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Probability

EC ENGR 131A Probability. (Instructor: Prof. L. Dolecek) introduction to basic concepts of probability, including random variables and vectors, distributions and densities, moments, characteristic functions, and limit theorems. Applications to communication, control, and signal processing. Introduction to computer simulation and generation of random events. Letter grading.

Writing for Public Speaking

Course for PEP students only. Outside enrollment not allowed.

Digging Up the Past: Finding out about past ecosystems

We've all seen the skeletons of dinosaurs and other fossil organisms in museums, although most people don't go beyond gaping at their size. Paleontologists can actually use information from those bones, and other lines of evidence, to find out about how these animals lived - how they moved, what they ate, even how they breathed. They can also make inferences about the environments of these animals - what was the vegetation, how much water was there, what was the temperature. And while this information is interesting in its own right by telling us something about our Earth's past, it can also be used to tell us something about how our world will change in the future in light of current climate change. Find out how we get this information, what we do with it, and the work of paleontologists in this xOPEN course.

The Play's the Thing

Great theater has the power to both entertain and inspire. At its best, a play can inform and even transform lives. This course features spectacle theater from Greek origins to today's socially relevant musicals, the work of our best playwrights, plays about famous people, and a focus on the actors' craft. Short scenes from staged plays on video, as well as actors performing live scenes and monologues via Zoom will be presented and discussed. We explore what engages us, makes us laugh, what touches our hearts, and what helps us live richer lives in tough times.

Food Studies Graduate Certificate Colloquium

Food is complex subject given that production, procurement, preparation, consumption, and exchange of edible matter is biologically vital to human growth, development, and function and critical to many aspects of society and culture. Food studies is growing cross-disciplinary field of research, teaching, and advocacy that encompasses and draws from cultural anthropology and geography, food law and policy, urban planning, sociology, literature, history, public health, nutrition, environmental science, molecular and cell biology, science and technology studies (STS), agronomy, and other disciplines. Survey of some of these wide-ranging topics and disciplines that define food studies.

Critical Reading and Writing

This introduction to literary analysis includes close reading and carefully written exposition of selections from one or more of the principal modes of literature: poetry, prose, fiction, and drama. This course looks at twentieth-century American short stories set in diverse regional, ethnic, gendered, and imagined communities. These are stories that speak to America's reality, sometimes puzzling, often frightening, more often than not just plain hilarious. This course also looks at short philosophical essays published in the eighteenth-century by perhaps the greatest English essayist, Samuel Johnson: his brief and pointed comments on social life and human experience provide just the opportunity to read broad and true observations of human nature expressed in prose of a very high stylistic and conceptual order. Transferable for UC credit.

Introduction to Earth Science

Elements of Earth science; study of Earth materials; nature and interpretation of geologic evidence; study of geologic processes; historical aspects of geology. Transferrable for UC Credit.

Brain Made Simple: Neuroscience for the 21st Century

General overview and introduction to the most exciting and fundamental topics encompassing the field of neuroscience. This course examines the basic physiology of the brain and nervous system and the revolutionary developments now affecting our understanding of the brain. Transferable for UC credit.

Fracture of Structural Materials

MSE 243A Fracture of Structural Materials (Instructor: Prof. Ono, K.) Lecture, four hours; laboratory, two hours; outside study, four hours. Requisite: course 143A. Engineering and scientific aspects of crack nucleation, slow crack growth, and unstable fracture. Fracture mechanics, dislocation models, fatigue, fracture in reactive environments, alloy development, fracture-safe design. Letter grading.

Composites Manufacturing

MAE M297C. Composites Manufacturing. (Instructor: Yang, J-M) (Same as Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering M297C.) Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Requisites: course 151, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering 166C. Matrix materials, fibers, fiber preforms, elements of processing, autoclave/compression molding, filament winding, pultrusion, resin transfer molding, automation, material removal and assembly, metal and ceramic matrix composites, quality assurance. Letter grading.

Dynamics of Structures

MAE M269A. Dynamics of Structures. (Instructor: Ju, J-W.) (Same as Civil Engineering M237A.) Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Requisite: course 169A. Principles of dynamics. Determination of normal modes and frequencies by differential and integral equation solutions. Transient and steady state response. Emphasis on derivation and solution of governing equations using matrix formulation.

Design and Analysis of Smart Grids

MAE C237. Design and Analysis of Smart Grids. (Instructor: Gadh, R.) Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Demand response; transactive/price-based load control; home-area network, smart energy profile; advanced metering infrastructure; renewable energy integration; solar and wind generation intermittency and correction; microgrids; grid stability; energy storage and electric vehicles-simulation; monitoring; distribution and transmission grids; consumer-centric technologies; sensors, communications, and computing; wireless, wireline, and powerline communications for smart grids; grid modeling, stability, and control; frequency and voltage regulation; ancillary measurements; analytical methods and tools for monitoring and control. Concurrently scheduled with course C137.

