Elective courses

The elective program of your bachelor program includes 45 credits, in which courses can be freely chosen, based on your interests and ambitions. It is possible to choose courses in a specific field or theme, or to build a broader profile by choosing courses in multiple fields. You can choose from all courses that Tilburg university and the TU/e Bachelor College offers, even major courses from other bachelor programs. It is also possible to choose for the educational minor(s).

Within the 45 credits of the elective program:

• A maximum of 15 credits of level 1 (Introductory) courses can be chosen, and
• A minimum of 15 credits of level 3 (Advanced) courses should be chosen.

We recommend that you choose electives based on your ambitions and interests. You can find an overview of all electives in the PlanApp under 'Course catalogue' and in the Osiris course catalogue.  Every year first year students are invited to join a presentation on elective at the beginning of quarter 4, attendance is strongly recommended. The presentation will be shared via the dedicated Canvas page of your program.

Your student mentor has faced similar challenges and will guide you to the procedure of choosing your electives. Discuss your elective plan and your personal program overview (PlanApp) with your student mentor before the end of your first year. We advise you to prioritize completion of first year courses before doing electives. For example: If you failed Calculus, we advise you to complete Calculus in Year 2, Q1 and not begin taking electives until Q3 of Year 2.

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 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 your current program. If necessary, your advisor will then forward you to the advisor of the Master's program you wish to take.

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.

When choosing the electives for your elective program, pay attention to the following:

• The required pre-requisite knowledge for the elective course
• The quartile and timeslot at which the course is scheduled
• There should not be any overlap in course content with your core courses and between the elective courses themselves (the updated overlap table will be made available at  this page as soon as possible).

The PlanApp and your Academic Advisor can help you in composing your elective program.

After you have obtained at least 90 credits, and you have added your elective program to your required exam program, you can submit your proposal for the elective program to the Examination Committee via the PlanApp. The Examination Committee evaluates your proposal for the elective program based on the following criteria:

• There is no overlap between the core courses and the elective courses, and between the elective courses themselves.
• There is a maximum of 15 credits of level 1 courses, and a minimum of 15 credits of level 3 courses.

After the Examination Committee approves your proposal for the elective program, your elective program will be fixed. In case you want to make any adjustments, you have to resubmit a new proposal for the elective program to the Examination Committee.

Your Academic Advisor is available for any questions regarding composing your elective program, and can review your elective program before submission to the Examination Committee.

To help students make informed choices regarding broadening electives which allows them to be educated as a 'π-shaped engineer’ each TLA offers a number of learning paths. A learning path is a coherent selection of TLA electives across departments, grouped around one TLA subtheme. The learning paths within a TLA are based on the assumed amount of pre-knowledge.

The following five TLA’s have been defined:

• The Thematic Learning Area (TLA) Energy connects bachelor electives addressing the physics, chemistry, engineering, environmental, policy and behavioral aspects of energy and (beyond) state-of-the art energy technologies, as well as the design, analysis and modeling of energy systems.

• The Artificial Intelligence TLA collects bachelor electives dedicated to data-driven technology, to understand current possibilities for application and to identify and construct future applications to find solutions for or answers to contemporary technological, economic and social challenges.

• The TLA Materials, incorporates bachelor electives around composites and matter, their characteristics, working mechanisms, and to invent and construct solutions for and answers to contemporary technological challenges.

• The TLA Sustainability compiles Bachelor’s elective courses with a central focus on sustainability. Courses within this TLA encourage students to contextualize technological innovation and understand sustainability from a variety of different perspectives. These include human, social, and environmental perspectives, and are related to themes of health, energy, mobility, economics, planning and data science. The aim of this TLA is for students to learn to take responsibility and seek regenerative answers to far-reaching and long-lasting grand societal challenges.

• The Entrepreneurship TLA represents bachelor electives dedicated to understanding the process of technology commercialization, either by means of setting up a new start-up (i.e. venture creation) or within an existing organization (i.e. product creation). Technology commercialization refers the process by which technology-intensive opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered /created and exploited, it thus spans the entire journey from new discoveries in the lab to introducing novel tech-based solutions in the market. Within the TLA Technology Entrepreneurship several packages are available, along two dimensions. Students can either focus for electives that are focusing more on the early, fuzzy stages of innovation or they can focus more on market introduction. Secondly, students can select electives that consider the process of technology commercialization from a strategic perspective or from a more operational perspective. These different lenses to explore technology commercialization have resulted in the following elective packages:

• Technology Entrepreneurship,
• Innovation Fundamentals,
• Advanced Innovation Processes,
• NPD (New Product Development) and Marketing,
• Innovation leader