Find out what courses you can take as a visiting student, how many credits you need and what postgraduate options are available. Course finderBrowse the full selection of courses we offer to our visiting students:Course finderThird year (level 10) course accessVisiting Students must have completed two full years of a four-year degree programme or one full year of a three-year Honours degree programme in order to be enrolled in third year (level 10) courses.Please note there is a higher English language requirement for 3rd/4th year level courses in the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS). Document CAHSS Course pre-requisite flyer (448.78 KB / PDF) Restricted coursesThe following courses are only open to students who are coming on a subject-specific exchange in those subject areas (we must have a relevant exchange agreement in place with their home institution):Veterinary MedicineMedicineWhile it is not possible to study Medicine as a visiting student, you may have the option to apply for a medical elective or other placement in Edinburgh Medical School:Information for visiting students to Edinburgh Medical SchoolStudio based courses in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Art and DesignYou may wish to consider the range of non-studio based courses offered in Edinburgh College of Art, please refer to the Course Finder.LawWhile some course spaces in Law may open for all visiting students during the welcome periods of each semester, we cannot guarantee this will happen at all. Please refer to specific course pre-requisites on the Course Finder.Popular subject areas and limited availability coursesThough we endeavour to ensure that majority of our students are allocated their preferred course choices, sometimes this is not possible.The following subject areas cannot guarantee access to students who are not on a direct exchange in the subject area, either because these subjects are very popular courses with limited capacity and strict pre-requisites or because they have limited study options available for visiting students:College of Arts, Humanities & Social SciencesAcademic English for Visiting Students (AEVS) and English for International Business Communication (EIBC)ArchaeologyArt and Design elective coursesClassicsDivinityEducationEnglish LiteratureHealthHistoryHistory of ArtLawLLC Common CoursesMusicNursingPhilosophyPoliticsPsychologySocial AnthropologySociologySportAs spaces are extremely limited on these courses, students will often be limited to pre-enrol in one or two courses only (depending on the subject) and invited to fill any remaining spaces on a first-come, first-served basis upon arrival in Edinburgh.Learn more about the alternative course options offered in the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences:Alternative course options for visiting studentsCollege of Science and EngineeringGeographyInformatics**Study Abroad students (coming to the University of Edinburgh on a non-exchange, fee-paying programme) will be restricted to enrolling in a maximum of 20 credits worth of Informatics/Computer Science courses, if eligible.CreditsStudents are expected to take full course load (60 credits per semester, or 120 credits for the academic year).The below table will illustrate how our credits compare to those used in the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).Normal academic loadStudy durationUniversity of Edinburgh CreditsECTS CreditsSingle semester6030Full academic year12060The majority of courses are 20 credits each, however there are 10 credit courses and full year courses worth 40 credits.We recommend that for every 1 credit you should aim to do around 10 hours of independent study. This means that for each 20 credit course, you should be putting in 200 hours of study per semester.An example course enrolment for one semesterHIST08026 Introduction to Medieval Europe 220 credits BILG09007Immunology 320 creditsPSYL10002Biological Psychology10 creditsPSYL10101Intelligence, Personality and Health10 creditsPostgraduate course optionsVisiting undergraduate students are not permitted to take postgraduate level courses.Students applying to study here at postgraduate level should not select their courses from our course finder. Please see the ‘Study options’ section of the website, which will provide more information about the postgraduate application process:Postgraduate options This article was published on 2024-06-24
