Information for Visiting Erasmus Students

Information on accommodation, English language courses and welcome programme together with the application forms will be provided by the International Office. Information on module selection and how to pre-register for modules will be sent to you by the Business School.

Teaching in the University of Nottingham is organised into two semesters that run across a standard, 30-week academic year. Each semester consists of around 12 weeks of teaching, followed by a period of revision and examinations.

The University operates a modular degree structure. Our full-time students register for modules totalling 120 credits per academic year, normally 60 per semester. Ideally, we recommend that exchange students take a slightly lighter load than this, so a total of 100 credits per year is advised. It may be, however, that your home institution requires you to take the full 120 credits. All exchange students are required to take a minimum of 50 credits per semester. University of Nottingham credit values can be translated into ECTS credit values by dividing the Nottingham credit value by two.

The style of learning environment in the Business School may differ considerably from that at your home institution. Generally, you can expect fewer hours spent in class. This does not mean less work; rather, we expect class hours to provide the framework for learning. It is up to you to make use of your own time and the library and related facilities to supplement in-class material. As an illustration, a 10 credit module might typically involve 12 lectures and 3 seminars (= 15 hours). However, the number of student work hours associated with a 10 credit module is 100. This means that you should be devoting around 85 hours of your own time to the work of the module. This might involve further reading, essay or seminar preparation, revision for examinations etc. You cannot expect to achieve good marks by merely attending classes.

You will receive information on Business School modules and how to pre-register for them by e-mail, once we have received your nomination from your home institution. Undergraduate modules are offered at the following levels:

• Level 1 - Modules designed principally for 1st year students.
• Level 2 - Modules designed principally for 2nd year students
• Level 3 - Modules designed principally for 3rd year students

You may register for modules at varying levels, depending on your previous studies. Pre-registering will guarantee you a place on the module, timetable permitting, and you do not need to queue up for module registration when you arrive here. If you are not happy with your choices you can still make changes, subject to availability, during the first two weeks of each semester. Once you have finalised your module choices you must fulfil all assessment and attendance requirements for each module.

Induction Sessions for new Erasmus students, where you will be provided with information necessary for your studies in the Business School, are held at the beginning of each semester.

It is important that you are familiar with the way in which marks are allocated. Assessed work is normally given a percentage mark. In practice, however, marks in excess of 85% are extremely rare. Any mark in excess of 70% represents 'first class' performance and such marks are generally achieved by only about 10-15% of the class. Marks between 60 and 69% (upper second class) represent good performance; marks between 50 and 59% are quite satisfactory (lower second class) marks between 40 and 49% (third class) are satisfactory, though below average, and marks below 40% are fails. When we relay your marks to your home institution, conversion tables are used so that your marks can be translated into realistic home institution equivalents.

Provisional results will be released after the first semester. Final results for the academic year will be released at the end of the second semester and posted to you and to your home institution at the end of June.

Ms Kathleen Visser, Erasmus Administrator

Professor Alistair Bruce, Co-ordinator
France, University of Amsterdam and Uppsala University, Sweden

Dr Simona Spedale-Latimer, Co-ordinator
Austria, Germany, Spain and Portugal

Dr Katri Karjalainen, Co-ordinator
University of Linkoping, Lappeenranta University, University of Salerno and University of Groningen

Before your arrival, the following web pages are good sources of information and they might answer many of your questions:

• Term dates
  
  
• Examination information
  
  
• Business School Undergraduate Modules
  
  
• European Credit Transfer System