First year

You’re at the start of your UCT journey! Let us first tell you a bit about how the UCT curriculum works. Each semester is built around a central theme. Within that theme, you will choose a specific subject to delve deeper into during a team-based project. Next to this central project, you will follow courses. Some of these courses are mandatory to give you a solid basis within the three core domains – mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences – but there’s a lot of freedom in choosing your courses as well, and this freedom increases each semester.

Semester 1: health and mobility

What does it mean for humans to be able to move? We don’t often think about it, but mobility is highly important in our daily life. The rise of endless advanced technologies has significantly improved people’s mobility and ability to connect worldwide over the last century. But we have also seen how our mobility can be limited – and how this impacts our lives. Think, for example, of the corona pandemic. Quarantine, social distancing, and travel bans showed how we are usually related to others and the world around us, and how limitations can affect these relations (or not). Within this semester, you and your team members get to dive into a self-chosen subject related to the broad theme of Health & Mobility.

Courses

To ease you into the study programme and to give you some direction for your further study path, the first semester consists of fixed domain courses that will give you a solid basis in the domains of natural sciences, social sciences, and mathematics.

Semester 1 

Number of EC

Courses

Semester project

5 EC

Project Humans & Movement

Compulsory domain courses

6 EC

Newtonian Mechanics

 

6 EC

Behavioural Science & Technology

 

6 EC

Linear Algebra & Differential Equations

 

4 EC

Introduction to Design

Personal Pursuit

3 EC

Work on a topic of your personal interest

Total of EC

30 EC

 


Check this video about the latest semester 1 project:

Semester 2: Sustainable Cities & Communities

Modern societies put increasing pressure on social and natural resources. This growing problem raises the need to develop sustainable systems that foster wealth, human well-being, and the environment. But moving towards a sustainable society is a complex and large-scale challenge that cannot be understood or solved by a single academic discipline or one particular group of professionals. We need an interdisciplinary approach, integrating different technological and societal perspectives. Within this semester project, you will focus on the implementation of emerging technologies that can contribute to the transition towards a sustainable society.

In the second semester, our team delved deeper into autonomous ships. Not the first thing you’d think of when talking about sustainability, but the outcomes were surprising!

Kayla Veldkamp

Courses

The second semester allows for more personalisation. You will follow three domain courses as well as three elective courses. Which electives you will follow, is all up to you! You can choose almost any course (at the University of Twente, but also at another research university), as long as it is in line with your Personal Development Plan (and you meet the entry requirements for the course).

Semester 2

Number of EC

Courses

Semester project

9 EC

Project Sustainable Transportations

Compulsory domain courses

3 EC

Mathematics

 

3 EC

Heat and Thermodynamics

 

3 EC

Social Perspectives on Sustainable Systems

Elective courses

9 EC

The courses you will follow in your elective space is mainly up to you!

Personal Pursuit

3 EC

Work on a topic of your personal interest

Total of EC

30 EC

    


Check this video about the latest semester 2 project:

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