International Relations Office

United Kingdom

Academic Life
 
Studying in United Kingdom
 

Britain is renowned for its world-class education. Universities offer a vast range of subjects in almost any field thinkable, so students will be spoilt for choice when trying to decide which courses to study while on exchange. However, students in UK universities tend to focus and specialize on their chosen course of study – thus reading courses from departments or faculties other than your major may not always be possible.

The variety of systems can be astounding too – some universities are “modularized”, where courses are contained within one term/semester, with exams at the end of that semester; others may have courses that span the whole academic year, with exams only at the end of the academic year. Exams are not necessarily held after every term, so UK-bound exchange students must check this out with their intended SEP university. Sometimes, alternative assessments may be arranged.

Unlike NUS, the British system works on a 3 x 10 weeks term system. One academic year generally has 3 terms: the first term is from Sept/Oct to Dec, the second term is from Jan to Mar and the third term from Apr to Jun/July. Thus, exchange students going to the UK for SEP in NUS Semester One would usually only spend Sep to Dec there, whereas those going in NUS Semester Two would spend Jan to June in the UK.

 

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