People have always been curious. Why do we breathe? Why do the stars light up? Why do we age? From the little things to the big things, throughout time, this curiosity has motivated countless men and women to devote their lives to seek answers to the riddles of life and the universe. They have changed the world.
Such people are called researchers. They could also be called enthusiasts; people who have dedicated their lives to a single field of study and who are passionate about it. These people will be your lecturers throughout your MSc in Engineering programme. They are active researchers working on large and small research projects in Denmark and abroad, and they have spent their entire careers seeking new solutions to new problems – often problems that no one before knew existed.
This will influence you as a student in a variety of ways.
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Firstly, the researchers have their finger on the pulse. They know about, and have access to, all the latest technologies within their area. This means that they can answer – almost – any conceivable question, and you can be part of this community and work with the most recent knowledge within the field.
Secondly, it means that you will acquire the researcher’s academic approach to solving a problem. And this is important, because the researcher has worked intensely to find new solutions to new problems. The researcher will have a special way of approaching things and putting teaching into perspective.
The academic approach is exploratory, analytical, critical and evaluating. This is sort of a standard recipe for how best to find new solutions – and a method used at universities all over the world.
And being taught by passionate researchers who can take the technology and science facets of teaching to a higher level is in itself motivating and contagious. If you want to take part in research projects – large and small – you can join as a ‘junior researcher’.
How do we find new antibiotics to prevent the threat of antibiotic resistance? How do we prevent our energy consumption from getting out of control - a situation we are fast approaching? How do make the chemical industry - currently one of the most polluting industries - green? Or perhaps just, how do we make things simpler and reduce the workload for different people in different professions?
Researchers are not working on standard solutions to standard problems: It takes a curious, creative, out-of-the-box mindset to solve problems that we perhaps did not even know existed. And this mindset will benefit you as a student.
As an engineering student at Aarhus University, you will be part of an international research environment, and your teaching will be research-based even at Bachelor's level. This means that your lecturers are active researchers, and that they have focus on your academic training.
This also means that you will be working with state-of-the-art technology under the supervision of your lecturer. Moreover, it means that, during your degree programme, you will have the opportunity to participate actively in research projects. Working with the very latest issues and technologies may give you very different perspectives on things. Perhaps you will find something no one has ever worked on before.
Research-based teaching means that your lecturers are not only researchers themselves, their whole objective is also to introduce students to the very latest research. This allows students to formulate problems or hypotheses independently, and it enables them to solve specific problems by means of innovative and creative new research methods.
The researchers are role models to their students: They are inquisitive, analytical and independent in their approach to problem solving. A graduate of engineering must possess the same characteristics to be able to work in the business community.
As an MSc in Engineering, you will learn to take a critical stand on the technology to which you are introduced. You will learn to ask questions. Why are we doing this? What is the reason behind the choice of method? Could we do it differently? What are the consequences – economically, environmentally and for humanity?
This is very important for you to be able to go out into the world and help solve some of the major problems that call out for an MSc in Engineering.
The MSc in Engineering degree programmes are usually taught in Danish on the Bachelor's degree programme, but most of the textbooks and some courses will be in English. As many of our talented researchers and lecturers come from countries outside Denmark, you will be given the opportunity to train your language skills as students.
