Master's structure

Online Open Day 20 November.

YOU HAVE A LOT OF FREEDOM TO CUSTOMISE YOUR MASTERS IN GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION.

Within the Master’s in Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, you build expertise in either general spatial data science or a specific thematic application area, centred around technologies (Geo-AI), the natural environment (Resource Security), or society (Urban Futures and Disaster Resilience). In addition, you can tailor your Master’s to your interests and ambitions by choosing elective courses. The freedom to customise your programme will ensure you become the geo-information specialist you want to be.

Co-decide the content of your master's

How to compose your Master's

Your curriculum depends on the choices you make when you compose your Master’s. There are three steps you need to take.

  • Step 1: Choose a specialisation

    The master’s Geo-information Science and Earth Observation offers four specialisations that cater for specific background and/or career interests. The purpose of these specialisations is to provide students from a certain educational background or work experience, with an application domain in which they can apply their newly gained knowledge and skills. These themes are:  

    Each specialisation represents the future challenges, technologies, and solutions for the sustainability of our earth’s resources and society. They offer dedicated learning pathways to support specific career goals. Depending on which learning pathway you follow, some elective courses become mandatory choices. Next to the predefined learning paths, you can also design your own learning pathway, depending on your personal career ambitions. You design this pathway together with your study adviser.

  • Step 2: Professional development during your master's

    Once you have chosen your learning path, it is time to decide what the rest of your curriculum will look like. In addition to the compulsory courses, which depend on the specialisation you choose, you have a great deal of freedom in choosing elective courses. We offer a range of electives that will enable you to further advance your technical skills, broaden your areas of interest including the opportunity to gain additional experience through an internship or choose course to develop your professional skills. 

    A specific set of elective courses is offered to help you develop professional skills that are appreciated in the work field. You should choose at least 5 EC of these professional skills courses. These courses are essential to let you meet the additional demands of the labour market that go beyond technical skills and domain knowledge. These often called ‘soft skills’ will enhance your chances of securing a job after graduation.

    In your second year, you can choose to do an internship. If you prefer, you can take elective courses equivalent to the internship's credits. If you decide that you want to apply what you have learned before your graduation, you can do your internship at consultant companies, government agencies, research institutes, or non-governmental organisations in the Netherlands or abroad.

  • Step 3: Determine the topic of your master's thesis

    In your first year, you will be exposed to the research themes of the Faculty. You will have time to explore this and determine which idea you would like to develop into an MSc research proposal. You can contribute to an ongoing research project or develop your own topic that falls within a research theme at ITC. Together with your supervisors, you determine the precise focus of the topic of your master's thesis research. 

Master's structure

Our programme is structured with four interlinking components:

Foundation courses (20 EC). Here you will learn the essential geospatial skills to enable your personal learning pathway throughout the full programme. Foundation courses are compulsory for all students in the programme. They ensure that all programme participants, who come from diverse backgrounds, arrive at the start of the second quartile with a common level of knowledge and skills that is necessary to continue in the programme.  The 15 EC foundation courses in the first year are complemented with 5 EC of professional skills courses, that are taught in the second year.

Specialisation courses (20 EC). The programme offers four specialisations that cater for specific background and/or career interests. These specialisations are centred around technologies (Geo-AI), the natural environment (Resource Security), and society (Urban Futures and Disaster Resilience).

Electives courses (40 EC). We offer a range of electives that will enable you to further advance your technical skills, and broaden your areas of interest, including the opportunity to gain additional experience through an internship or choose a course to develop your professional skills. In the first year, depending on which learning pathway you choose, these electives could be mandatory or based on a limited choice option. Which courses will eventually be offered in the curriculum, depends on demand. Because most courses depend on group work and interactive discussions, elective courses are only offered if there are more than five participants.

Furthermore, the research courses (45 EC), including a thesis research project, are compulsory courses for all students,  With the individual MSc research thesis writing, you will be able to apply what you have learned to a research project of your choice.

General structure

As you have a lot of freedom to customise your programme, the exact courses you will follow depend on the choices you make at the start of and throughout your studies.

You will collect a total of 120 EC in the time frame of two years. Each academic year is divided into four quartiles. Within each quartile, all courses run over 10 weeks according to the academic calendar of the University. The start and end dates of all courses in a quartile are therefore the same. Within each week of a quartile, the study load per course can vary. However, the average study load per week is around 42 hours.

  • Quartile 1
  • Quartile 2
  • Quartile 3
  • Quartile 4

Second year

During the second year, you will customize an Individual study programme and work on your MSc thesis.

  • Quartile 1
  • Quartile 2
  • Quartile 3
  • Quartile 4
Discover the exciting internship options at ITC!

Join us on a journey as we follow two Master students, Carolina Pereira Marghidan and John Ifejube, during their internships at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) at the University of Twente. Get ready to witness the impactful work they're doing in their respective placements and gain a glimpse into the future that awaits you as a prospective student. Watch the video!

Find out more

Are you interested in this Master’s and do you want to know more about your study programme and how to compose it? For example, are you curious about the choice topics, or the learning outcomes? You can find out all about it in our Online Study Guide*. 

* You are looking at the Study Guide of the current academic year. We always have the desire to strive for improvement. Therefore the course structure is subject to change.

Study details