The basic structure of your degree is fixed according to the Degree Regulations and the curriculum. Within these boundaries, you have a possibility to make choices that support your own interests, goals, and life situation in different phases of your studies.

Start planning your studies by familiarizing yourself with the curriculum.

In order to support graduation in 2 years, it is important to recognize the critical path. You are encouraged to choose your major before the 1st year starts. Thereby, the first autumn emphasizes the compulsory courses of the major enabling the research assignment already in the first spring (or the 2nd autumn). The research assignment is a prerequisite for starting the master’s thesis. Although the intensive work takes place in the 2nd spring, preparations for the master’s thesis should gradually start in the beginning of the second year. The choice and timing of the optional courses of the major should support the progress in the critical path.

During the 1st autumn, you should choose your minor (whether the choice is restricted of free). In the planning and scheduling of studies, take into consideration quotas, prerequisite knowledge and the suggested sequence for the courses in the minor. The sooner the choice of the minor is made; the more possibilities you have to level the overall workload without delaying the graduation. Likewise, planning of a semester in a foreign university becomes easier.

The last element in making the personal study plan is choosing the electives. 

Master’s Programme in Industrial Engineering and Management offers four majors:

• Operations Management
• Organisation Design and Leadership
• Product and Innovation Management
• Strategy
   

You can choose your major freely. If you are unsure about your choice, you can change your major later. The majors have common content, which makes it easy to include already completed courses into the new major. 

Depending on the content of the bachelor's studies the choice of minor can be free or restricted. Free choice means that the general Aalto rules concerning minor apply. If your choice of minor is restricted, you must follow the programme-specific principles articulated below.  

The main principle is that only minors provided by Aalto schools of technology (i.e., CHEM, ELEC, ENG, or SCI) and designed only for the master's level are suitable.  However, there two types of exceptions: 1) some of these master’s level minors are disallowed and 2) some bachelor’s level minors are allowed.

1) Disallowed master’s level minors

Disallowing a minor is based on the following logic: 

The minor should extend and deepen students’ engineering competence in another field of engineering than IEM. Therefore, it should have a clear focus, and typical basic or intermediate engineering studies as prerequisites. 

Aalto schools of technology also offer minors for students with a more varying background or minors that are not sufficiently focused on a specified field of engineering. Typically, such minors have a very open structure, broad objectives, and content. In addition, they may include courses organized by Aalto Schools of Business or Arts, over even by the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management; or courses that have strong business, societal, or varying content although they are organised by departments in the Schools of Technology. Such minors are disallowed. For example, following minors in the 2024-2026 curriculum belong to this group:

• Code: CS.a Creative Sustainability
• Code: BIZ5230 (BIZ)/IDBM.a (ARTS) International Design Business Management
• SCI3038 Multi-Disciplinary Energy Studies
• ENG3074 Real Estate Economics
• ENG3073 Human-Centered Living Environment
• SCI3072 USchool
• SCI3073 Analytics and Data Science
• SCI3170 Computational Finance and Risk Management
• SCI3090 Startup Minor/SCI3110 AVP Startup Minor
• SCI3172 Riskianalyysi
• ENG3094 Interdiscplinary Product Development

The list of restricted minors is not comprehensive. There can be other minors with similar disapproved properties. 

2) Allowed bachelor’s level minors

If a minor designed for the bachelor’s level is allowed for Aalto IEM students, it may also be included in the master’s degree. For the list of allowed bachelor’s level minors please see IEM BSc curriculum. Many of these minors are offered in Finnish, which may in practice limit the choices of foreign students. Problems may also arise if the student does not have sufficient prerequisite knowledge for a master-level minor, and the prerequisite course is offered in Finnish. The following minors should not have these problems:

• CHEM3055 Chemical Engineering
• ELEC3057 Digital Systems and Design
• ENG3083 Computational Engineering
• SCI3104 Quantum Technology
• SCI3096 Data Science
• SCI3031 Computer Science (only advanced study path of the minor is accepted)

Are you studying according to the 2022-2024 curriculum? Please see the minor subject guidelines here.
 

Start planning the exchange well in advance! This will give you time to consider your destination carefully and acquire needed language skills and possible language certificates.

Plan in which part of your degree you include the exchange studies. During the exchange you can take courses

• for your electives. 
• for your major: you can take courses equivalent to mandatory courses of the major, and/or you can include exchange courses in the optional part of the major. If you take optional courses for the major, you don’t have to find equivalent courses from our curriculum. However, the courses you select must meet the learning outcomes of the major.
• for your minor. You can include suitable courses in your chosen minor at Aalto. If your choice of minor is restricted, do not selected courses from business schools/faculties. If your choice of minor is free, you can complete the International Studies Minor during exchange.

According to Aalto regulations, it is not possible to transfer courses which have overlapping content with your other courses. Choose courses that will provide new knowledge!

There must be room for exchange studies in your degree. 

• The studies you have already completed, including those not included in your HOPS (but shown in your transcript of records), will be taken into account when assessing whether there is room for planned exchanges in your degree. 

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