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Choosing courses abroad

An important consideration for students planning to study abroad is the courses they will take. Here is a brief overview of the key things you must consider as you think about studying abroad and coursework.

Academic considerations

You must be in good academic standing at the UW-Madison in order to participate in IESP programs. You must also have a minimum GPA of 3.0 for most programs.

Course credits

You must be enrolled as a full-time student abroad, and your course credits abroad must be equal to no fewer than 12 and no more than 18 UW-Madison credits. Courses taken abroad toward your engineering major will be posted to UW transcripts as pass/fail. Courses taken abroad towards a non-engineering major will receive grades.

Selecting courses overseas

You are advised to plan ahead and to save electives to take while you are studying abroad. This will give you maximal flexibility when selecting courses at the overseas institution.

When considering programs, look at the courses already equated to UW-Madison courses for the programs you are interested in, but remember that you are not restricted to taking courses from this list and can get courses abroad approved as equivalent to UW courses.

Also, go to the web site of the institution you are interested in attending, and look at the department listings and course catalogs online to determine whether courses (already approved or not) you would be interested in taking are offered at the time you want to study abroad.

Remember also that you are not restricted to only engineering courses abroad, but can take other courses as well. You can take other courses to transfer to the UW, including regional language and culture courses toward a Certificate in International Engineering, which also fulfill humanities and social science credits required for engineering majors.

You can get courses abroad approved as equivalent to UW-Madison courses by providing a UW professor with course syllabi and a proposed UW course that seems similar in content, and having him or her approve the course abroad as equivalent to that or another UW course. Once approved, courses will be transferred to your UW transcript.

All courses taken abroad must be converted to UW courses, and grades of "S" (satisfactory) or "U" (unsatisfactory) will be posted to your UW-Madison transcript.

Graduating abroad

Because IESP programs are considered as "in residence," you can maintain enrollment and receive residence credit for courses overseas. Because the courses count just like UW courses, you can take part or all of your last 30 credits at the UW (required to be in residence) while on study abroad, and therefore can graduate abroad.