Minors

Students in a disciplinary Master’s program may further their studies in a given field of their education or develop interfaces with other programs at EPFL by choosing to take a minor. Students in the Management, technology, and entrepreneurship Master’s program must take the minor that was imposed upon admision to this Master’s program.

There are two types of minors:

  • the interdisciplinary minor, focused on a given field and made up of topics from several programs, or even dedicated topics (for more information about these minors, please consult the links on this webpage)
  • the disciplinary minor, focused on a single program, different from that of the student’s main Master’s program

The student informs his Master’s program of his choice of minor and selects it in the course-registration screen on IS-Academia, at the beginning of the first or second semester of his Master’s cycle (deadline: second Friday of courses). To make your choice, have a look at the list of minors on the webpage Study plans and regulations, which specifies which ones are recommended for each Master’s program.

The selection of courses making up a minor is done with the approval of the student’s program and the person in charge of the minor. The student registers for these courses on IS-Academia, following the normal procedure.

A minor is successfully completed when 30 credits at minimum have been gained among the approved subjects. Each subject must be successfully completed on it own merits: there is no possible compensation between the subjects. These 30 credits add to the total for a 90-credit Master’s program (thus the total moves to 120) or replace 30 credits of options in a 120-credit Master’s program, in accordance with the application regulations of the program.

Some minors have a study plan with set subjects. These study plans are available on the webpage Study plans and regulations.