Courses and credits
Find out what courses you can take as a visiting student, how many credits you need and what postgraduate options are available.
Course finder
Browse the full selection of courses we offer to our visiting students:
Course finder
Third year (level 10) course access
Visiting 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).
Restricted courses
The 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 Medicine
Medicine
While 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 School
Studio based courses in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Art and Design
You may wish to consider the range of non-studio based courses offered in Edinburgh College of Art, please refer to the Course Finder.
Popular subject areas and limited availability courses
Though 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:
- Academic English for Visiting Students (AEVS) and English for International Business Communication (EIBC)
- Archaeology
- Art elective courses
- Classics
- Design elective courses
- Education
- English Literature
- Health
- History
- History of Art
- Law
- Music
- Nursing
- Philosophy
- Politics
- Psychology
- Sport
As 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:
- Geography
- Informatics*
*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.
Credits
Students 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).
| Study duration | University of Edinburgh Credits | ECTS Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Single semester | 60 | 30 |
| Full academic year | 120 | 60 |
The 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.
| HIST08026 | Introduction to Medieval Europe 2 | 20 credits |
| BILG09007 | Immunology 3 | 20 credits |
| PSYL10002 | Biological Psychology | 10 credits |
| PSYL10101 |
Intelligence, Personality and Health |
10 credits |
Postgraduate course options
Visiting 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: