Curriculum

The MME TIME program offers you a profound management education accompanied by a vast set of elective courses. More than 30 exciting management and engineering modules allow you to design your own individual curriculum and specialize in one of three intended profile areas: Technology Manager, Technology Marketer or Technology Entrepreneur and thus strive for concrete professional career goals, such as technology and innovation manager, marketing manager or founder of a technology company.

All our modules combine demanding and cutting-edge research with practical projects and challenges. To stay up to date of technological changes, we continuously review and expand the set of electives. In up to six semesters, you acquire 90 ECTS points. In addition, you may enroll in German language courses at no extra cost.

TIME Essentials

30 credit points

The TIME Essentials comprise six required courses that enable you to understand the managerial aspects of conceiving, developing and commercializing technological innovations. Our online learning platform enables you to interact and engage with your peers across geographical distance and time zones.

Management Electives

20-25 credit points

You may choose four or five out of seven management electives. Depending on your preferences, you can choose to be trained in two of the three profile areas:

  1. Technology Manager: Strategic Technology Management, Managing the Innovation Process
  2. Technology Marketer: Service and Technology Marketing, Business Marketing Simulation
  3. Technology Entrepreneur: Start-Up and Growth Management, Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital

You may also combine your modules freely across each profile. The remaining management elective, the Cambridge Ecosystem Practicum, brings you to the University of Cambridge to explore another world-leading technology ecosystem first-hand.

Technology Electives

15-20 credit points

To dive deeply into selected technology fields, you can select three to four courses from a carefully selected set of technology electives. The full portfolio including the residential technology electives can be divided into three superordinate technology areas: Production Technology, Information Technology and Sustainable and Human Technology.

Master Thesis

20 credit points

By writing a Master Thesis at the end of the program, you demonstrate your ability to solve a managerial or technological challenge using the knowledge acquired during the program and the methods of scientific inquiry.

Learning Experience

Our educational approach aims to equip you with an integrated understanding of management, engineering, and technology that will help you to become a technology leader – either in a managerial or entrepreneurial role. While the program allows you to choose among a great variety of courses, all courses follow a similar teaching and learning philosophy. It is based on the latest blended learning technologies where digital techniques and tools for self-paced learning are combined with virtual live sessions to deliver an optimal learning experience.

Our Teaching Approach

  • Personalized education: Thanks to its high flexibility and digital orientation, the program can be adapted to your individual needs allowing you to ideally combine work and study.
  • Hands-on experience: In most courses, you have the opportunity to work on real-world managerial or technological challenges, enabling you to apply the knowledge gleaned during the courses and gain hands-on experience.
  • Participant-centered learning: All courses are based on a participant-centered approach that emphasizes inspirational teaching by interaction between instructors and participants through professional lecture videos, regular online sessions and discussion forums, and tasks such as case discussions, group presentations, debates, or virtual lab sessions.
  • Interdisciplinary mindset: Most courses focus on the intersection between management and technology, helping you tackle real-world challenges from multiple perspectives and providing you with a truly interdisciplinary mindset.
  • Intercultural teams: As working in multicultural teams is a given in today’s world, most courses feature group projects where you can solve managerial and technological challenges in culturally diverse teams.

Distance Learning Resources

The distance learning resources can be accessed wherever and whenever it suits you best. Each module combines a mix of resources to provide a unique learning experience tailored to the content of the respective course. All materials are available on an innovative platform for online courses. This learning platform is much more than a content-loaded website; it streams professional lectures and tutorials, allows you to access teaching materials, enables interactive lectures and online sessions, and facilitates interaction with your fellow students, teachers, and program managers.

The digital learning resources brought to you on our online platforms include:

  • Video Lectures: All online courses include professional video lectures by established professors. In contrast to in-class lectures, these video lectures can be viewed whenever and wherever works for you.
  • Screencasts: Ideal for tutorials and introduction to tools and computer programs, screencasts (speech over slideshow or other computer screen content) convey practical knowledge.
  • Online Self-Assessments: To help you monitor your own progress, in many core courses short self-assessments are available following videos or screencasts.
  • Lecture Transcripts: For several courses full verbatim video transcripts in pdf format will be available to facilitate your learning and exam preparations.
  • Interactive sessions: Most of the courses include live sessions between lecturers and students in order to deepen the theoretical content learned in the video lectures.
  • Peer information: In order to facilitate interaction and extension of your professional network, the platform offers information and contact with your peers.
  • Digital bookshelf: Core teaching materials, books, journal articles and video transcripts are available online to facilitate flexible learning. In addition, university library resources including e-books and scientific literature can be accessed online.

Most content is downloadable to allow you to work flexibly, for instance while travelling. Beside internet access, you only need to have a webcam, microphone and headphone to take part in the interactive sessions.

