Utrecht University

Master of Science in Human Computer Interaction

Career Prospects

During the Master’s programme, you will be challenged to determine which career perspective best fits your talents and interests. We will guide and support you to focus your programme on obtaining all the skills required for a certain career path.

Academic Careers

Your degree will allow you to pursue an academic career by continuing your education as a PhD candidate in departments such as:

• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Industrial Design

Non-Academic Careers

You will have no problem finding a suitable job, such as:

• ICT project manager
• Information analyst
• Multimedia designer
• UX-professional
• Internet of Things designer
• HCI Researcher
• Business consultant (e.g., Deloitte)
• HCI consultant (e.g., Philips)
• Product software entrepreneur (e.g., Google, Microsoft, and IBM)

Mandatory Courses

• Advanced cognitive and social psychology for HCI external link
• Advanced HCI qualitative research methods external link
• Advanced HCI quantitative research methods external link
• Dilemmas of the scientist 1 external link
• Dilemmas of the scientist 2 external link
• Interaction technology innovation external link
• Introducing natural sciences external link
• Introduction to HCI

Elective Courses

Primary Electives

These are programme-related electives. You must select 3 courses from the following pre-defined list:

• Adaptive interactive systems external link
• Cognitive modeling
• Data mining
• Data Visualization
• Deep Learning
• Human centered machine learning
• Human Computer Interaction in Application Domains
• Machine learning for human vision and language
• Information Visualization
• Mobile interaction
• Multimodal interaction
• Natural language generation
• Natural language processing
• Requirements engineering
• Responsible ICT
• Serious gaming
• Software architecture
• Sound and music technology
• Technologies for learning

Secondary Electives

These electives can be chosen more liberally to give your programme a personal flavour. You can choose more of the primary electives, but you can also choose courses from other programmes like Artificial Intelligence, Computing Science, Game and Media Technology and Business Informatics. You have room for 3 courses, or you can also use this elective space to do a profile (see next tab). You can also choose secondary electives from this pre-defined list:

• Multimedia Retrieval
• Algorithms for Decision Support
• Cloud and Edge Computing
• Data Intensive Systems
• Knowledge and Data Engineering
• Advanced Machine Learning
• Computer Vision
• Evolutionary Computing
• Business Process Management
• Science-based Entrepreneurship
• Process Mining
• Method and Model Driven Engineering

Research Part

The majority of the 2nd year is spent on conducting a research project and writing your Master’s thesis (40 EC research project, 3 EC Colloquium series). The project concludes with writing a thesis and possibly a publishable paper based on your research. Thesis results are presented and discussed during the thesis defence.

The research part can be started when the student has completed all mandatory courses except Dilemmas of the scientist (FI-MHPSDL2) and has completed at least 67.5 EC of primary and secondary electives.

• At the start of the programme, you will be guided in the design of your personal study plan. You can choose from a broad range of courses, including topics such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), wearable and mobile computing, and persuasive communication.
• In this small-scale programme, there is plenty of attention for individual students, and the programme has an informal atmosphere between students and lecturers.
• As HCI is a research programme, this will form a large part of the curriculum. Two of the four mandatory courses focus on research methods.
• At Utrecht University’s Lili's Proto Lab external link, you can turn your ideas into working prototypes—whether through 3D printing, woodworking, or soldering. Have a research concept you would like to explore hands-on? Bring your idea, and they’ll help you make it yourself.

• Degree: Information Science (MSc)
• Language of instruction: English
• Mode of study: Full-time
• Study duration: 2 years
• Start: February, September
• Croho code: 60809
• Accreditation: Accredited by the NVAO
• Faculty: Science
• Graduate school: School of Natural Sciences

Educational Methods

• Lectures
• Work groups
• Practicals
• Projects
• Self-study

Examinations

• Exams
• Assignments
• Participation in practicals
• Projects
• Products