Postgraduate Programmes
The School offers three postgraduate paths: research degrees (MSc and PhD), a coursework degree (MEng), and a Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip). Whichever you are considering, this page will help you take the first step.
Why a research degree is worth it
A research degree in this School is not really about mastering one narrow topic. The subject you work on, whether power systems, telecommunications, machine learning, electronics, or photonics, is the vehicle rather than the destination. What you actually develop is judgement: the ability to take a hard, poorly defined problem that nobody has solved yet and make real progress on it. You learn which questions are worth asking, how to tell a trustworthy result from a flattering one, and how to keep working productively in the discomfort of not yet understanding something.
That skill does not expire. Most of our graduates move into industry and rarely touch their exact research topic again, but they carry something more durable: the confidence, earned on a real problem with real stakes, that they can walk into any unfamiliar field and come to understand it the way its experts do. As more of the routine work becomes automated, this kind of judgement is precisely what stays scarce, and valuable.
You will also leave with a supervisor who knows your work closely, a professional network, and in most cases published papers and the experience of defending your research in front of the people best placed to scrutinise it. Some of our graduates have gone on to found their own companies; many lead technical teams across South Africa and abroad.
Interested in an MSc or PhD?
If you are interested in a research MSc or PhD, the best first step is to find a potential supervisor whose interests align with yours and contact them directly. If you are not sure where to start, send your query to our postgraduate admin staff via the Contact Us page and they will be happy to point you in the right direction.
You can explore our academics' research interests through their staff profiles and our research groups. Most staff maintain a personal website, ResearchGate, or Google Scholar profile linked from their staff page, so do your homework and reach out to someone whose work genuinely interests you. A short, specific email that shows you have read something of their research goes a long way.
Programme pages: MSc (Eng) by dissertation and PhD.
Interested in coursework?
For our current postgraduate coursework offerings and general information, please see the PG Handbook, available in our public shared files in the Postgrad directory. We update our course offerings and research programmes from time to time, so please email our postgraduate admin officer via the Contact Us page for the latest information. The Handbook also lists the programme codes you will need for your online application.
Programme page: MEng (coursework and project).
Interested in a PGDip?
Our Postgraduate Diploma in Electrical Engineering is offered at fourth-year level alongside the BSc in Electrical Engineering, with many of its courses run together with those fourth-year courses.
Ready to apply?
For research degrees (MSc and PhD), contact a potential supervisor or our postgraduate admin staff before you apply, so that we can match you to the right supervisor and project. For all programmes, formal applications are made through the Wits online application system, using the programme codes listed in the Postgraduate Handbook.
