Elective courses and packages

Students starting from 2023-2024 and onwards, will face a new curriculum, in which the rules around electives and USE trajectory are different.
Since the new curriculum doesn't include any electives in year 1, information about how the elective program will be implemented for this generation of students will follow later.

The Bachelor College (Before redesign) provides you with plenty of choice to create your own study program, based upon your interests and ambitions. You can choose to specialize in a certain field or to broaden your curriculum by combining different fields. So, you can design your own program by choosing a USE learning trajectory of 15 ECTS and 45 ECTS free electives that suit you.

Free electives can either be elective packages or separate elective courses. Elective courses can be all courses from the Bachelor College, so this includes core courses from other study programs as well. It is also possible to follow more than one USE learning trajectory, this is seen as an elective package of 15 ECTS. The available courses of this academic year can be found in the course catalogue.

With the implementation of the new Bachelor College 2.0 (After Revision AR),
current elective courses might be phased out in future. Always check the flyers of the elective packages what the last year of teaching is. 

The entire BSc program Mechanical Engineering consists of 180 ECTS, divided as below.

The elective space in total is 60 ECTS and consists of 45 ECTS of free electives and 15 ECTS of the 3 courses of the USE learning trajectory. It will be assessed on 2 criteria:
1) level and 2) overlap courses.

1. Sufficient level
The elective space (including USE) needs to have a minimum of 30 ECTS level 2 (deepening) or level 3 (advanced) courses, of which at least 15 ECTS must be level 3.
The total exam program (basic courses + core courses + electives + USE) has a minimum of 45 ECTS level 3 courses, of which the core courses Mechanical Engineering have 30 ECTS level 3, already.

For more information about the requirements for your elective program, check the downloads of the OER BW, Art. 3.7 on the education guide.

2. Overlap
The elective courses you choose are not allowed to have any overlap with our core courses. You can check this yourself at the list of overlap courses on the education guide in the list of excluded electives of the bachelor Mechanical Engineering.

Our recommendation
We recommend taking two coherent packages with a minimum of 25 ECTS next to your USE learning trajectory. This guarantees coherence within your elective space and additionally you almost always meet the sufficient level requirement automatically. However, this is not a requirement. If you choose to deviate from our recommendation, you can always do so as long as you adhere to the requirements for the elective space.

Important!
Your elective space will be assessed on the mentioned criteria above: overlap and level. However, when approving the elective program, overlap in time slots, scheduling of the courses and the entry requirements for the selected courses are not taken into account. This is the sole responsibility of the student.

Therefore, it is important to keep in mind the needed prerequisites of a course as well as the time slot of a course. The course catalogue and the PlanApp, can help you with this.

Since the USE Learning trajectory is disappearing for students starting in 2023-2024 and after, it is important that you choose a USE learning trajectory that is still offered in the coming year. You can check this on the course catalogue.

USE exemption for educational minors
Students from curriculum 2022-2023 and before, who follow the 2 educational minors from ESoE, can submit a request for exemption of the mandatory USE learning trajectory to the Examination Committee of Mechanical Engineering. We advise you to do this before you start with your educational minors. The exemption however does not apply to the 5 mandatory Studium Generale activities (SG100).

We recommend that you choose electives based on your ambitions and interests. If you have no idea yet which direction you want to go, you can always use the two electives offered in the first year to find out where your interests lie. You can find an overview of all electives in the PlanApp under 'Course catalogue' and in the Osiris course catalogue. An overview of all coherent elective packages can be found on the education guide.

Also make sure to visit the Check your Match event, which takes place every year around May, where you can visit booths and ask questions about the elective courses or packages and the USE learning trajectories to the course representatives.

Do you already know what MSc program you want to pursue after your BSc program?
Then it can be convenient to choose the needed pre-master courses as free electives in your bachelor program. However, always discuss this first with the academic advisor of the concerning master’s program and the academic advisor of the bachelor.

When in doubt about an elective, or if a maximum capacity is mentioned, always register for an extra course, to make certain that you can continue with a course.

Once you have obtained 90 ECTS you can submit your elective space in the PlanApp for approval. You can do this by choosing ‘submit for approval' under the tab 'Options' in the PlanApp. This is only possible from 90 ECTS and upwards. You will not see this option before that.

Check this Instruction video How to submit or change your elective program.

Note:
Validating is not the same as submitting your elective program for approval. Validation is to check whether you have overlap in time slots or too few or too many or even incorrectly scheduled courses or other issues that you must first resolve before you can submit for approval.