Operating Systems

CS 342 is where the abstraction of "the computer just runs my program" finally breaks open: you learn how a kernel juggles processes, memory, and hardware so that dozens of programs can pretend they each own the machine. Expect a serious C/Unix project component on top of the written exams, typically building schedulers, synchronization primitives, or a small file system on Linux, which is where the Silberschatz concepts stop being vocabulary and start being code that deadlocks at 3am. Coming off CS 224 and CS 223, it's the bridge into systems-heavy electives like networks, databases, and distributed systems, and the course almost every backend or systems interview will quietly assume you've taken.