Study plan
Planning your studies
Being a doctoral student at BTH means that you will primarily focus on your research project. You are also obligated to take credits in courses and can also have teaching or other academic service as part of your doctoral student position. The ultimate objective of the doctoral student education is to finalize a licentiate or a doctoral thesis.
To plan for your studies you need to familiarize yourself with three documents: the goals in the Higher Education Ordinance, the General Study Plan and the Individual Study Plan.
Study Period
The doctoral education up to the licentiate degree corresponds to two years full-time studies (120 ECTS credits), where 1.5 credits corresponds to one week full-time studies.
The doctoral education up to the doctoral degree corresponds to four years full-time studies (240 ECTS credits), where 1.5 credits corresponds to one week full-time studies.
Depending on your subject area you will be obligated to take some of these credits as courses. How many credits are course work is stated in your General Syllabus.
In addition to your research work and your course studies, you can, as an employed doctoral student, devote some of your time to teaching and academic work in order to develop your pedagogical and communicative ability. This is seen as an important part of your personal development as a doctoral student. Teaching and academic work for doctoral students who have full-time employment are allowed up to 20% of working hours. Thus, your doctorate can be extended up to 1 year and the total time for doctoral studies will be 5 years.