<p>I need to pick several electives outside of my department (Aero) for graduation requirements. The way I see it I have three options (not necessarily mutually exclusive):
1. Purely academic interests (i.e
astrophysics)
2. GPA padding (if possible, most will be at 300/400 level)
3. Marketable skills (i.e. programming classes)</p>
<p>This will be spread out over 4 semesters so I can pursue a group of related courses. Only one of them has to be technical.</p>
<p>I'm especially curious to hear from those working and/or in grad school.</p>
<p>Sorry I just realized I didn’t actually ask for opinions.</p>
<p>Especially for those already out of undergrad, what kind of non-departmental electives did you take? Would you have taken different ones now if you had the chance?</p>
<p>Honestly, I am pretty sure I spent my free electives on two things: classes I need to meet the university’s general education requirements and classes I was simply interested in taking.</p>
<p>For the first type, I went with what was easiest and would require the least effort. That didn’t always work out because even classes that didn’t require much effort tended to result in poor grades because I put in even less effort than that. Ha! Oops.</p>
<p>The second type I mostly used on classes that were, ironically, in my department still or related to my department. I used them essentially as additional technical electives. For example, I was a mechanical engineer and I used one of those slots to take viscous flow from the aerospace department.</p>
<p>I don’t regret any of that. I got a C or something in Greek Mythology in that first type of elective I took, but that was my own fault and I turned out okay regardless. I am very happy I did the second type because it helped me really narrow down what I wanted to do in graduate school and helped me take several of my favorite classes (viscous flow, heat transfer 2).</p>
<p>Of the three you listed:</p>
<ol>
<li>Purely academic interests (i.e
astrophysics)</li>
<li>GPA padding (if possible, most will be at 300/400 level)</li>
<li>Marketable skills (i.e. programming classes)</li>
</ol>
<p>Number 2 is relatively useless unless you’re going to grad school and your GPA is bad. Otherwise, there’s no reason to pick it over 1 or 3. If you’re concerned about job prospects and want to improve your odds, go with the third one. But you’re an Aero engineer, so your specialization would probably let you get jobs fairly easily IMO. I think you should do the first one and just take what you like and see if it interests you.</p>
<p>It also depends on how many electives you have, and what your school offers.</p>
<p>@ boneh3ad
Funnily enough I’m taking a Greek & Roman mythology course in the fall because it fulfills the last of my lower division general education requirements (literature class). Also, my school puts viscous flow and heat transfer in the MechE department, go figure. </p>
<p>@aonoshonen
You hit the nail on the head with my concerns. At the end of the day I just want to make sure I get my money’s worth out of the degree.</p>
<p>The real problem is that I don’t know enough about the high level engineering courses to even begin to think about further specialization and/or setting up for grad school. I basically don’t want to be caught saying “Oh if only I had taken x instead of y it would have made z better/easier.” Thus I’m putting out this feeler thread to those who may have insight.</p>
<p>I consider Economics to a better class to fulfill the general education requirement. A Greek & Roman mythology class is useless…</p>
<p>Also programming is a good skill to have</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Most programs already require economics credits to graduate (or at least mine did) and basically all of them include programming in the core requirements.</p>
<p>^^ aye, I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty details of all the required gened classes (2xhumanities, 2xss, 1 art, 1 cultural diversity, 1 speech, etc.) I have taken, but I can assure you, I’ve already taken economics. I have already taken the required C++ programming class and am taking numerical methods w/matlab class over the summer.</p>
<p>The question is what to do with my <em>free</em> electives. I’m in a bit of an odd scheduling situation. I need to take 5-6 electives. 7 if you count the departmental technical elective. So I’ve been on an academic interest binge researching all sorts of ideas. I keep coming back to physics and astronomy/astrophysics or perhaps later on (senior year) reserving a couple spots for grad level aero classes that have much more interesting topics, but that’s my inner nerd talking. I keep thinking I should pick something in the mechanical engineering department (like heat transfer) to get a broader engineering knowledge base.</p>
<p>My advise - Add a technical communications class.</p>
<p>you can also get an internship that gives you college credit if you just want to fill the gap and graduate.</p>