Compressible Flows

MAE 250C Compressible Flows (Instructor: Karagozian, A.) Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Requisites: courses 150A, 150B. Effects of compressibility in viscous and inviscid flows. Steady and unsteady inviscid subsonic and supersonic flows; method of characteristics; small disturbance theories (linearized and hypersonic); shock dynamics. Letter grading.

Digital Control of Physical Systems

MAE 171B Digital Control of Physical Systems. (Instructor: Tsao, T-C.) Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Enforced requisite: course 171A or Electrical Engineering 141. Analysis and design of digital control systems. Sampling theory. Z-transformation. Discrete-time system representation. Design using classical methods: performance specifications, root locus, frequency response, loop-shaping compensation. Design using state-space methods: state feedback, state estimator, state estimator feedback control. Simulation of sampled data systems and practical aspects: roundoff errors, sampling rate selection, computation delay.

Design of Aerospace Structures

MAE154B. Design of Aerospace Structures. (Prof. Toohey, D.) Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Requisites: courses 154A, 166A. Design of aircraft, helicopter, spacecraft, and related structures. External loads, internal stresses. Applied theory of thin-walled structures. Material selection, design using composite materials. Design for fatigue prevention and structural optimization. Field trips to aerospace companies. Letter grading

Fundamentals of Manufacturing Engineering and Production Operations

This course introduces students to manufacturing engineering in the context of production operations and objectives in the aerospace industry sector. Learning outcomes are facilitated through the use of case studies in a production operations setting. The course will cover policies, procedures, corporate governance, technology applications and business systems that a manufacturing engineer needs to understand and apply for successful performance. The methods of teaching will be lecture, review and study of real world production issues, discussion and white papers.

Editing with Final Cut Pro X: A Comprehensive Workshop

In this hands-on course, master the feature set of Final Cut Pro X in the context of several real-world projects. Starting at an easy to follow introductory level, this course guides you through even the most advanced features of this professional editing software, covering topics which include but are not limited to: project management and organization, capturing and editing techniques, audio editing and mixing, motion, and filter effects.

The Films of Kevin Smith

A new generation of independent filmmakers emerged in the 1990s, including such luminaries as Quentin Tarantino, Allison Anders, Robert Rodriguez, Hal Hartley, and Spike Lee. They would become as synonymous with Generation X as MTV, grunge music, and flannel shirts. But one director truly typified their renegade spirit. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, Kevin Smith became the voice of a generation with his crude comedies, specifically stoners Jay and Silent Bob. In this course, we view selected clips from Kevin’s 30-year filmography, including Clerks (1994), Chasing Amy (1997), and his more idiosyncratic work, Tusk (2014). Not to be overlooked is Smith’s outsized fan base, who relate to the director’s down-to-earth persona and his geeky, sometimes juvenile, often-nostalgic regular-person characters. We check out their fan art, memorabilia, and on-set stills to get a behind-the-scenes look at Kevin’s life and filmmaking journey.

The Evolution of the Western: Mythic Heroes to Gritty Realism

In the 1930s, Hollywood perfected the "Wild West" formula, painting the frontier as an exotic frontier awaiting conquest, while one-dimensional heroes and outlaws settled scores with a single bullet. In this course, we contrast these early idealistic heroes with the complex, cynical "hombres" of later decades. We view iconic film clips from The Treasure of Sierra Madre, The Searchers, High Noon, Stagecoach, and Unforgiven, and compare the “classic” American Western of crafted tales of valor and justice as defined by directors like John Ford and Howard Hawks with the cynical hombres and stylized violence of later decades presented by Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah.

The Bebop Era

The bebop era emerged in the early 1940s and marked a revolutionary shift in jazz toward harmonic complexity, rhythmic intensity, and improvisation. In this course, we explore bebop’s social, historical, and musical developments, focusing on the innovations that transformed jazz into a sophisticated art form. We examine how figures like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk broke away from the swing tradition with instrumental innovations across the rhythm and horn sections. Our exploration includes Minton’s Playhouse, a Harlem jazz club, where regular jam sessions became a significant factor in the development of bebop. We also trace bebop’s post-war historical context, analyzing how the movement served as a form of African American resistance against racial discrimination as well as the genre’s broader cultural impact, including how bebop alienated some traditional audiences while establishing jazz as a serious art music. This course will be recorded. Students will have access to the video for 30 days.

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