Studying in Eindhoven or Delft

In the Netherlands, the possibilities of studying Electrical Engineering are limited to only three universities: you can go to Eindhoven, Delft or Enschede. Of course, we are all familiar with the surroundings and atmosphere in Twente, but surely studying must be different in the other corners of the country… The editorial team asked two Scintilla members who have spent some time at the TU Eindhoven and TU Delft to talk about their experiences. This article shares the stories of Tim Huggers, who is doing his master EE at Eindhoven since 2022, and Fokko Perton, who studied EE and TCS in Delft from 2016 to 2019.

Eindhoven and the TU/e campus

For starters, the university is much easier reachable than the remote campus of Twente. Eindhoven is much closer to Utrecht Central Station then Enschede, which is an important public transport junction leading to the most populous areas in the Netherlands. From Eindhoven Station, you basically stumble directly on campus when you walk out. This does mean that it is right in the middle of the city and therefore spatially limited.

You notice this in the density of buildings and how they are placed in a block-based grid over campus. The main advantage is that commuting between buildings doesn’t require a bicycle, also causing much less trouble with parking area. Also, having air-bridges between every building makes for a convenient way to move across campus without getting wet in our generally rainy Dutch climate.

This beautiful city is located in the notorious cultural region of Brabant with its cultural advantages (or disadvantages, depending on whether you like beer). During Carnaval, Eindhoven transforms into Lampegat and does feel different from normal. Everyone takes part, you feel weirder when you travel the city without a special dress than when you are wearing something colourful or expressive.

Finding your way around Delft

The campus itself is situated a 20-minute walk, or 5-minute cycle from both Delft Central Station as well as Delft Campus station (formerly Delft Zuid). There’s also a bus that runs through the campus.

The train station of Delft itself has a lot of trains coming through it, and it’s very easy to take the train to most of the Randstad and the rest of the country. Both the Hague and Rotterdam are also in cycling range (less than 20KM) and great for a daytrip. A lot of students also tend to go to Leiden during the weekend evenings to go out.

For going out in general, Delft is not the greatest if you are not part of a student association, as there is only 1 public club, and most cafés are primarily used by an older population and not so much by students. The student association culture is more varied than in Enschede though, which makes up for this largely. Whether you want a more traditional corporal (Koor) association, something that’s un-hierarchical and caters more to a punky culture, or an LGBTQ+ focussed association, there’s something for you.

Studying at the TU/e (MSc Electrical Engineering)

Coffee is 55 cents.

The library is huge in comparison to the Vrijhof, very spacious but still gets very crammed during exam weeks. Fortunately, in other buildings there is also plenty space to study. Neuron, as a personal favourite, has an entire floor full of study places. Atlas goes up to seemingly infinite height with study places every other floor. Also, something that I very much appreciated, was the gradients of noise policy in the study area’s; completely silent, working area and no restrictions.

The structure of the master courses is very similar to those in Twente, in most cases a combination of multiple tutorial / group work deliverables and a single exam for a 5EC course. Conveniently, on Osiris they classify within which blocks the course are given weekly so that you have an easier time picking and choosing courses that will not overlap throughout the quartile.

Studying at the TU Delft (BSc Electrical Engineering)

The places of study are a bit different compared to Twente. Most of the time you’ll have your lectures in the EWI (EEMCS) building, so there’s less travelling over campus than in Twente. The campus itself is also smaller, making it easier to choose to walk rather than take your bicycle.

At the study itself, the programme for the bachelor is actually fairly similar, though some subjects were in a different order compared to at Twente. You might see some first year Twente subjects in the second year at Delft and vice versa. All the (first year) subjects are 5EC’s, with 3 subjects per quartile/module.

One of the larger differences in the study programme is how often projects are done and how they’re setup. Projects are only every other quartile, namely in quartile 2 and 4 of each year. They also are more spread throughout said quartile, with 1-2 days each week being spent on it, rather than the last couple weeks of a module. The projects are also more setup like labs to accompany the lectures and things that you’re learning in other courses.

One example of these projects is the module 4 project “Smart Robot Challenge”, where an FPGA based robot has to be able to route through a maze, detect mines with a self-built detector, and do wireless communications. This combines VHDL programming, electrodynamics and algorithms in a very fun (and competitive!) way.

The courses in general are of similar difficulty to the ones here in Twente. Resits are also mostly during the summer holiday, rather than in the following quartile. This has the advantage that you don’t have to stress about resits for quartile 2 during quartile 3, but you will lose a significant part of your summer holiday studying and you might get your BSA results back rather late.