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Core courses

The first quarter includes two core courses (10 ECTS) aimed at building a solid foundation in abstract and model-based thinking within Electrical Engineering. These courses cover both signal processing and underlying physical principles, forming the academic basis for later specialization within your track. During this quarter, you also explore the different tracks, including through ‘Choose Your Track’ events.

Professional & personal development

In quarter 1 of year 1, you are given training to develop your professional and personal capabilities. This is done through two P&PD courses (5 ECTS).

• Professional Development (2.5 ECTS): Supports you in developing your professional identity. You work on skills such as self-awareness, personal branding, and making informed choices regarding your study path and future career.
• Research Set-Up (2.5 ECTS): Focuses on academic research skills. You learn how to formulate research questions and hypotheses, how to critically select and use scientific literature, and how to apply scientific integrity and ethical principles within engineering.

Track-specific courses

Starting from the second quarter of year 1, you will begin the Connected World Technologies track and immerse yourself in the technologies that connect our world. You will have the opportunity to specialize through specific courses and lines:

• Track-line courses (30 ECTS): A track-line is a carefully curated package of courses that allows you to specialize even further within a specific domain of CWT. This specialization line spans quarters Q2, Q3, and Q4. Each line consists of 6 fixed courses that provide you with in-depth expertise within your chosen field. You can choose from the following specialized track-lines:

  • Front-End Technology for Communication and Sensing
  • Wireless Communication Systems & Networks
  • Wireless Communication Technology &
  • Radar and Lidar Systems & Technology
  • Networks for Embedded Systems
  • Energy Efficient Compute
  • Optical Communication Systems
  • Optical Communication Technology
  • Information Processing
  • Terahertz Systems & Technology

Electives

To further tailor your study to your interests, you take 3 elective courses (15 ECTS). You can choose from a range of elective courses presenting state-of-the-art, specialist knowledge on topics currently being researched in our research groups. These electives are designed to prepare you for your internship and graduation project.
You are not restricted to Electrical Engineering subjects. You may use your elective options to study technical or non-technical topics of your choice to broaden your perspective.
Apart from elective courses from Electrical Engineering, you can also choose courses from other departments at ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø, from other universities, and even from universities abroad. For this, approval of the Examination Committee is required.

Internship

Our program includes a three-month internship to help you get to know the wide scope of the electrical engineering profession. You can do the internship within one of our nine research groups, but also within a company or abroad. The internship prepares you for the larger graduation project. The ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÍø encourages Master’s students to go abroad to experience cultural differences and working in international teams. The internship is a unique opportunity on a professional, technological and social level.

Our students travel as far as Australia, Japan, Singapore, Argentina and the USA, as well as destinations closer to home like Munich or Leuven. You can choose to do an internship at a university such as the University of Rio de Janeiro, or companies like Siemens in Germany. More locally, multinationals such as ASML, Océ and Philips are popular destinations, but there are also opportunities at numerous smaller companies like Prodrive. Finally, many start-ups also offer internship projects for our students.

Graduation project

The program concludes with an eight month research project in which you prove yourself as an electrical engineer. During the project, you will travel down roads that no one has taken before, using what you have learnt and the skills you have developed to create new knowledge and designs. The result of the project tends to be a new product, a tool, a scientific journal publication, a presentation at an international conference or a patent. 

Our students have carried out a wide variety of projects. Some are very theoretical, such as simplifying general non-linear systems. Most projects are more practical, for example the detection of epileptic seizures and prostate cancer, converting 60-Hz video to 50 Hz. In addition, any topic that could benefit from the application of electrical engineering insight may lead to a project – glass ovens, brains, printed circuit boards, vibrations, robots, audio, electromagnetic lenses, mobile networks or traffic surveillance to name a few previous examples.