Elective Area: Details

The elective area begins in the 5th semester with the main course of study. Its total 135 credit points offer ample scope for setting your focus.  You can select modules in the fields of Business Administration and Economics, Engineering and/or related subjects (Supplements).  The minimum number of credit points to be achieved in these areas depends on the track chosen.

Tracks

There are two tracks available:  Standard and International. You opt for the International track just by acquiring 20 credit points at a foreign university. Otherwise, you stay in the Standard track.

In the Standard track, you must acquire at least 45 credit points from the fields Business Administration and Economics and Engineering. In the International track, it is just 35 credit points for either area.

Selection of Modules

Please find the total list of elective modules  here  (Annex 1 to the Examination Regulations, in German only).  The module handbook (Annex 3 to the Study Regulations, in German only) contains a detailed description of their contents and qualification goals, forms of teaching, and examination rules.

Specializations

The fields Business Admionistration and Economics, Engineering, and Supplement comprise different specializations. These are

in Engineering:

• Work Systems and Organization: Special issues in mechanical engineering dealing with work organization, occupational safety, ergonomics, and human resource management,
• Civil Engineering: Special issues in civil engineering, dealing with building materials, construction operations, hydraulic engineering, geotechnical engineering, steel and timber construction, solid construction, and the statics and dynamics of structures,
• Biomedical Engineering: Special issues from electrical and information engineering, dealing with the principles and systems of imaging and the application and evaluation of biomedical engineering,
• Electrical Power Engineering: Special issues in electrical and information engineering dealing with specific principles and methods of electrical power supply, high voltage and high current engineering, electrical machines and drives including power electronic components,
• Electrical instrumentation and microtechnology: Special issues from electrical and information technology, dealing with specific competencies in the design, construction and manufacture of electronic components and devices as well as technologies of electronics and methods of quality assurance as well as basics of biomedical engineering,
• Power Engineering: Specific issues from mechanical engineering dealing with the fundamentals of fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, combustion, heat and mass transfer, building energy technology and heat supply, refrigeration technology, and energy machines and systems,
• Wood and Fiber Materials Engineering: Special problems in mechanical engineering dealing with the fundamentals and processing of wood and fiber materials,
• Hydroscience: Special issues in hydroscience dealing with hydrology and meteorology, waste management and contaminated sites, and municipal and industrial water management,
• Information Technology: Special issues in electrical and information engineering, dealing with circuitry, communications engineering, high-frequency engineering, and communications networks,
• Food Engineering: Special issues from mechanical engineering, dealing with technological implementations in the context of the production of various foodstuffs, taking into account material and technical principles,
• Lightweight construction and plastics technology: Special issues from mechanical engineering dealing with lightweight construction, plastics technology and fiber composites.
• Aerospace Engineering: Special issues from mechanical engineering that deal with the basic framework of aerospace, the principles of aerospace vehicle design, and the methodological principles of aerospace,
• Product Development: Special issues in mechanical engineering dealing with the design and construction of machines,
• Production and Logistics: Special issues in mechanical engineering dealing with production and material flow technology and factory and material flow planning in the context of production planning and business administration,
• Production Engineering: Special issues of manufacturing and production of products of the mechanical engineering related to the tasks of production planning of manual and automated processes, to process applications and their development and design, and to the tasks of controlling and safeguarding industrial production,
• Textile mechanical engineering and high-performance materials engineering: Special issues in mechanical engineering dealing with properties, processing and products of textile materials, testing technology, textile engineering processes and machinery, and garment manufacturing technology,
• Processing Machinery and Technology: Special issues from mechanical engineering that deal with processing procedures, especially for mass-produced goods, the machines and systems used in this process, and the packaging technology used, especially against the background of optimization,
• Traffic Engineering: Special issues in traffic engineering dealing with the fundamentals and in-depth subject areas of automotive engineering, railroad vehicles and railroad technology, railroad systems and public transport, aviation and logistics, traffic planning and road traffic as well as traffic telematics.

This table (Annex 2 to the Study Regulations, in German only) shows how modules allocate to specializations. Generally, a module can belong to several specializations, even in different fields. Depending on the correspondence in content, this assignment is primary or secondary.

Choosing Specializations

There is no requirement to choose any specialization! You just take modules and decide at the end of your study which of the viable specializations they shall be assigned to. Of course, your choices must fulfill the credit thresholds for the fields of Business Adminstration and Economics, and Enigeneering. Modules always count for the field to which the specialization chosen belongs.

If you have completed sufficiently many modules pertaining to a specialization, you can have it displayed on your certificate as a major or minor.

• For a major, there must be modules of the specialization in an amount of at least 40 credit points, at least 20 of which are from primarily assigned modules.
• For a minor, modules of at least 20 credit points are sufficient, at least 15 of which must stem from primarily assigned modules.

Thus, depending on your choices, several majors and/or minors (or even none at all) can appear on your certificate!