The Joint Postgraduate Course on “Informatics and Management” (JPC IM) operates since 2003-2004. The course is offered jointly by the Schools of Informatics and Economic Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Objectives
The goal of the JPC IM is to bring together graduates from Informatics and Economics in order to acquire a common background in both of these topics, so that they can effectively staff industrial and governmental job positions in high demand for these specialties.
Administration
The JPC IM is run by a seven (7) member committee that consists of four (4) faculty members from the School of Informatics and three (3) faculty members from the Schoole of Economic Sciences.
The course director is a faculty member from the School of Informatics.
Admissions
The JPC IM admits graduates from Greek or foreign Universities in the specialties of either Informatics, or Economics. Applicants’ specialties must be substantiated by their undergraduate transcript which should be equivalent to the curricula of either the School of Informatics or the School of Economic Sciences of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Each year forty (40) students are admitted to the course, 20 from each of the two specialties.
Admission Criteria
The admission criteria include:
- evaluation of curriculum vitae – personal interview (7%)
- evaluation of the relevance of the applicant’s graduate specialty – undergraduate course average (40%)
- evaluation of projects undertaken, research or published work (8%)
- knowledge of foreign languages (15%)
- GMAT grade (25%)
- past or present business experience (5%)
- recommendation letters
Important Dates
Applications are usually received each year until the end of May, interviews are scheduled for June and the selection is being made right after. Course usually begins in early October.
Curriculum
The course lasts for 3 semesters and a semester lasts for 13 weeks.
The curriculum includes both core and elective modules. Students must take 12 modules in total (the curriculum includes 23 modules). Each module is taught in weekly three-hour lectures. The lectures take place in the afternoon from 16.30 to 21.30.
Modules usually include mandatory lectures, coursework and final exams. Students “pass” a module when they achieve an overall grade of six (6) out of ten (10). Students with lower grades must take a resit. The total number of resits must be less than four (4) in the first year. The “pass” grade for the thesis is 7.
The final course grade is calculated as a weighted average of the module grades (weight 12/16) and the thesis grade (weight 4/16).
During the 1st semester students that graduated from Informatics (or equivalent) departments attend exclusively Economics modules. Equivalently, students that graduated from Economics (or equivalent) departments attend exclusively Informatics modules. During the 2nd and 3rd semesters all students (regardless of their specialty background) attend the same modules and undertake a thesis which is submitted for evaluation by the assigned board of examiners.