Policy for CSE Focus Areas

• The focus area (FA) courses must be part of an overall coherent plan of study formulated by the student. The FA courses may not be an unorganized potpourri of courses.
• The 15 semester hours (s.h.) of FA courses and plan of study must be approved by the student’s academic advisor and department chair. An approved list of FA courses and plan of study must be on file prior to the student registering for FA courses as an ECE student.
• The FA courses consist of
  • ECE electives: 6 s.h. of elective ECE courses including at least 3 s.h. at the 5000-level or above.
  • CS electives: 6 s.h. of approved CS courses including at least 3 s.h. at the 4000-level or above. 
  • Additional elective: one 3 s.h. additional elective.
• No course that is a prerequisite (or has equivalent content to a prerequisite) to a required CSE program course may be used as an FA course. No course with similar topical content to an CSE course but taught at a lower level may be used as an FA course.
• Each undergraduate student must demonstrate that they have the ability to function on a multidisciplinary team. To satisfy this requirement, a student must take a course from an approved list of multidisciplinary team courses as part of the FA. A student will not have to take a multidisciplinary team course if they participate in cooperative education and internship work experiences, special design sequences such as PEDE, extracurricular design team activities, and/or an interdisciplinary research team.