Study programme

From the application phase at your home university, you are invited to think about the training activities that you will follow at UCLouvain. The objective of this exercise is to arrive at a study project that is coherent with the curriculum that you are following at your home university. Here are the different concepts and tools that will help you develop your training project at UCLouvain.

ECTS credits 

ECTS credits are the unit of measurement to build your programme. They reflect the workload required to successfully complete a training activity (a course, a seminar, etc.). The calculation takes into account the total time devoted to the activity, including lectures and personal study. Each training activity corresponds to a specific number of credits. ECTS facilitates the recognition of your stay at UCLouvain by your home university.

A normal academic year is equivalent to 60 ECTS credits. Depending on the length of your stay at UCLouvain, you will compose a programme of 30 ECTS (a semester) or of 60 ECTS (two semesters). The exact number of credits to be followed is set by your home university, taking into account the organisation of your individual training path. However, you are expected to follow a programme at UCLouvain that represents a workload sufficiently similar to a normal full-time study situation.

The choice of courses 

The choices of courses and other activities must be made in close consultation with your academic responsible in your home university. Whether you are looking for equivalent or complementary courses, what matters is that learning outcomes to be acquired fits as well as possible into the training programme followed at your home university.

The UCLouvain offers is fully available online. The course description as well as the concrete details concerning the bachelor’s and master’s programmes are consultable in French and English.

Our search engine in the catalogue will allow you to choose the programme you want to purse. However, pay attention to the practical modalities of the relevant courses: year(s), semester(s) and teaching language.

As soon as your application file is accepted by your home university, do not hesitate to contact your UCLouvain faculty coordinator for any help and advice.

Learning Agreement

One the programme is established; it is the subject of a learning agreement. This document itemises the training activities to be followed, as well as the credits that will be awarded after successfully completing the course. Generally, the learning agreement is first validated by your home university and then submitted to the UCLouvain host faculty. It is a guarantee for you to obtain full recognition by your home university of the activities carried out during your study stay at UCLouvain.

The study contract is the reference document for the management of your programme; every exchange student has the right to expect it to be established before their arrival at UCLouvain. Normally, the study contract is made available to you by your home university. In particular, for countries participating in the Erasmus programme, the European model is mandatory.

Please note: Please ensure that any subsequent change to the ECTS study contract are approved in writing by your host faculty as well as your home university.

Transcript of grades

At the end of your stay, contact the secretariat of your host faculty to obtain the ECTS transcript for the transfer and recognition of credits obtained at UCLouvain by your home university. This document will also contain the information allowing your university to convert UCLouvain grades into home grades in an objective and transparent manner.

UCLouvain uses a distribution table by faculty and by cycle, updated each year and based on all the grades obtained in each programme during the last five academic years.