Both these degree programs also enable students to supplement their courses in engineering with courses in business studies or languages, for instance. There is a cooperative education option that involves voluntary in-service placement periods allowing students to broaden their studies with one term of workplace training in a company. The Department of Energy also offers a popular one-year program, the Foundation Year for Building, Energy and Environmental Engineering, which enables students with schoolleaving qualifications in the social sciences or humanities to attain the qualifications needed to enrol on the degree programs in Building Engineering, Energy Engineering or Environmental Engineering. After completing this preliminary year of courses in mathematics, construction and energy physics, and environmental chemistry, students are able to continue on one of the degree programs. A great deal of the instruction takes the form of project work.
Students practice working against the clock and using realistic methods.
They are also given training in presenting their results both orally and in writing. The program finishes with a degree project, which is conducted over a period of 10 or 20 weeks at a company in Sweden or abroad. University offers all women studying on programs in engineering the opportunity to participate in a mentors program for three semesters. The program is intended to provide support for women who have chosen programs that have not traditionally attracted women. The students meet as a group during one semester, and for the two subsequent semesters they have regular contact with their personal mentors who are women and men in leading positions in companies and public authorities in the region.