Studies in the School of Electrical Engineering for exchange students
Exchange students can choose courses from the School of Electrical Engineering (ELEC) quite freely as long as they have the required knowledge and skills to attend the course. In some cases, there may be restrictions, but applicants will be informed of these once their Learning Agreement/Study Plan has been checked.
The majority of courses offered in English at ELEC are master-level courses. However, we also offer bachelor-level courses in English and if you are a bachelor-level student and in the final stages of your degree (esp. fourth-year students), you are free to take courses at master-level if you fulfill their pre-knowledge requirements. Because the choice of bachelor-level courses in English is limited, we recommend that bachelor students apply to the Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering only in the final year(s) of their degree. Bachelor's students in the beginning of their studies may find it problematic to find suitable courses in English.
Above you can find a list of courses offered in English at ELEC for the academic year 2024-2025 and 2025-2026.
Please use this list of courses taught in English at ELEC as a starting point for making your Learning Agreement/Study Plan. But please note that it is subject to change, so for up-to-date course information and course descriptions, please check the Sisu portal with a course code. Course timetables for the next academic year will be available in summer, so at the time of the application process for the autumn term, timetables are unfortunately not yet available.
The Learning Agreement/Study Plan you make before arrival is preliminary and you may be required to make changes upon arrival due to overlaps in schedule or course cancellations.
- In order to be admitted to the School of Electrical Engineering, 2/3 of the engineering courses in your Learning Agreement/Study Plan must be selected from the School of Electrical Engineering. 1/3 of the courses can be selected from the other three Aalto University engineering schools (School of Science, School of Engineering and School of Chemical Engineering). In addition to engineering courses, you can select interdisciplinary courses and courses offered by the Language Centre.
- Courses from the Aalto University School of Business and the School of Arts, Design and Architecture cannot be selected, apart from the University Wide Studies and interdisciplinary courses.
- Check the language of instruction and the term when the course is offered (especially if you are applying for one term only). You can find this information by clicking on the course code on the course list above. This will take you to Sisu portal where you can read more about the course.
- Make sure that you have the prerequisite skills and knowledge required for the course. We will check your course choices preliminarily, but in the end, the student is responsible for checking the course prerequisites
Whether an exchange student from a partner university can complete a final project during exchange studies at the Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering (Aalto ELEC) depends on the resources and research interests of the Aalto department the student is interested in. Placement is never guaranteed even if the home university has nominated the student as a "final project student". Therefore, we hope that all exchange students are prepared to take courses as well, so that they will still be able to carry out an exchange here even if a final project placement is not found. Priority in Final Project placements is always given to our School's own degree students. Aalto ELEC has the right to reject an application, if a student is only applying for Final Project work and a placement can not be arranged. It may be significantly more difficult to find a Final Project placement if you are a bachelor-level student.
If you wish to complete a final project of 30 ECTS, you have to apply either for the spring term or for the full academic year. The autumn term in Aalto University is not long enough to complete a final project of 30 ECTS in. Normally it takes approximately 6 months to complete a 30 ECTS final project. Students should always be prepared to complete their project within the time allocated (i.e. during the time when their right to study is still valid), because an extension to the right to study cannot be guaranteed.
Completing a final project requires a very high level of English language skills, especially in academic writing. The preferable level of English language skills is C1 on the CEFR scale (or IELTS 6.5, TOEFL ibt 92). Students applying for a final project must submit a certificate stating the level of their English language skills according to the CEFR scale. Please ask an English teacher in your home university to provide one. If the applicant’s level is B2 or lower, the Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering reserves the right to reject the application due to insufficient language skills.
Students must write and submit their project here at Aalto, and it is very important to have the completed final project registered into the Sisu student register at Aalto University, even if your home university tells you that all you’ll need to bring back is the project itself and a statement from the project instructor or supervisor.
Please note that for exchange students the final project is registered and entered into the transcript of records as a final project, not as a bachelor's or master's thesis.
These are the preconditions applicants should be aware of. However, we always do our best to find final project placements for exchange students. If you are interested in writing a final project at Aalto, please contact [email protected] as soon as possible.
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