuring female subjects aged 60–80 in two states: eyes open and eyes closed.

Each student worked on one subject, analyzed their brain response, and compared findings with others. It was both technical and collaborative.

3 & 4. Visual Stimuli & Artifact Removal#

These next assignments (which I haven’t started yet due to workload) dive into brain responses to visual input and removing artifacts from EEG data.

There’s quite a bit of theory, but Dr. Koutras does a great job of simplifying it.

Final Hackathon#

To wrap up the course, we’ll participate in a hackathon designed by Dr. Koutras. It’s our chance to apply everything we’ve learned in a real-world context.

I’m super excited and definitely looking forward to the challenge!

Closing Thoughts#

Decoding Biosignals has been a breath of fresh air in my university experience—honestly, the first course that genuinely brings me joy.

Most other courses tend to be either taught in a discouraging way or are just mandatory requirements you push through for the degree. Sure, there are exceptions—like Intro to Probability, where the lecturer is fantastic and even ties in AI applications—but those are rare.

What makes Biosignals stand out is how closely it aligns with my interests. It combines programming and biology, and it’s taught by someone truly passionate about the field—Dr. Koutras, who even did his PhD on this topic!

It’s a whole different experience when a course feels this real and relevant.

Dr. Koutras also recommended some great YouTube channels and podcasts, which is perfect for now since I don’t have much time to dive into academic papers—GHOST Day conference prep is eating up most of my reading time.

All in all, this course has been such a captivating experience, and I really wanted to share it to maybe inspire someone else to seek out cool opportunities like this.

They’re not always easy to find—but when you do, they’re so worth it.

Thanks for reading, and see you after GHOST Day! 👋