Customizable Schedule

At RWTH Business School, we believe that program content and delivery should be tailored to your specific preferences and aspirations. To do this, you can customize the curriculum and the time frame according to your individual needs, both of which are key features of the MME TIME program. For this purpose, we use the latest technologies in digital and distance learning. You can complete most courses from your home location and enjoy a special introductory course during your residential intake-week on campus in Aachen. Some of the modules to be completed will be held in exciting one-week classroom sessions in Aachen or Cambridge and combined with exam-relevant services in Aachen.

To adapt the program to your personal needs and duties, you may also opt to study full-time (three semesters) or part-time (typically up to six semesters). If desired, you may also switch between both study modes once during your studies. This will allow you to remain flexible during your studies and get the most out the MME TIME experience. Please note that you can also always decide to attend the in-class sessions on campus for one or more of your courses.

As we work with you to tailor the program to your needs, we do not rely on a standard schedule. Instead, our program coordinators will share with you some possible study pathways. However, these are just suggestions and we will work with you to define the learning experience that is optimal for you.

Partnership with Cambridge Digital Innovation (CDI)

The MME TIME program is delivered in partnership with Cambridge Digital Innovation (CDI) at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, which contributes one of the six TIME Essentials (Digital Transformation and Information System Management) and a Management Elective (Cambridge Ecosystem Practicum). Digital Transformation and IS Management are delivered on campus in Aachen and online. The one-week Cambridge Ecosystem Practicum takes you to the University of Cambridge – one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world and a powerhouse for innovation in research. This module allows you to experience history, tradition, and cutting-edge science and technology. An intensive one-week workshop on innovation ecosystems is combined with campus and company visits to Silicon Fen and a unique insight into student life in Cambridge. The Cambridge Ecosystem Practicum and accommodation in Cambridge are included in your tuition fees. You only have to bear the costs of your travel to Cambridge and a visa, if required.

Development Opportunities

Move from technical expert to technology leader by participating in our award-winning interdisciplinary Master of Science program. It combines rigorous digital education and fascinating residential weeks to provide you with a highly flexible and immersive learning experience.

Your Aspirations

If you want to develop as a professional while pursuing your work or other duties outside university, this flexible part-time program will be ideal for you, provided:

  • You have a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) background, at least one year of full-time work experience and want to deepen your knowledge of state-of-the-art technologies and innovation and technology management.
  • You are passionate about engineering and technology, but want to move beyond a narrow technical role and towards a leadership position at the intersection of management and technology.
  • You want to learn how to leverage emerging technologies into profitable and sustainable business models that allow you to lead the technological transformation in your industry rather than just following it – either as a manager in an established organization or as an entrepreneur in your own business.
  • You strive for flexibility in learning due to your job, your family, or other duties – but also want to interact with fellow students and instructors to build and extend your professional network.

Your Professional Development

The MME TIME has been carefully designed to equip ambitious professionals – who have a STEM background such as you – with the distinct set of skills needed to succeed in a digitized and globalized economy. Enrolling in the program will allow you to develop the following:

  • A profound management education focused on innovation, entrepreneurship and marketing that will enable you to acquire the management skills necessary to leverage new technologies and build successful business models around them.
  • Selected technology electives delivered either online or in form of residential weeks on campus, including laser technologies, advanced data analysis or data mining will allow you to experience the best of German engineering and stay abreast of the latest technological developments in your field.
  • Applied projects focusing on real-world managerial or technological challenges will help you put your knowledge into practice and harness the full potential of interdisciplinary thinking.

Your Career Prospects

Completing the MME TIME program will prepare you for a successful career at the intersection of management and technology. In the program, you will learn how to combine deep technological and managerial knowledge so that you can contribute to solving the grand challenges of our time in a truly interdisciplinary fashion. As a graduate of one of Germany’s most prestigious universities of technology and its innovative business school, you will speak the language of both engineers and managers. This will position you to work at the exciting interface of management and technology.

  • Engineering or Management Consulting: You are responsible for planning and implementing complex consulting projects in technology or management fields.
  • Product Management: You are responsible for the development of technical products or service systems.
  • Business Development: You are responsible for the development and implementation of new business models and ideas.
  • Technology and Innovation Management: You are responsible for the R&D and the strategic innovation processes.
  • Technology Marketing and Sales: Your are responsible for the creation of marketing and sales strategies for high-tech products and services.
  • Project Management: You have the supervision and responsibility of complex technical projects.

The M.Sc. degree granted by RWTH Aachen University will also enable you to pursue an academic career and continue studying towards a PhD in fields such as technology and innovation management, marketing, or entrepreneurship.

