M.Sc. programme IT Engineering

If you want to deepen your knowledge obtained in your bachelor's degree course with a technical and scientific challenge, you may decide for a 3 or 4 semester programme (depending on your prerequesites, see below) in IT Engineering at FH Wedel in order to obtain a master's degree. Most students need more semesters than this minimum, because our curriculum is rather challenging.

Our master's programme enables you to carry out scientific work and provides you with deep theoretical and analytical skills. You will acquire the techniques to enable you to solve complex problems. You will become acquainted with challenging application fields such as medical engineering, robotics and modern industrial methods (4.0). A specific focus may also be placed on IT Security. You will be trained to be eligible for leading positions in a company. However, our focus is a leading technical competence. If you are seeking a business management carreer, this is not the right programme for you. If you decide to stay in science, you may pursue a PhD thesis as a following step at a scientific university. The professors of FH Wedel will support you in this.

What are the contents of the programme?

In the master's course IT Engineering at FH Wedel you will acquire advanced skills in computer science and engineering. In winter, you will receive further tuition in the fields of dynamical systems, distributed systems, embedded systems, medical engineering and security managment. In summer, there is a choice between more computer science oriented subjects such as algorithmics and IT security and engineering subjects such as technical optics and modern production methods. Robotics is just in between, and Industrial Internet of Things is perfect integration of IT in Engineering. You may decide yourself if you want to focus more on computer science or on engineering or if you want to stay in between and take the best of all.

At the end of your studies you will be in possession of an advanced set of skills which can be applied to all application domains and you will have obtained specialised knowledge in some selected application domains.

Closely tied to practice

FH Wedel has very close contacts to industry, especially in the Hamburg metropolitan area and Northern Germany. The friends association of the FH Wedel, the Wedeler Hochschulbund e. V. (WHB), gives you a further opportunity to bridge the gap between theory and practice. Industrial representatives are integrated into the courses. We also have a startup bridge helping you to found your own enterprise where you bring your ideas into practice. Our programming labs are challenging and well- renowned. You learn exactly what you need in industrial software projects.

Our practice-oriented study courses and our close ties to industrial practice are the reason for the excellent reputation of our students at job recruiters who recognise that our students are highly qualified, committed and eligible to take leading positions. In particular, in our master's programme IT Engineering the practical and appication-oriented subjects make up 2/3 of the curriculum.

International orientation

International experience is a qualification far beyond the technical and theoretical knowledge you acquire during your studies. Purely through its organisation, our master's programme IT Engineering guarantees contact in an international environment in each class.

You may additionally take the opportunity to be in contact with our partner universities: Once in a while you will meet students from our partners in our classes, and you may also study yourself abroad for 1 semester. However, this is restricted to very few partners only, because most of our partners do not offer a study programme on the level of the master's programme IT Engineering.

Germany is one of the most export oriented countries worldwide, especially in the fields of IT Engineering. Hosting the second largest harbour of Europe and several global players such as Airbus, Hapag-Lloyd, Philips and Lufthansa, the metropolitan area of Hamburg offers you excellent opportunities to work in an international setting even as a newcomer. In particular, this applies to positions you are qualified for with your master's degree.

Employers in Germany usually do not acknowledge foreign degrees to be equal to German equivalents. Since FH Wedel is very renowned for its high standards, a master's degree obtained at FH Wedel opens you positions that are not available for everyone.

Admission criteria

Our language requirement is B2 according to the European reference score.

The immediate admission criterion for the master's programme IT Engineering is a bachelor's degree from a programme in a related field with a GPA of 2.5 or better. Applicants should have obtained 210 ECTS credits which is an equivalent of 7 semesters of full studies.

The majority of our international applicants graduated in a programme for which German authorities only acknowledge 180 ECTS credits (corresponding to 3 years of university level studies) even if they studied longer in their home country. They need to make up the difference of 30 credits by some bachelor's courses. For this we determined a schedule of 4 semesters (see below) integrating 6 courses of our bachelor programme which are also given in English.

For the proof that your bachelor's programme was related to IT Engineering, you must provide at least 80 credits in mathematics, information technology, science or engineering. If your bachelor's programme did not provide such a focus, you cannot be admitted to Master IT Engineering.

If you come from a bachelor's programme with 180 credits, the only other requirement is that you have to provide at least 10 credits in mathematics and 5 credits in software development (lab course, no lecture!). Any further necessary adaptation to our master's programme will be accomplished by the additional bachelor courses of our 4 semester schedule (see below at "More detailed information")).

If you come from a bachelor's programme with 210 credits, you must fulfil the following requirements in mathematics and software development which can be made up partially by bachelor courses taken at our university:

  • You must provide an equivalent of at least 20 ECTS credits from your bachelor's programme in mathematics comprising at least 5 credits in engineering mathematics and at least 5 credits in Discrete Mathematics. Engineering mathematics may not be made up by our bachelor courses unless you know German and can take these courses from our German bachelor programmes. Discrete Mathematics can be made up by our English bachelor course. Additional 5 credits can be made up by our English Signals and Systems course.
  • You must provide an equivalent of at least 10 ECTS credits from your bachelor's programme in basic software development (lab course, no lecture!). If your programming labs were below 5 ECTS credits, there is no way to be admitted to the IT Engineering programme. The remainder may be made up taking our English Programming 2 course,
  • You must provide knowledge in one advanced software development course (Java or C) which will be checked in an entry assignment at the beginning of your first semester. You may take the regular course of our bachelor programme instead.

If you come from a bachelor's programme with 210 credits and need an additional course according to this rule, you will most probably also need at least 4 semesters, since our 3 semester schedule is very tight and requires all necessary prerequesites.

If your GPA is worse than 2.5 (higher), you may still be accepted with a GPA of 2.9 or better (lower), if you provide appropriate opinions and if we have still places available. If your GPA is 3.0 or worse (higher), there is no way to be accepted in one of our master's programmes. Note that the GPA in Germany ranges between 1.0 (best grade possible) and 4.0 (worst grade that is still sufficient to achieve a Bachelor degree). If your grade must be converted by uni-assist (confer step 1 of the application process) into the German grading system, the best grade of your system is converted to 1.0 and the worst grade of your system sufficient for the achievement of a Bachelor degree is converted to 4.0. Your own grade is then converted proportionally into this scale.

Application

You may start your master's programme IT Engineering in winter (October) as well as in summer term (April). The application deadline for winter is August 31, for summer it is February 28/29.

If you are a student from abroad, we advise that you start the application process at least 4 months prior to the start of study. For some countries also 3 months may be sufficient, but this is up to your own risk.

Here you get all information about the application process. International applicants should note that the above deadlines refer to Step 2 of the application process, i.e. you must have accomplished Step 1 (uni-assist documentation) already before that date.

More detailed information about the IT Engineering programme at the FH Wedel:

The modules of the choice block (5 of 7) are independently combinable. However, we suggest that you choose one of the following profiles in combination:

  • Computer Science: Algorithmics, Cryptography Workshop, Security Engineering
  • Engineering: Technical Optics, Modern Production Methods, Robotics

The remaining two courses may be chosen from the other profile or supplemented by the Industrial Internet of Things module which integrates both profiles.

 

 

Further advice

For any questions regarding the master's programme IT Engineering you may apply to:

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Iwanowski
Feldstraße 143
22880 Wedel
Tel.:+49 4103 8048-63
E-Mail: <id>@fh-wedel.de, <id> = iw