Erasmus FAQ

ECTS is the European Credit Transfer System, created by the European Commission. Its goal is unifying the academic systems across the European Union. The basic assumption is that completing courses earns you credits/points, which are the reflection of work you put into studying. For example – a semester of once a week seminars might be worth 6 ECTS credits and an e-learning course only 1,5 points. Each university has its own rules on rewarding students with ECTS credits for particular courses but the differences are not that big. According to the ECTS program, each student should earn at least 60 points per year (that usually means you have to have at least 30 per semester). The ECTS system is really convenient for studying in a foreign country and transferring to other universities. Theoretically universities should recognize all the credits you earned abroad, if you have an official confirmation about their value in ECTS. In the Erasmus Program it works that way but sometimes if you want to continue your studies abroad as a freemover, your new university might recognize your ECTS credits only partially. Getting back to Erasmus, if you have some negotiation skills and want to earn less points than the assumed minimum (30 ECTS per semester) – you might pull it off. Especially if you had more credits than required in the previous years. This might become useful in case you can’t find any interesting courses, there are too few courses in a particular language or perhaps the courses you would like to attend overlap. Despite this we suggest not to push your luck too much, we haven’t heard of a case, where someone got less than 20 ECTS credits. If you are such a person, write to us :)!