It is important to construct a feasible study plan. This way you can make sure that you get to study the courses you want, your schedule is sensible and that you can transfer the credits you need for your degree. This can be a challenge given that most exchange students come from universities following different semester structures and scheduling systems. The information below will clarify the semester structure in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in LiU and will help you understand how to construct an interesting and realistic study plan.
Full-time courses
They are quite intensive and the expected weekly workload is about 40 hours, including lectures, seminars, individual studying, exam and assignment writing.
Part-time courses
Slower-paced courses, with less workload per week but they last longer than 4 weeks. They have one or two lectures per week and they span over half of or even the whole semester.
Semester structure
- The semester is divided into four consecutive study periods. Each period lasts for five weeks and corresponds to a 7.5 ECTS full-time course. 15 ECTS full-time courses last 10 weeks and therefore two study periods.
- You can take only one full-time course per study period but
- You can combine part-time and full-time courses or several part-time courses that run during the same period.
Study plan
- Full-time studies and minimum credits per semester are 30 ECTS. You are allowed to take up to 45 ECTS per semester.
- The period during which the course is given is indicated by the column “weeks”. Please consult this online calendar for the exact dates.
- To find out whether a course is full-time or part-time, click on the course and scroll down. The terms “Half-time” and “One-quarter-time” indicate that the course is part-time.
Below you can find two examples of how a feasible study plan can look like. Keep in mind that those are just suggestions. More course combinations can be used to construct a viable study plan as long as the principles one full-time course per period and at least 30 ECTS in total are followed.