Draft your own study plan

Study advisers play an important role in assisting you when designing your individual programme. After you have been admitted and have registered, your draft study plan will be finetuned with one of our study advisers during an intake meeting. The study adviser will take your wishes (what you like to learn) into account, as well as your needs (what is needed to bridge a possible gap between your academic background and the study programme) and study goals (what you want to achieve).

Tip: During the AID (Annual Introduction Days), you are strongly advised to join the Master Study Day. During this day, our study advisers will welcome you, you can meet your fellow students and ask all the questions you have about the programme. Any individual questions about your study plan can be addressed during your intake meeting.

When you are in the process of choosing a thesis track, you may ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why am I interested in this specific track? What do I want to learn?

2. Does this track relate to my background (education, work, other experiences, etc.)?

The MSc Environmental Sciences offers 10 thesis tracks divided over 4 specialisations. To explore the different thesis tracks, we advise you to undertake the actions below:

1. Read more about our thesis tracks on our website, and try to select 1 or 2 tracks that you like best.

2. Go over the course descriptions of the thesis track(s) of your choice, to make sure most of the related courses appeal to you. You will find the courses per thesis track on the thesis track pages.

3.  Visit the webpages of the chair groups related to the thesis track(s) to learn more about their research, to make sure this is the field you would like to conduct your thesis in. The link of the relevant chair group can be found in the description of the thesis track, under “+ more about this thesis track”.

In the MSc Environmental Sciences the internship and the course Academic Master's Cluster (AMC) focus on career preparation. Besides, there are other additional possibilities related to career preparation:

• Environmental Education and Environmental communication
• International relations (only for Environmental Policy thesis track)
• Entrepreneurship and
• Research

If you are interested in one of these possibilities, check the content and how to fit it into your study programme. Discuss your ideas with your study adviser during the intake.

When you have chosen your thesis track, you are going to schedule the courses. On this page you find  links to the 10 thesis tracks. For each thesis track you find all courses that are compulsory, compulsory unless advised otherwise or restricted optional.

• Schedule the compulsory courses*, including the safety courses
• Choose the restricted optional courses that you want and schedule them
• Complete your study programme with elective courses. Ask yourself: do I want to broaden my studies or go more in-depth? What knowledge and skills do I want to add to my basic programme? Do I have a theme or just separate courses? How do these courses contribute to my programme, development, career, ambition...

- Electives can be courses from other thesis tracks, and also from other programmes. You can even include courses from other universities via EduXchange.

- Go to the Osiris Course Catalogue and select the “course” tab

- On the left side, select the period and timeslot

- All courses for this particular selection are shown

- Include them in your study schedule. Your master programme needs to include at least 24 ECTS on level ‘3’ courses, see the text box ‘Course codes explained’.

* In the programme there are some specific courses that “you need to choose unless indicated otherwise by your study adviser”. These courses are compulsory unless you can proof that you already master the learning outcomes of these courses as described in the Osiris Course Catalogue. If it is clear for yourself that you don’t master the learning outcomes of such a course, then you include these courses into your programme. If you can proof that you master the learning outcomes, you need to discuss this with your study adviser first and get approval for skipping this course.

• YRM20306 Research Methodology for Environmental Sciences. If you have doubts, do this diagnostic test.
• ESA20806 Principles of Environmental Sciences. If you have doubts if you master the learning outcomes, check if your bachelor programme was a broad environmental programme with both social and natural sciences and integration courses. If yes, you need to discuss this with your study adviser. If not, you include the course in your programme.

In some thesis tracks you find a course scheduled in period 2 in the morning, which “you need to select if your study adviser deems it necessary”. If you have a knowledge gap between your bachelor programme and this thesis track you should take this course. Always discuss this with your study adviser.

Picture: how to find elective courses in Osiris Course Catalogue

Course codes explained:

A course code has a standard format: AAA-axxbb (e.g. ESA-20806)

AAA = abbreviation of responsible chair group, not per se the only group involved. In this example ESA = Environmental Systems Analysis

a:

1= introductory

2= continuing

3= in-depth

5= capita selecta

6= Academic Master Cluster

7= internship

8= thesis

9= course by endowed chair

xx = used to make codes unique (no specific meaning)

bb = number of credits

Your master programme needs to include at least 24 ECTS on level ‘3’ courses (a=3).

Finished drawing up your study plan? Then we have a checklist for you to see if it contains everything that should be in it:

• Does your study plan consist of 120 ECTS (60 ECTS for courses in year 1 + 36 ECTS for thesis and 24 ECTS for internship in year 2)?
• Did you include the mandatory course ENP 35806, and the mandatory courses (unless covered already) ESA 20806 and YRM 20306?
• Did you include the mandatory Safety Courses?
• Did you include one of the Academic Master Cluster options (European Workshop, Academic Consultancy Training + MOS modules, ELS 31806 + ELS 32806, or the Research Master Cluster)?
• Did you include at least 12 ECTS of the restricted optional courses for your thesis track?
• Did you include at least 4 courses on level 3 (so 24 ECTS in total)?