Optics

Optics here means building one coherent picture of light across four levels of description — rays, scalar waves, Fourier fields, and full vector electromagnetics — and learning when each one is the right tool. You'll work through Saleh & Teich problem sets, run a lab component, and sit two midterms plus a final, with the math centered on Helmholtz solutions, Gaussian beams, Fresnel/Fraunhofer diffraction, and Jones calculus. It's a graduate-level EEE elective that pays off anything downstream involving imaging systems, fiber and integrated photonics, lasers, or holography, and it leans hard on the signals-and-systems intuition you already have.