Hey guys,
I'm going into Materials Engineering and International Studies this coming fall, and I was wondering if anybody could explain the focus electives to me!
Do they have to be non-technical electives (like first year)?
Is it worth the time, effort, and money trying to pursue a minor by maxing out my electives, or just go with languages like suggested?

Thanks to anyone who can help me!

I'm not in international studies but I am in society so I'll try to shed some light on this. For the electives you can the pretty much anything, that being said, the point of going into society/international studies is to venture out of the technical side of our degree and see what else there is. So I think you would get more out of it if you were to take non-technical electives instead of technical ones.
For the minor, if you have something that you really love outside the engineering field then I would say yes go for it, get the minor. I'm currently completing a minor in french and it hasn't put any added pressure on me. I'm actually finishing the minor a year ahead of time because of the way courses worked out for me. I would only complete a minor if there is a subject that you really want to take 24 units of, if their isn't and you just want to take a bunch of random courses then that could be fun too. But definitely if there's one subject you love outside of engineering then try for the minor.

Yea, I figured the point wasn't to take technical electives haha. And I only mention the minor because I was looking at the way my electives/ forced electives are set up, and in 3rd year I have to choose between 2 of 3 courses- 2 poli sci courses and a religious studies course. I'm likely just to take both poli sci courses, and it occured to me that if I chose all poli sci courses, I could minor in it without taking additional summer courses.
However I've also considered just taking an extra language like german when I have 6 units of free electives (I already did french immersion in highschool).

I realise that was a long-ish post, but do you have any input on which would be a better path?

Thanks!

If you like poli sci then I would say do it. It seems like an interesting subject but I could never study politics so closely. There isn't really a right or wrong path, it's really up to you what you do. To me, I think no matter what you do if you can make something out of it then do it.
German would be a sick language to learn, I'm kind of hoping to learn a bit while I'm here in France for a 8 months. If I wasn't going for my minor in french, I would take some german courses.