Welcome incoming students!

This page is to help prepare incoming students starting one of three MSc programs in the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Delft University of Technology: Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering and Applied Earth Sciences.

Below you will find a list of resources to help you prepare for the start of your program. These resources are not mandatory, but are recommended to help you get the year off to a good start, particularly in the module Modeling, Uncertainty and Data for Engineers (MUDE), which is required for students in all three programs. Students who did these short courses in the summer felt much prepared for MUDE in September!

At minimum, we recommend working through two online courses: Python and Probability and Statistics as a refresher from your BSc program. If you have never taken a course on either of these topics in your BSc program, you should take one of the online courses listed in the Additional Resources section.

Programming in Python

From the beginning of the academic year you will be using the Python programming language intensively. If you have never used Python before, but have used another scientific computing language (e.g., Matlab), we strongly encourage you to follow our online course Python for Engineers. Even if you have used Python before, the online course is an excellent refresher. If you have never programmed in any language before, you should also use the additional Python resources provided below.

How can you tell if you should take the refresher course? You should be comfortable using any of the following concepts:

  • Common data types (int, float, strings, boolean)
  • Variables, Constants, Operators and Expressions
  • Basic data structures: lists, tuples, dictionaries and sets
  • if/then/else statements
  • Loops
  • Functions
  • Basic plotting with matplotlib

In addition, familiarity with the Python library Numpy is also useful:

  • Basic Numpy operations: addition, subtraction multiplication, division, dot product, matrix multiplication
  • Numpy arrays: 1-D, 2-D and N-D arrays, array creation
  • Array manipulation: sorting, indexing and slicing, reshaping and transpose, joining arrays

Probability and Statistics

Prior experience has shown that a quick refresher on fundamental probability and statistics concepts is very useful for our 1st year MSc students, and we have prepared a short refresher course Probability and Statistics for Engineers.

If you have never taken a BSc course in probability and statistics, you are strongly recommended to take the two online courses listed in Additional Resources Section below.

Additional Resources

If you have never taken a BSc course in Probability and Statistics, you are strongly encouraged to complete the two relevant courses listed below from our Mathematics Department at TU Delft. If you have never taken a BSc course in Programming (in any scientific language, for example, Python, Matlab, etc), there are a number of free online Python courses available (the refresher course listed above may not be sufficient).

Probability Theory

An online course; 1 of 2 courses you should take if you have never taken a BSc course in Probability and Statistics. You do not need to pay for the certificate.

Statistics

An online course; the second of 2 courses you should take if you have never taken a BSc course in Probability and Statistics. You do not need to pay for the certificate.

Additional Math Courses

The Mathematics Department at TU Delft also offers other online courses; a refresher on linear algebra could also help you get started with your MSc program if you have time!

Additional Python Course

The online book Exploratory Computing with Python is based on our BSc course; the pages have been made interactive, so there is no need to install Python on your computer. Ideal for those who have not taken any BSc course in Programming.

Python Book

Think Python by Allen Downey is an introduction to Python programming for beginners. As it covers the topics in our other online courses in more detail, it is an excellent resource for those new to programming, as well as experienced programmers looking to learn Python. It is available for free online.

Other Online Resources

In case you are looking for other material to review, the website Pre-for-CEM contains a lot, primarily fundamental BSc-level concepts that may be useful to review prior to, and during, your MSc studies.

Get in touch

Unsure of how you can best prepare for the upcoming academic year? Interested in finding out more about our resources? Don't hesitate to contact us at MUDE-CEG@tudelft.nl.