Year 2

The second year contains another 80 credits in all lines of courses. The teaching and examination methods are similar to the first year, but already demand more initiative from you. In the second year, you need to complete large research projects in groups and pass theoretical and practical courses that go much more in depth. Two internships in the second year allow you to put the obtained theory and skills into practice in different settings.

The different semesters throughout the programme will include different categories of patient cases that are used in most of the courses of that specific semester. The full list of courses and descriptions is available in our study guide, but it’s important to note that the courses are more integrated as the cases get more complex towards the end of the second year. Didactically, we try to offer a good mix of teaching and examination methods, both face-to-face and online in order to serve you a rich (and blended) learning environment. 

Year 3

In the final year at ESP, during semester 5, you need to choose a minor to specialise further into a specific field.

We recommend choosing between either of the following 2 options:

• International Minor of Sports Physical Therapy: offered by the school of physiotherapy – to get better skills and understanding of complex patient categories. Musculoskeletal, cardiopulmonary oncology as well as other patient categories will be discussed and studied extensively, which makes this minor a perfect choice if you want to be fully prepared as international practitioner.
• Minor Master Preparation: offered by ESP in collaboration with the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, VU University in Amsterdam. You follow pre-master courses of the Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Sciences or Human Movement Sciences Master programme during ESP. This will prepare you for an academic career in physiotherapy and allows the completion of MSc within only 4 years, i.e. 3 years at ESP and one more year at the VU.

Writing a 'professional assignment project'

Parallel to the minor you need to write a “professional assignment project” (in short “PAP”) which includes an extensive literature review (thesis) and a practical product for a client in physiotherapy. While the final clinical internship is the “grand finale” of all earlier internship and underlying practical courses, the PAP is the grand finale of all earlier research projects as done in the Evidence Based Practice courses.