Planning your studies

Programme structure

Bachelor’s degree programmes

At our Faculty, a bachelor’s programme takes seven semesters during which you have to earn 210 ECTS credits from 35 modules. For most modules, you will earn 5 ECTS credits; exceptions are the internship as well as the research project and your bachelor’s thesis.

During the first four semesters of a bachelor’s programme, you will learn the basics of the discipline. The modules of this study period are mainly stipulated by the study and examination regulations, which means that you don’t have much choice.

The 5th semester is dedicated to the mandatory internship. The 6th and 7th semester serves specialisation and core elective modules. During these semesters, you can choose your modules almost completely after your own preferences and thus specialise within your degree programme after your personal interest.

Master’s degree programmes

A master’s programme takes three semesters during which you have to earn 90 ECTS credits. Apart from the master’s thesis, all modules are credited with 5 ECTS credits.

Courses

In our degree programmes, all courses are assigned to a certain module; a module always covers only one semester. An exception is the bachelor’s or master’s thesis, because depending on the time of approval, the completion period may end in the following semester.

In terms of content, some modules, especially those during the first four semesters, are based on each other. For example, we recommend taking the course for the module Programming 2 only after the course for the module Programming 1.

An overview about which modules should be taken in which semester is available on the degree programmes’ pages (BEC, BIN, BWI, MDB).

The official academic calendar is published by the Department of Student Affairs (HSST).

Content of your studies

During a bachelor’s programme, you have many possibilities to choose the contents according to your interests:

  • For the mandatory general elective module (AWPM) in the 1st or 2nd semester, you should have a look beyond the boundaries of your degree programme and choose a topic from another programme or learn a new language. The general elective module consists of two courses which you can select from a large course catalogue.
  • For the mandatory internship during the 5th semester, you yourself select the company and, in consultation with the company, the project you would like to work on.
  • For the 6th and 7th semester, you are able to choose your specialisation from the Faculty’s offerings.
  • During the 6th semester, you have to work on a large research project together with your team of fellow students. In consultation with the supervising professor, you are able to choose your topic yourself.
  • During this study period and depending on your degree programme, you have to take three or four core elective modules (FWPM). Each semester, the Faculty offers about 20 FWPMs from which you can choose freely and according to your own interest.
  • Last but not least, you will have to write your bachelor’s thesis during the 7th semester; here, too, you can choose the topic freely in consultation with your supervising professor.

The master’s programme consists of eight core modules and four optional modules during the first two semesters. Master’s thesis and the science seminar (Wissenschaftsseminar) are scheduled for the 3rd semester.