Whichever path you choose to follow after graduation, our dedicated team of experts in the career and entrepreneurship centers will accompany you on that journey and help you decide how to best realize your ambitions. We seek to place our graduates in global technology blue chips, hidden technology champions, leading technology consultancies and fast-growing technology ventures. The Entrepreneurship Center at RWTH Aachen University also has a long track record of supporting innovative startups by our graduates – between 70 to 100 every year.

Students

The unique nature of the MME TIME attracts talented participants from around the world with a wide range of professional backgrounds. Enrolling in the MME TIME will not only allow you to advance your engineering and management skills. It will also enable you to gain a truly global perspective on management and engineering challenges and build a vibrant network that will last for a lifetime.

Students Profile

  • 100% of our students are STEM graduates.
  • They have Bachelor’s degrees, amongst others, in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Software Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering and Computer Science.
  • All 6 continents and more than 20 nationalities are represented.
  • Their age ranges between 22 and 39 with a mean of 27 years.
  • They have full-time work experience of between 1 and 12 years with an average of 3 years.
  • 29 percent of the students are female.

Previous employers of our graduates

include leading international technology firms such as Accenture, Bombardier, Capgemini, Daimler AG, Huawei Technologies, Korea Securities Depository, Mercedes Benz, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Tata Motors, Volkswagen, ZF Friedrichshafen and many more.

Portrait Su Min Yang
Student talk | Su Min Yang

For those who seek to be a true global leader, this program would be highly suitable. You learn from your peers who are all engineers but from different fields of engineering from all over the world. By working with them, you learn from each other’s different cultures, working styles, new perspectives, various experiences etc..

Portrait Tobias Grün
Student talk | Tobias Grün

I particularly like working in small intercultural groups with close contact to the professors as well as the program’s approach to not only deliver theoretical knowledge through lectures but also fostering the direct application of the learnings in form of group work, case studies or presentations based on recent industry examples.

Requirements

To apply for the MME TIME part-time, you need to prove different academic and English language requirements. You also have to provide a validated reason that you are eligible for the part-time program, e.g. a current working contract.

Academic Requirements

Technology Focus
RWTH Business School is looking for applicants who have a background in a technological area and a Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Applicants need a minimum of 16 credit points in higher mathematics and statistics as well as 125 credit points mathematics and natural sciences (e.g. chemistry and/or physics), and/or computer science and/or engineering, all of which are defined in the examination regulations.

Management Interest
The MME TIME has been designed for students who want to position themselves at the intersection of management and technology. Student should thus possess some basic knowledge in management and economics as evidenced by at least 10 credit points in this field. Students without previous courses in this field, however, can take part in the online course “Management Bootcamp” before the MME TIME program begins.

Professional Work Experience
Courses within the MME TIME program also address a broad set of technology and management challenges from current practice. Applicants thus need to have at least 12 months of professional work experience.

English Language Requirements

For all of our master’s programmes certified proof of your competence in the English language through the completion of one of the accepted examinations listed below is needed:

  • TOEFL Internet based minimum of 90 pts.,
  • IELTS (Academic) test minimum overall band 5,5 pts.,
  • Cambridge Test – Certificate in Advanced English (CAE),
  • First Certificate in English (FCE), completed with a B,
  • Placement-Test of RWTH Aachen University’s language centre (B2).
  • For German applicants: A certificate attesting English language skills at level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This proof is provided, for example, by the submission of a German Abitur certificate, which shows that English has been continuously taught until the end of qualification phase 1 (grade 11 for G8 A-levels, otherwise grade 12) and has been completed with at least sufficient marks.

In general:

  • The score report needs to be presented during enrollment.
  • The score report must not be older than two years by 1 August of the year the degree course you are applying for will start.
  • Please do not send the original TOEFL or IELTS score sheets to the university (also not via ETS).

Exemptions for the language requirements are only applicable for nationals or first degree holders from the USA, the UK, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia.

Required Documents

  • CV
  • Motivation letter
  • At least one letter of recommendation (merged as one document)
  • Transcript of records
  • Proof of professional experience of at least 12 months
  • Proof for part-time attendance
  • Other proof of performance/assessment, e.g. English certificate, degree certificate, further qualifications (not mandatory for admission)
  • Translation of submitted documents (if your documents are not in English or German)

Deadlines

Application for the MME TIME is possible from October 1 until July 15 for EU applicants and international applicants who hold an academic degree from a European university. For non-EU applicants, our application portal is open from October 1 until and including March 1. There is no application fee.

Scholarships

RWTH Business School offers various scholarships to support particularly suitable candidates. Information on our scholarships, the application process, and external scholarship opportunities can be found at the link below.

FAQ

You cannot find the answers to your questions or want to learn more about living and studying in Aachen respectively Germany? Then take a look at our FAQ area for more information on course specific topics or on general topics like financing & scholarships, the application process, or accommodation.