Master of Science in Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology (ICT)
Electronics and ICT have become indispensable disciplines in modern society, and cover many aspects: mobile phones, chatting and Skyping, cruise control, hospital equipment, car engine injections, railway traffic monitoring, domotics, ... The Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology programme offers in-depth knowledge of electronics and ICT, and has three main subjects: Electronics, Embedded Systems, and ICT.
What
Electronics and ICT have become indispensable disciplines in modern society, and cover many aspects: mobile phones, chatting and Skyping, cruise control, hospital equipment, car engine injections, railway traffic monitoring, domotics, ... The Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology programme offers in-depth knowledge of electronics and ICT, and has three main subjects.
The ICT main subject covers systems development for the information and communication industry. Your designs enable computer scientists to make their software products operational. Multimedia, digital design, data communication, computer systems and computer networks, and image processing: these are but a few examples of a much wider range of course units by means of which you will become a successful mediator between the disciplines of computer sciences and electronics.
For whom
The admission requirements vary. Depending on your prior education, you are either able to enrol directly, or there are additional requirements.
Structure
Our Master's programme in Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology is a continuation of the academic Bachelor’s programme in Electronics and ICT Engineering Technology.
The Master’s programme has three main subjects, and the Master’s curriculum consists of three components: two mandatory course units (amounting to 12 ECTS credits), the Master's dissertation (18 ECTS credits), and a window of 30 ECTS credits to take up as follows: a course unit with social relevance (3 ECTS credits), a fixed set of course units (18 ECTS credits), and a window of 9 ECTS credits to be spent on electives of your choice.
The Master's dissertation forms a bridge between your study programme and your job as engineer. The competencies you have acquired throughout the study programme come together in the Master’s dissertation: you use them to devise, develop, implement and validate an original solution to a complex problem. Your Master's dissertation topic ties in as closely as possible with real-life problems junior engineers or researchers encounter in professional life (either in academia or in the industry).
Labour Market
Our alumni end up in a variety of sectors: in electronics, with suppliers of information and communication technology (incl. radio, TV, phone, internet and multimedia applications), software development, speech recognition, computer vision, sensor technology, micromachines, medical electronics, electronics for physics and optics, transportation, energy production and distribution, etc...
You are immediately employable in technical jobs as well as jobs that require a high degree of independence and creativity. You know how to initiate, plan and lead projects as a design engineer, an ICT engineer, a software engineer, an R&D engineer, an automation engineer, a systems engineer, a maintenance engineer, a service engineer, a quality engineer, as research staff, as high-ranking civil servant, as manager, as technical-commercial manager, or as study programme manager.
Be sure to check out these interesting testimonials at ikbenindustrieelingenieur.be (in Dutch).
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Theoretical foundation: our programme offers a practical training with a solid theoretical foundation. In so doing, we prepare our students for a successful career as a future “industrieel ingenieur”.
- Integration of theory and practice: our curriculum contains many hours of tutorials and practicals, during which we use our well-equipped infrastructure to apply the theoretical knowledge covered in the lectures. We hone our students’ critical thought and problem-solving skills and bring them the newest technological developments in the discipline.
- Broad curriculum in the first Bachelor’s year: the first-year curriculum covers basic scientific course units but also includes teasers to introduce students to the various main subjects. Students make their final choice of main subject at the end of the first year, allowing for an early specialization in Electronics-ICT Engineering Technology.
- Our relation with the professional field is an important element of professional development for our students. Thanks to our contacts with entrepreneurs and researchers in the business world, we increase their opportunities on the labour market. Our students participate in company visits, fairs, work placements, Master’s dissertations, lecture series and other training initiatives.
- International project-based education: from the first year onwards, various course units introduce students with the CDIO network's project-based education. This is an international collaboration of reputable universities and university colleges abroad led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Strengths
- Preparation: we offer summer courses and an introduction day so that our students can start the programme well-prepared. An information session for students and their parents is organized during first term.
- Study Counselling: students are welcome to contact our study track counsellors with all their questions related to their study career. Content-related questions are addressed by the lecturers during counselling sessions. After the exams, we offer our students individually tailored feedback. Students with a learning disability can apply for additional support.
- Teamwork: the curriculum of each study year (Bachelor and Master) contains a group project by means of which students can immerse themselves in an Electronics-ICT-related topic. In so doing, we train our students to become excellent team players.
- Education and Research: our lecturers are experts in the fields of analogous and digital electronics, information and communication technology (ICT), data processing and multimedia. They integrate their own research expertise in their course units.
- Participation: we encourage everyone - lecturers, students and prospective employers - to think with us and to contribute to the day-to-day management of our study programme, now and in the future.
Challenges
- Internationalization: although we do try to encourage our students to undertake a study abroad experience, only a relatively low number of students actually does so. On a voluntary basis, our students can spend a term at a university abroad in the context of Erasmus+, embark on an international work placement or participate in our international study trip. We offer stay-at-home students a series of international guest lectures.
- Professional field experience: our curriculum currently does not include a mandatory work placement. We do, however, closely monitor the balance between the academic and application-oriented character of our programme by offering Master's dissertations in collaboration with the industry, guest lectures and/or company visits.
- Student Involvement: at this point, too few students find their way into formal consultation bodies. We place great store by informal contacts with our students but at the same time, we want to ensure that the students’ point of view is heard in formal meetings and education-related surveys.
Tailored coaching programme: As stipulated in the quality improvement plan, the study programme in liaison with the faculty and the Education Department, is set to eliminate the weaknesses within a reasonable time frame. The study programme delivers regular progress reports to the Education Quality Board.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 14/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.