University of Southern Denmark
MSc in Applied Mathematics
Odense, Denmark
MSc
DURATION
2 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
01 Mar 2026*
EARLIEST START DATE
Feb 2026
TUITION FEES
EUR 17,300 / per year **
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for non-EU/EEA citizens without a current residence permit deadline is 01.09.2026
** Free for full degree students from the Nordic countries or from the EU/EEA countries and Switzerland
Key Summary
About: In the MSc in Applied Mathematics you'll learn to model and solve practical problems using advanced mathematical and numerical methods. The programme covers core principles, formulation of complex application problems as mathematical models, and analysis for simulation, optimization and inference.
Career Outcomes: Career opportunities include R&D roles in private companies and research institutions; numerical modeling for cars, ships, wind turbines, oil platforms, robots, CT scanners, weather forecasting; financial modeling for insurance and stock prices; scheduling and logistics; statistical analysis in research institutes, hospitals and pharma; and academic research leading to a PhD. Graduates may work as applied mathematicians, modelers, statisticians, data analysts.
In the Applied mathematics program, you will learn to model and solve problems from the practical world using advanced mathematical methods. Aside from the basic mathematical principles, the Applied mathematics program will acquaint you with mathematical modeling, i.e. formulating complex problems in applications as mathematical problems, in order to analyze them and perform calculations digitally.
Program structure
The Master's degree program in Applied mathematics has a standard duration of two years.
There are no compulsory courses on the Master's degree program in Applied mathematics at SDU. Therefore, you can shape the program according to your own personal interests.
During the first semester, as constituent Master's courses, you can choose among all Master-level courses and individual projects offered within the field of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science.
During the second semester, as perspectival activities, you can choose freely among all Master-level courses and individual projects offered by the Faculty of Science, across all subject areas, as long as you meet any academic prerequisites. Bachelor-level courses are also allowed as perspectival activities, as long as they fall outside the main subject area of the program. By approval from the Study Board, you can also take courses offered by other faculties if they are relevant to the academic profile of the program.
During the second year, you will complete your own individual research-based project for your Master's Thesis.
The courses in the program are taught entirely in English.
Please note that if you start the program on 1 February, the contents of the first and second semesters will be switched around, so that you do the perspectival activities on your first semester, followed by the constituent courses on your second semester.
Specializations
The structure of the program allows you to opt for a general profile or specialize in Computational Mathematics.
The specialization should be considered as suggestions to give you a better overview of the constituent and elective courses that we offer, but you will not be required to stick to courses from that one specialization.
Master's thesis project
The Master's thesis project on the Applied mathematics program is an individual research-based project. You can take part in an existing research-based project developed by your supervisor, develop your own project according to your interests or work on a real-life project in collaboration with a company.
Throughout the entire project, you will be supervised by a professor who is an expert in the topic area of your project. Most of our thesis students meet with their supervisors on a weekly basis to discuss questions arising and the progress of their projects.
The Master's thesis projects weigh 60 ECTS by default. However, you can opt to reduce your thesis project by 30 ECTS and take 30 ECTS of additional constituent Master's courses instead.
Career perspectives
The Master's degree program in Applied mathematics prepares you for a career in a variety of different industries. As an applied mathematician, you can get a job in any company that does research and development, both in private business and in public research institutions.
Use of models for development and optimization
There is a need to use mathematics to solve major modelling tasks if you wish to find optimal solutions to complex practical problems.
Numerical mathematical modelling is also used for developing and optimizing cars, ships, wind turbines, oil platforms, and robots. CT scanners and weather forecasts are also examples of how numerical modelling is used in practice.
The financial sector uses numerical mathematical modelling for, among other things, the calculation of insurance premiums and stock prices.
Numerical models are also used for scheduling buses and trains, and the Faculty of Science uses advanced mathematical models when scheduling its elective courses.
Statistical analysis of data
Some applied mathematicians specialize in statistics and are in great demand by research institutes, hospitals, and the pharmaceutical industry. Many political and health decisions are based on statistical analyses.
Basically, statisticians are experts in finding out if there is statistical coverage for causal hypotheses - for example, whether a particular drug is the "cause" of healing, or whether a particular political brand case is the "cause" of higher voter turnout.
Career in research
Once you graduate, you can continue your career at the university with a Ph.D. A Ph.D. degree gives you the competence to do research at universities and in other research institutions.