Universitat de Barcelona

In order to facilitate student mobility and the comparison of students' study attainment across the EU, the new bachelor's degree courses have adopted the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

In this system, credits are awarded not only for class attendance but for all the other areas of the student's academic activity, so that one ECTS credit has been made equivalent to a total of 25 hours of student work as completed in any of the following learning areas:

• Lectures and practical classes
• Private study, on- or off-campus
• Participation in seminars, assignments, practical work and projects
• Preparation for and completion of examinations and assessment tests

The design of the new degree considers that if you study a course full time over the period of one academic year, you should be completing a total of 60 ECTS credits or, in credits-to-hours equivalence, between 1, 500 and 1, 800 hours in all the areas listed above.

In most cases the student must accumulate a total of 240 ECTS credits in order to be awarded the degree, although in degree courses such as Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry the number required is higher.

Generally speaking, the new curricula for these degrees are structured in study areas which may each contain one or more than one subject. There are three subject types:

• basic training subjects
• compulsory subjects   
• optional subjects

In every EHEA bachelor's degree course the curriculum must contain a minimum of 60 credits in basic training subjects. Students need to do the basic training subjects, in the same way that they need to do the compulsory subject credits, but the basic training credits also offer the advantage that if a student decides to pass from one degree course to another, successfully completed basic training subject credits from his or her first course may be recognized and made to count for the second, when and where the two courses are being offered in the same branch of knowledge.

Furthermore, before the end of each course the student will be required to complete a final project of between 6 and 30 credits, depending on the course.

As a component that students either choose to do or are required to do, certain courses feature a work placement (either in-company or in some official institution), which may carry up to 60 of the course's total credits.

In order to know exactly what study areas and subjects are offered in each degree course, the number of credits assigned to these, the course offering in terms of required or optional work placements and the number of credits assigned to the final project, prospective students will need to consult the details provided in the curriculum of each course.