Policy for EE 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 18 semester hours 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
    • Track depth elective: This is an advanced course that builds upon the track courses.
    • Track breadth elective: This is a required track course from the other track or ECE:3540.
    • 5000-level ECE courses: At least two FA courses must be 5000-level ECE courses.
    • Technical courses: A minimum of 15 s.h. of FA courses must be technical. Technical courses are defined as courses with a significant quantity and level of math, science, engineering, and/or computer science content. Technical courses do not need to be engineering courses.
    • Additional elective: one 3 s.h. additional elective. 
  • A student may substitute up to 6 s.h. of the 15 s.h. of technical courses with business courses provided that the student obtains a Technical Entrepreneurship Certificate, business minor, or a B.S. in engineering and MBA dual degree.
  • No course that is a prerequisite (or has equivalent content to a prerequisite) to a required ECE program course may be used as an FA course. No course with similar topical content to an ECE 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.