Credit Information
Courses and Credits Abroad
- With approval, students may take any elective or required courses abroad.
- Students will receive one diversity requirement credit per semester abroad. The requirement may be assigned to any course.
- Writing intensive courses are rarely taken abroad; approval must come from the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for (W) courses.
- Students must earn at least the equivalent of a "C" and have the course(s) approved in order for credits abroad to be applied to their University of Scranton record.
- Transfer credits earned at an international institution through study abroad are exempt from the limits for transferring credit once matriculating at the University of Scranton. In addition the study abroad credits will count towards the residency requirement.
- Credit values of courses taken abroad can vary in value. It is not unusual that courses are have values of 1.5, 4 or even 5 semester hours. In such cases, the credits are applied in such a way as to fill required areas. For example, two 1.5 credit courses would fill a 3 credit elective area and a 5 credit course would fill a 3 credit course in addition to having the remaining 2 credits applied to an appropriate elective area.
- Students may, with permission take courses abroad not offered at the University of Scranton. For example, students in the past have taken language courses such as Korean, Hindi, Kiswahili and Dutch and used the credits earned to fill humanities or free elective requirement.
- A note on elective credits: In most instances, courses taken abroad have at least the same credit weight as courses offered at the University of Scranton. In some instances, courses may have a greater or lesser credit weighting than here (which is not a problem). In most cases, students studying abroad are taking courses to fill elective areas. As a result, the total credits of the course(s) are applied to the elective area. If a student’s credits earned exceed the credits need to fill an elective area (for example the student has (3) credits of elective available and earns (4) abroad), the credits are then applied to their free area. In the case of a student with (3) elective credits remaining who earns, for example, (1) credit for the class, she or he will have (2) credits remaining to fulfill the elective requirement.