As a fellow embedded developer who has read most of the materials, I will tell you this:

The operating systems class you took should have covered the core concepts in the papers.

In my opinion, most of the papers talk about how those core concepts came to be in the golden age of Operating Systems Research when it was booming in the same way AI/Machine Learning/Big Data is booming post 2000s. Read it at your leisure if you are interested in the backstory.

That said, the class is of teaching critical reading, critical thinking, presentation, proper discussion and critiquing of academic papers: just that the topic happens to be Operating Systems.

If you are interested in RTOS (real-time OS) courses I recommend checking edX for the expected September 2016 arrival date of a followup to this course:

edX course page: https://www.edx.org/course/embedded-systems-shape-world-utau...

More information: http://edx-org-utaustinx.s3.amazonaws.com/UT601x/index.html

The excellent quality of the above course - which includes programming actual hardware (you have to invest about $50 for components) - raises the expectations for that upcoming course.

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EDIT

The page is already up for the new course "Real-Time Bluetooth Networks - Shape the World":

https://www.edx.org/course/real-time-bluetooth-networks-shap...

> In this lab-based computer science course, explore the complexities of embedded systems and learn how to develop your own real-time operating system (RTOS) by building a personal fitness device with Bluetooth connectivity (BLE).

- Enhance your embedded system skills

- Write your own real-time operating system

- Design, develop and debug C code

- Implement a personal fitness device

- Communicate using Bluetooth

More info: http://edx-org-utaustinx.s3.amazonaws.com/UT601x/RTOS.html