Telecommunications Engineering

Overview

This Telecommunications Engineering (MET) master’s degree at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, provides graduates with a broad profile that includes skills and expertise in communications systems, networks, electronics and audiovisual systems to ensure that they have the professional competencies that they need to practise as telecommunications engineers. After the first, compulsory subject area, students can choose from a wide variety of subjects to acquire a general profile, specialise in a certain area or engage in research and pursue a doctoral degree.

It is intended that modern industry assimilate these engineers as benchmark professionals in the new multidisciplinary work and production scenario. In order to promote the employability of our students, both the master’s thesis and some of the ECTS credits for optional subjects can be taken at companies and laboratories.

MET has a strong international character. It is taught entirely in English as it is expected that a large number of students will be from other countries. There is also the possibility of obtaining a joint degree with another internationally renowned university. It received the International Master’s Programme distinction (2013 call) awarded by the Government of Catalonia’s Agency for the Management of University and Research Grants (AGAUR).

Professional opportunities

The areas in which graduates of this master’s degree may find employment are similar to those for graduates of the five-year degree in Telecommunications Engineering, although their profiles are enhanced by an extra academic year. Their careers may lead them to practise as:

Telecommunications engineers in any of the following:

• Telecommunications operators.
• Telecommunications equipment industry.
• Electronic equipment industry.
• Semiconductor industry.
• IT consulting firms (as network solution designers, network planners and designers, network project leaders, etc.).
• IT companies, from content producers and distributors to service providers.
• Regulatory bodies.
• Software editing firms.
• Other industries such as cars manufacturers and consumer and industrial electronics companies, and in diverse areas such as health, energy, intelligent transport systems, logistics and mobility, agricultural and food industry, air and maritime transport, railway infrastructure, control systems and security of facilities and electronic services transactions, as well as rapidly expanding areas such as smart cities, smart homes, smart grids and smart health, among others.
• Freelance professionals acting as telecommunications engineering advisors and consultants.
• Sales engineers.
• Civil servants or employees of any public administration body at the EU, national, regional and local levels in the areas of telecommunications and ICT innovation.
• Research, development and innovation specialists in public and private companies.
• Researchers and academics at public or private universities.

In addition to professionally oriented topics, the master’s degree offers highly specialised optional subjects intended for those students who are looking to pursue a doctoral degree in Telecommunications Engineering.

Generic competencies

Generic competencies are the skills that graduates acquire regardless of the specific course or field of study. The generic competencies established by the UPC are capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship, sustainability and social commitment, knowledge of a foreign language (preferably English), teamwork and proper use of information resources.

Specific competencies

• Communication systems: wired and wireless, optical fibre.
• Computer networks, internet, local area networks (Ethernet, Wi-Fi).
• Voice networks, video distribution and television streaming, P2P, mobile networks.
• Security in communication networks: encryption, user authentication, digital signatures.
• Radio navigation, global positioning systems (GPS).
• Radar.
• Information processing: encoding, compression, error correction, image recognition, video clip recognition, voice recognition, voice generation.
• Electronic components and circuits: microprocessor devices (routers, switches, etc.), sensors, actuators, transducers.
• Technology and electronics, analogue and digital electronic instrumentation, medical electronics, consumer electronics, control systems, robotics, automation.
• Micro- and nanotechnologies.
• Bioengineering applications, telemedicine, e-commerce platforms, smart cities, smart metering, sensor networks, smart homes, green computing, cloud computing.