Bachelor in Information Technology- Software Engineering and Business Informatics

You’ll be trained to become a versatile IT professional. Practice is essential! As you’ll be collaborating with others a lot, the programme’s focus will also be on developing your social and communicational skills. Sound knowledge of information systems is essential, but you’ll also learn how to organize and give advice. This will often be done in group projects, focused on practice with extra guidance. You can always contact your lecturers and student counselor to discuss your study plan and progress.

Why study Information Technology in The Netherlands

• You’ll work on projects for a third of each semester.
• You’ll do two internships to gain experience in the field.
• Possibility to specialize (abroad) during your minor program.
• This is a small study program, so you’ll be part of a personal community.

What does your week look like

A typical study week has 4 lectures 2 practical sessions for developing specific skills, and 3 project sessions. The projects are designed to give you the chance to apply what you learned in the lectures, while also providing you with a real-life setting since you have to work in small teams and find out the answers yourself. We always try to set all this in a schedule restricted to 4 days - or at least with 2 mornings or afternoons without any scheduled activities.

Year 1

The Information Technology programme has a common programme for the first three semesters. After that, you choose to focus on Software Engineering, Business Informatics, Data Science or Embedded Systems. Subjects such as programming and databases provide the technical foundation, while projects allow you to work on your social skills. You will also gain insight into the tools and methods you can use to develop an application with a team.

Year 2

In the second year of your study, you expand your theoretical basic knowledge and skills with in-depth courses in your chosen direction. Examples of subjects are Business Management, Concurrent Programming, Data Warehouses, Algorithms & Data Structures, Management Information Systems and Programming in C/C++. The Information Technology programme has a common programme for the first three semesters. After that, you choose to focus on Software Engineering, Business Informatics, Data Science or Embedded Systems.

Year 3

In the first semester of year 3, you’ll do a work placement at a company and industry of your choice. As a future professional, you’ll be able to practice your application skills that you’ve gained during your studies. You’ll deepen your knowledge in the real business world. The work placement can be completed in a country of your choice.

In the second semester of year 3, you’ll focus on a specific theme in a minor programme. The minor programme allows you to acquire knowledge in a different field than that of your major. You can choose to do this minor at Fontys, at one of our partner universities in the Netherlands, or at one of our 125 partner universities abroad.

Year 4

You return to Fontys for your final year. During this year, you’ll work on the main project of your study programme: the Software Factory. For this project, you develop customised software solutions that are ready to market in cooperation with one of our partner companies. You’ll also work on your professional skills, and you choose to specialise in elective courses.

You’ll take up another work placement in your final semester and work on a practical problem. Your report about the approach and your solutions to this practical problem is your graduation report. After having finished all parts of the programme, you will be rewarded with the internationally recognised degree Bachelor of Science.

What are you going to learn?

As a student of our Information Technology program, you learn to shape and make use of new developments. You will also learn to collaborate with professionals from different backgrounds, which gives you a head start in the business field. You will choose your focus:

• Software Engineering: is about the process of making and improving software systems, from the initial idea to implementation and management of the system. You’ll learn how to produce high-quality software systems instead of spaghetti code with bugs in it. The type of system to develop, the operating system to develop for, and the environment to develop in do not play a role, as a software engineer is qualified for all of them.
• Business Informatics: includes the knowledge of developing software, the use of IT to digitalize business processes, and supporting managers by giving them information derived from the business processes, so they can make the right decisions. To be able to do all this, you’ll learn how to collect requirements from the various stakeholders, and to use the requirements to define an adapted/new business process which afterward is to be implemented in software (= digitalised). You’ll learn about specific types of software and software architectures that enable the manager to perform data-based decision-making.
• Data Science: is concerned with analyzing, storing, and visualizing different and often large data sets. Take, for example, the data that Google or Facebook collect from you. Combining data leads to information that is increasingly crucial for organizations. By having the right information available to the right people at the right time, better decisions can be made at all organizational levels, from operational to strategic. This allows organizations to differentiate themselves from their competitors. However, data science also plays a very big role in ever-increasing automation and robotization. Software, often in machines and many utensils (think of a car), is capable of learning and adapting to experiences. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are therefore subjects of interest within the data science focus. It offers us a world full of possibilities, but we will also focus on the social aspects and (un)desirability of far-reaching automation.
• Embedded Systems: more and more appliances contain software! Take the coffee machine, your washing machine, smart lighting, or more and more self-driving cars. Embedded software is the software incorporated in these devices, increasingly in very small devices that are also connected via networks. Software, that is therefore in direct connection with and for controlling hardware. Knowledge of both areas is required to create good-looking, but most of all useful products.

The demand for good IT personnel is rising and it is expected to keep increasing in the future. This is great for you as an IT graduate! Our graduates work in a range of jobs and positions:

• Software Developer
• Database Developer
• Data Scientist
• Developer for Artificial Intelligence