4.2 Choosing Courses
This program requires 24 semester units. 12 of the 24 must come from MechE-Sponsored courses (restrictions apply). The remaining 12 units can come from the following (but can also be from MechE if the student chooses):
- College of Engineering Courses
- Department of Mathematics
- Department of Statistics
- Biological Sciences
- Physical Sciences
- School of Information
- School of Business
- School of Public Policy
A strong priority is given to courses that are technical in nature. Other courses can be petitioned to the Vice Chair through the MechE Student Services Office. Undergraduate research credit cannot be used towards the 5th Year Program, but undergraduates who take graduate course work during their last undergraduate semester may petition to backdate graduate standing in order to receive graduate credit for that course work (for a maximum of 4 units).
Graduate standing may be backdated for only one semester, and students may petition for credit only for course work that was not required for the undergraduate degree. The petition can be found here. If you are planning to take the second part of two-part course, you may want to consider taking the first part of the course as an overload to your last semester and request to backdate this.
Because the oral exam is based (for the large majority of cases) on first semester courses, it behooves you to choose technical courses in your first semester for which you will be able to be tested on in the Spring, taking faculty restrictions into account (please see the Oral Exam section for further details).
All courses need to be approved each semester through the Course Confirmation Form.