University of Stuttgart

Overview

Founded in 1829, the University of Stuttgart is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany. The University of Stuttgart has earned great reputation and praise for its contributions to process engineering, automotive engineering, aerospace engineering, activity-based costing, and industrial and automated manufacturing. The university is also a member of the TU9, an alliance of top technical universities in the country.

The university has played a hand in molding movers and shakers of industries, science, and general scholarship. Notable alumni include Gottlieb Daimler and William Maybach, developers of high-speed internal combustion engines that can be used for land, water, and air. The artists Gustav Bauernfield and Gego were also alumni. Moreover, giants in business such as Michael Macht, former CEO of Porsche AG, and Martin Winterkorn, former CEO of Volkswagen AG, were also educated in the university.

The institution is highly praised for its academic and research programs in industrial engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and civil engineering. This is because since its inception to this day, the institution remains highly focused on highly-technical and practical education.

Known before 1967 as the Stuttgart Institution of Technology, it added more courses after its renaming in the same year. New fields of study and research came along with it. These included the social sciences and the history of science and technology. From then on, the university expanded its offering.

Today, the University of Stuttgart maintains 10 faculties, namely: (1) Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, (2) Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, (3) Faculty of Chemistry, (4) Faculty of Energy-, Process-, and Bio-Engineering, (5) Faculty of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, (6) Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and Geodesy, (7) Faculty of Engineering Design, Production Engineering, and Automotive Engineering, (8) Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, (9) Faculty of Humanities, and the (10) Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences.

The university espouses what it calls the Stuttgart Weg (or Stuttgart Way in English). This is a research and instructional interdisciplinary approach that integrates the natural sciences, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. This is all in the hope of contributing cutting-edge innovations to the creation of intelligent systems for sustainable societies. Within the halls of the institution, interdisciplinarity is treated as the most basic principle.

Researchers also enjoy excellent facilities offered by the university. These include the Stuttgart Supercomputing Center, the most powerful computer system in Germany, ZaQuant or the Center for Applied Quantum Technologies, and the SOFIA Stratosphere Observatory.