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Come fly away, let's fly, let's fly away!

Going abroad may be a life-changing experience. The chance to spend time in different cities inside and outside of Europe brings students in touch with different cultures, different languages and a wide variety of workplace experiences. International experience is becoming more and more important in our current global society. It helps you stand out from the crowd when introducing yourself to the job market, both in industry and in academia. Employers explicitly emphasize the importance of implementing such workplace training in the programmes and as an ambitious university, it is our responsibility to respond to this call!

Therefore we have embedded international experience (and thus mobility) in the Master of Science in Photonics Engineering and as such you will have the opportunity to implement a strong international component in your programme.

Students are recommended to take up part of the programme (with a minimum set of 6 ECTS credits) outside Belgium. To facilitate that process, we have implemented 5 mobility tracks from which the students can choose. Each student will also have the opportunity to apply for an Erasmus+ exchange scholarship to financially support them while being abroad. The Master of Science in Photonics Programme Board has set up several collaborations with high-profile European partners to make these exchanges possible and will assist and support the students in choosing the right mobility track and setting up agreements with the partners.

Mobility Tracks

In master year two you can choose to follow courses and/or do your master dissertation at one of our preferred partner universities. Alternatively you can do an international internship of 10-12 weeks. Students who want to spend 2 full years at VUB can follow the Internationalization@Home track.

[1] course package (30 ects) - semester 3:


You can choose to study a course package (30 ects) abroad under the Erasmus+ Exchange umbrella.

[2] master thesis (30 ects) - semester 4:


You can choose to do your master thesis (30 ects) at one of our partner institutions under the Erasmus+ Exchange umbrella.

[3] course package (30 ects) + master thesis (30 ects) - semester 3+4:


you can choose to study a course package (30 ects) + do your master thesis (30 ects) abroad under the Erasmus+ Exchange umbrella.

[4] international internship (10 ects) at a company or research institute:


The International Internship in Photonics focuses on the industrial and/or research engineering training of the student. You spend a period of at least 10 weeks to 12 weeks (preferably during the summer holidays) in a company or research institute outside of Belgium as a trainee with the objective of gaining practical experience in an international context also under the Erasmus+ Exchange umbrella.

[5] internationalization@home (6 ects)


Finally we have also implemented the Internationalization at Home track. Students who prefer to follow this track will not take up any of the above tracks. Instead they will do 2 full years at VUB and as such they have to implement a strong international component in the master thesis work equivalent to at least 6 ECTS, through short research visits abroad, involvement of an international co-supervisor, ... .

Check out this cool video of Master Photonics alumnus Kadir Aras, who chose track 3 and went on a year-long Erasmus Exchange to Lund University!