The Elite Graduate Program across three universities
My path into the Elite Graduate Program in Software Engineering grows directly out of my Informatics studies at TUM. I want to move beyond building software and AI-enabled products to examine more rigorously how complex systems can remain reliable, observable, and safe.
As part of the Elite Network of Bavaria, the programme is jointly offered by the Technical University of Munich (TUM), LMU Munich, and the University of Augsburg, with Augsburg as the lead university. Teaching takes place in Munich and Augsburg, and the official programme language is English.
- Technical University of Munich, participating university and Munich study location
- LMU Munich, participating university in the joint Elite Network of Bavaria programme
- University of Augsburg, lead university and application host
The five official curriculum areas
The official curriculum is organised around five central topics of modern Software Engineering. Together they connect rigorous methods with the design, operation, and human use of software-intensive systems.
Software Engineering Methods
Systematic software development, requirements engineering, design and architecture, modelling, testing, and quality assurance.
Formal Methods and IT-Security
Precise specification, verification, safety analysis, security engineering, cryptography, access control, and trustworthy system behaviour.
Database Systems
Data modelling, database design, query languages, transactions, synchronisation, and the relationship between database algorithms and modern hardware.
Distributed Systems
Communication, protocols, processes, coordination, service-oriented architecture, web services, and dependable distributed applications.
Human Computer Interaction
Interaction paradigms, user-centred development, usability, accessibility, and the evaluation of interactive systems.
Practice, mentoring, and the individual study path
The programme connects academic depth with deliberate practice. Exercises accompany lectures, an industry-facing project applies the methods in a cooperating company, and specialist guest lectures and mentoring keep the work connected to current research and practice.
Industry project and internship
A practice project with an industrial partner applies Software Engineering methods to a real challenge. The curriculum also includes a mandatory 10-ECTS industry internship after the second term.
Individual mentoring
Scientists and decision makers from industry provide individual mentoring, complemented by a special lecture series with research and industry perspectives.
Individual study and Master thesis
The fourth-semester individual study is arranged with a mentor and can include research, a stay abroad, a scientific paper, or an internship. It leads into the 30-ECTS Master thesis.
A forward-looking engineering focus
I want to use this programme to deepen a practical focus on reliable AI and the systems around it. The direction is intentionally forward-looking: it describes the engineering questions I want to explore, not coursework already completed.
- Reliable AI: design software-intensive systems whose behaviour can be specified, tested, and reasoned about under uncertainty.
- Evaluation: turn model and product quality into explicit evidence through test design, formal reasoning, and reproducible experiments.
- Observability: make distributed and AI-enabled systems diagnosable with meaningful signals, traces, and failure analysis.
- Release engineering: carry quality from architecture through verification, deployment, and maintainable operation.
- AI systems and models: understand how modern models work, build them responsibly, and integrate them into reliable software systems.