Course selection & restrictions

TU Delft uses the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) shared by all universities in the European Union. One academic year consists of a total of 60 EC. One EC is equivalent to a study load of 28 hours (including lectures, laboratory courses, practical work, assignments, projects, private work as well as examinations or other assessment activities. Bachelor programmes at TU Delft consist of 180 EC and Master programmes, 120 EC.

Exchange students coming to the TU Delft must take a course load equal to 24-30 ECTS per semester. Even if the home university of the students requires less than 24 ECTS, students are not allowed to choose a course package less than 24 ECTS. Each student is expected to attend classes, submit assessments and sit final exams for all courses in which he/she is enrolled at TU Delft obtaining a minimum of 20 EC. The academic year at TU Delft consists of two semesters that are each divided in to 2 periods. The first semester contains education period 1 and 2 and the second semester contains education period 3 and 4. When choosing courses students have to look carefully if the chosen course is taught during their exchange period. We recommend to choose a course package consisting of a maximum workload of 12 to 15 ECTS credit points per period.

We expect students to carefully prepare a study plan according to our guidelines and discuss them with the home institution as soon as possible to make sure the choices are available in the semester desired. The study plan is a crucial factor whether students will be accepted or not.

Our course advisors will check whether you meet the pre-requisites and confirm that the requested subjects are available and appropriate. They may request subject’s outlines (syllabi) to check the required pre-requisites. If the proposed course package is not appropriate the course advisors will recommend alternatives.

The majority of these courses (at least 51%) should be chosen from one faculty only with the exception of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering which require a minimum of 70% of courses to be chosen within the faculty. Courses chosen outside these faculties will only be considered with the approval of the exchange coordinator.

TU Delft’s course catalogue (studyguide.tudelft.nl) outlines all available courses for 2019-2020. The study plan should be based on this current course catalogue. Minor changes may occur as the course catalogue is updated every May. Students are advised to carefully check in which period the courses they wish to follow will take place. A study guide manual is available to help. Students can also select Bachelor level courses by consulting the list of TU Delft - English courses.

For students enrolled in faculties not offering fixed course packages in case of exceptional circumstances, they are given a two-week period at the start of each semester to make any modification to study plans, pending that these changes are approved by all parties.

For these students TU Delft’s faculties cannot guarantee a place in any individual course as each course placement is subject to availability, the fulfilment of certain preconditions, and timetabling factors. We advise to be flexible and, before arrival at TU Delft, have alternative courses ready and approved by the home institution academic advisors.

Any further queries regarding courses can be emailed to your faculty exchange coordinator.

• Academic calendar
• Dutch Grading system and TU Delft BSc and MSc average grading
• Academic Culture

Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment

Within the study exchange program the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment offers fixed course packages to incoming exchange students.

During the first semester (autumn) they offer: 

• For Master level students complete ‘MSc 1’ packages and,
• For Bachelor level students English taught Bachelor minor programmes .

During the second semester (Spring) they offer a 15 EC MSc2 design course + a course package of 3 elective courses (5 EC each). Minors are not offered in the Spring semester; therefore BSc/undergraduate students can only apply for the Autumn semester.

Please be aware that it is not possible to combine courses of different packages or to choose electives, besides that it is not allowed to complete thesis projects.  It is however possible to do a course package only partly as long as you meet the requirement of 25 ECTS. Exchange students at the faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment can only take courses at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. Exchange students from other faculties cannot obtain credits at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment. 

Before the start of the exchange period the final fixed course package will be confirmed. After the fixed course package is confirmed, it is no longer possible to change or add courses and the place in the courses is guaranteed. 

For the Spring 2021 semester there is a limited number of places available for exchange students, only students on MSc level can be accepted and the faculty has to make a strict selection taking into account whether the profile of the student fits the course requirements.

Faculty of Industrial Design

At the Faculty of Industrial Design students select their preferred fixed course package during the application process. They can select their first, second and third choice. During the admission process the package will be confirmed. After that no changes can be made anymore. Exchange students from other faculties cannot obtain credits at the Faculty of Industrial Design. Before the start of the exchange period the final fixed course package will be confirmed. After the fixed course package is confirmed it is no longer possible to change or add courses and the place in the courses is guaranteed.

Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

The Faculty:

• Has only limited possibilities to accept students who would like to undertake research-based project work during their exchange stay at TU Delft. Only projects with a maximum workload of 10 EC are allowed and students need to combine their project with courses to obtain at least 24 EC. Students are themselves responsible to find a suitable project on time and to provide the supervisor and the exchange officer with a work plan before arrival, which is officially approved by the home university beforehand (please ask the CEG exchange officers for a template of this work plan). Exchange students won't follow any official graduation course or route at TU Delft as they are only temporarily studying at TU Delft (max. 12 months) whilst remaining registered at (and paying tuition fee to) their home university. Exchange students and their home university are fully responsible for the research project, its learning goals and the supervision/assessment.
• Students wishing to do their thesis or a project to gain more than 10 ECTS can’t be admitted as exchange students, they will have to make this arrangement via the selected research group as guest researcher or trainee.
• Requires prospective students to follow at least 70% of their courses at this faculty except for students wishing to follow interfaculty study programmes TIL and CME. For the remaining 30% course selection, students are allowed to indicate CEG elective courses at other faculties.
• Attending courses and obtaining credits at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment is in principle not permitted.
• It is not allowed to extend the exchange period after application. 
• Information about the offered courses can be found in the study guide.
• Click here if you need help with choosing courses.
• Click here if you want more information on how to use the study guide.

Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management

The Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management accepts students following courses. The Faculty TPM does not facilitate any (research) projects; these are only allowed if specifically agreed upon in the bilateral agreement.

Courses in Engineering & Policy Analysis (EPA). The first year of the EPA programme is taught at Campus The Hague, located at the Turfmarkt 99, 2511 DV The Hague in the city centre. (The second year of EPA will partly take place in Delft, partly in The Hague)

Courses in Industrial Ecology (IE). For all courses in IE a separate admission is required from the IE programme coordinator. Only Master level students can apply. Courses in IE take place either in Leiden or in Delft.

Faculty of Aerospace Engineering

The courses available at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (AE) are included in the list of List of English courses 2019-2020.

The faculty of Aerospace Engineering will try to accommodate as many exchange students as possible. In the course of July we will investigate the possibilities. Please be aware the course content for the second semester differs from the first semester.

Faculty Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Course codes starting with CSE are only available for exchange students enrolled in the Exchange Computer Science program (only Bachelor level students).
Students who are enrolled in a Master program at this faculty or at other faculties cannot select courses starting with CSE in their course package.
For Spring 2021 and academic year 2021-2022 we have limited capacity for our Computer Science program.

Faculty Applied Sciences

The Faculty of Applied Sciences offers course proposals to incoming exchange students. These course proposals do not constitute compulsory sets of courses but are proposals to help you compose your exchange programme. The courses offered for the Spring Semester 2021 will be updated shortly on our Faculty website. Due to limited capacity, we cannot offer research projects to incoming exchange students for Spring 2021 

For more information on the course offering, please see our faculty website.