Hey quick question.

Lets say I'm a fourth year student who has 15 elective spots left open. Does that mean I can take first year courses/second year courses etc as electives or do they have to be fourth year courses?

There's a limit to how many of your total credits can be used in Level 1 courses, but otherwise, you're not restricted to any particular levels of study, no matter which year you're in. Well, other than courses which require you to be enrolled in a minimum level.

Usually no more than 48 units (16 courses) can be level I.
Other programs have more requirements (eg. at least 36 units must be level III and IV)
All this information can be found in the undergrad calendar page for your program

also you have to be careful if you are applying to grad schools- some have restrictions to the number of second/first year courses you can take in your upper years

Check with your program requirements (in the undergrad calendar) as well as if you're planning on applying to grad/professional schools. In 3rd/4th year, 60% of my courseload had to be 3rd/4th year courses so I could take a max of 4 1st/2nd year electives per year.

I would recommend checking your degree audit instead of your course calendar. My course calendar provided false information for my course selections this year, and had i not checked my degree audit, I wouldnt have made course changes and I wouldnt qualify to graduate next summer. So yeah just take a look at the degree audit on mugsi and it should specify the exact courses you still need

For most programs, the maximum number of first year courses you are permitted to take is 48 units, and these can be taken at any point during your degree, whether it be first, second, third, or fourth year. It is important to remember though that professional schools look at the number of first year courses and which ones you took, because these are being taken as alternatives to courses that are at the fourth year level that may be more challenging or pertinent to your studies.

Originally Posted by Chris23

I would recommend checking your degree audit instead of your course calendar. My course calendar provided false information for my course selections this year, and had i not checked my degree audit, I wouldnt have made course changes and I wouldnt qualify to graduate next summer. So yeah just take a look at the degree audit on mugsi and it should specify the exact courses you still need

Degree audit can have mistakes too (happened to me), and is actually more likely to have mistakes than the course calendar. What happened for you is that you were probably looking at the course calendar for a different year--the requirements you must fulfill are those that are in the calendar for the year you started your program.