Welcome to the Dual-Degree Program

It is increasingly important to educate and prepare engineers to function successfully in a global economy. To this effect, Virginia Tech and the Technische Universität Darmstadt have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and an Implementation Agreement (IA) on student, staff, and faculty exchanges and on research collaborations. It is in this context that this document details a two-year, dual Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering degree program between these two universities.

A dual-degree program is here defined as two degree programs, one at each university, that the student pursues simultaneously, and, for which the student, upon successful completion of the requirements of each program, will receive, near-simultaneously, the respective degree from each university. Where appropriate, work done for one degree program will be credited to the other program as well.

In this particular dual-degree program, the student will spend approximately one year in residence at each university. The first year will primarily be concerned with course work; the second year will have some course work, but will primarily be concerned with the thesis research. The student can choose the order of these two residencies; hence, two equivalent versions of the dual-degree program are described herein. This program consists of 116-118 credit points (CP) or 58-59 semester credit hours that are divided into 82-83 CP (41-42 semester credit hours) of course work and 34 CP (17 semester credit hours) of thesis research. Each thesis examination committee will have a co-chair and a member from each university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The students should be prepared to complete the courses at Virginia Tech in English and the courses at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in German, though some courses and/or exams at the Technische Universität Darmstadt are occasionally offered in English at the discretion of the course professor. The thesis and its examination will be in English.