A five-session robotics and defense-oriented schedule from sensing to formal autonomous systems. The plan is deliberately aggressive: it only works with substantial prework, staged enrollment, and clear stop conditions.
Planning ranges are focused study estimates from your itinerary, not official course-hour promises. Course shells, availability, fees, grading, and assessment rules must be reconfirmed before enrollment.
33scheduled courses
30degree credits
21 / 9ECE / eligible CS credits
$18,732planned tuition
5compressed sessions
READ THIS FIRST
This is a high-risk acceleration plan, not a normal academic schedule. Do not pre-pay the whole degree. Enroll course-by-course, use the gates below, and move work to Summer 1 2027 if the Spring 1 load becomes mathematically impossible.
SESSION CALENDAR
The non-negotiable dates.
Payment is due per course at enrollment. The listed enrollment date is the last possible date it can clear, not a recommended target.
TERM-BY-TERM ITINERARY
Summer 2 2026
Current admission-pathway gate: finish the sensor course, prove the PSoC toolchain and hardware work, and schedule the final with margin.
Order marks prerequisite logic and priority. It does not imply that every course in a packed session is serial; the acceleration plan relies on parallel enrollment plus pre-completed open material.
The ECEA 5340 -> 5341 -> 5342 -> 5343 pathway needs a cumulative 3.0, with no individual grade below C. Upgrade ECEA 5340 only after Modules 1-4 are complete, PSoC Creator works, hardware arrives, and the final can be taken with margin.
02
Fall 1 gate
Do not prepay the entire 7.2-credit session. Secure pathway admission first; add CS courses as the pathway completes and cash arrives.
03
Outside-credit rule
Every CSCA course intended for the nine-credit allowance needs a B or better. A B-minus cannot be applied.
04
Spring 1 load gate
If controls, kernel, or real-time work exceeds roughly 1.25 times the planning range, move ECEA 5852 and 5853 to Summer 1 2027 (May 3 - June 25) rather than failing multiple courses.
05
Capstone scope
Reuse one bounded robotics or telemetry theme for Linux and real-time capstones. Do not build custom mechanical hardware inside a course deadline.
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
Prepare before it becomes urgent.
Now
PSoC pathway kit, breadboards/wire, multimeter, and Windows PC with PSoC Creator.
Before Fall 2
Dedicated x86_64 Ubuntu 22.04 machine; 32-64 GB RAM and 1-2 TB NVMe strongly preferred for Buildroot and Yocto.
Before real-time
Raspberry Pi 4B, reliable microSD/SSD, power supply, and Logitech C270 camera.
Before Linux capstone
Choose a supported target; reuse the Raspberry Pi unless another board has a concrete learning advantage.
FPGA intro
Quartus Prime Lite and ModelSim; no FPGA board required for ECEA 5360.
Controls and Kalman
Octave or MATLAB-compatible numerical environment, plus Python/NumPy for parallel practice.
CS coursework
Webots, Python, Docker, Kubernetes tooling, and Jupyter.
THE NEXT MOVE
Finish the current signal chain first.
ECEA 5340 is the current gate. Its final, hardware readiness, and PSoC fluency determine whether the acceleration is real or merely scheduled.