in october 1896, at the age of seventeen, he moved to vienna to study civil engineering at the vienna university of technology and graduated in 1902 with the best marks. in his memoirs, milanković wrote about his lectures on engineering: "professor czuber was teaching us mathematics. his every sentence was the masterpiece of strict logic, without any extra word, without any error." after graduating and spending his obligatory year in military service, milanković borrowed money from an uncle to pay for additional schooling at the technical university in engineering. he researched concrete and wrote a theoretical evaluation of it as a building material. at age twenty-five, his phd thesis was entitled "contribution to the theory of pressure curves" (beitrag zur theorie der druck-kurven) and its implementation allowed assessment of pressure curves' shape and properties when continuous pressure is applied, which is very useful in bridge, cupola and abutment construction. his thesis was successfully defended on 12 december 1904; examination committee members were johan brick, josef finger, emanuel czuber and ludwig von tetmajer. he then worked for an engineering firm in vienna, using his knowledge to design structures.