Today I registered for my last semester of classes at USC (pause for nostalgic moment). My remaining required classes for my major are Spacecraft Mission Design, and Spacecraft Dynamics, 2 classes that will be filled with other smart people passionate about Astronautics. However, to graduate, I need 2 more classes that fulfill the engineering degree’s Technical Electives.
Tech Electives are classes that are a 300 or above, like AME-305 (Mechanical Design) or ASTE-470 (Propulsion). They are more difficult than the 100-200 level courses and add serious technical knowledge to the traditional curriculum. Usually, your department has a variety of classes available and you can pick and choose the ones you’re more interested in. However, many of the classes have prerequisites so it would be difficult for me to take, say, EE-434, Digital Signal Processing Lab. However, I knew I was interested in Signal Processing back in my freshman/sophomore year, I could have taken the prerequisites and gotten to EE-434 eventually.
The hardest part about choosing electives is maintaining a good balance of the more challenging classes from semester to semester so you don’t have an impossible workload. I figured out which classes were difficult by talking to upperclassmen and reading the students evaluations of the class.
Finally, as a senior, I can take some really fun classes because I register before everyone else (except the athletes) so I successfully registered for Film Symposium, see Claire’s blog about it, and think I’m going to take Conducting 101 with my Choral Friends!!
