Courses and credits

Find out what courses you can take as a visiting student, how many credits you need and what postgraduate options are available.

Course finder

Browse the full selection of courses we offer to our visiting students:


Third year (level 10) course access

Visiting students must have completed two full years of a four-year degree programme or one full year of a three-year honours degree programme in order to be enrolled in third year (level 10) courses.

Please note there is a higher English language requirement for 3rd/4th year level courses in the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (CAHSS).

Restricted courses

The following courses are only open to students who are coming on a subject-specific exchange in those subject areas (we must have a relevant exchange agreement in place with their home institution):

Veterinary Medicine

Medicine

While it is not possible to study Medicine as a visiting student, you may have the option to apply for a medical elective or other placement in Edinburgh Medical School:

Information for visiting students to Edinburgh Medical School

Studio-based courses in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Art and Design

You may wish to consider the range of non-studio based courses offered in Edinburgh College of Art, please refer to the Course Finder.

Law

While some course spaces in Law may open for all visiting students during the welcome periods of each semester, we cannot guarantee this will happen at all. Please refer to specific course pre-requisites on the Course Finder.

Popular subject areas and limited availability courses

Due to increased demand for all courses in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), students will not be enrolled in any CAHSS courses before August 2026. All students will receive a communication in May about how and when to enrol in CAHSS courses for the coming academic year. We will begin accepting requests for CAHSS courses in July, and enrolments will be confirmed in August (Semester 1 courses) and December (Semester 2 courses).

Any CAHSS requests submitted before this enrolment period opens in July 2026, either as part of an application, ranking form, or email, will be disregarded and students must request their courses in July instead. For courses taking place during Semester 1 (or Full Year), this process will open in July; for courses taking place during Semester 2, this process will open in November. 

Though we endeavour to ensure that majority of our students are allocated their preferred course choices, sometimes this is not possible.

The following subject areas cannot guarantee access to students who are not on a direct exchange in the subject area, either because these subjects are very popular courses with limited capacity and strict pre-requisites or because they have limited study options available for visiting students: 

  • Academic English for Visiting Students (AEVS) and English for International Business Communication (EIBC)
  • Archaeology
  • Art and Design elective courses
  • Business
  • Classics
  • Divinity
  • Economics
  • Education
  • English Literature
  • Health
  • History
  • History of Art
  • Law
  • LLC Common Courses
  • Music
  • Nursing
  • Philosophy
  • Politics
  • Psychology
  • Social Anthropology
  • Sociology
  • Sport

You can learn more about the alternative course options offered in the College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences:


  • Geography
  • Informatics*

*Study Abroad students (coming to the University of Edinburgh on a non-exchange, fee-paying programme) will be restricted to enrolling in a maximum of 20 credits worth of Informatics/Computer Science courses, if eligible.


Credits

Students are expected to take full course load (60 credits per semester, or 120 credits for the academic year).

The below table will illustrate how our credits compare to those used in the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

Normal academic load
Study durationUniversity of Edinburgh CreditsECTS Credits
Single semester6030
Full academic year12060

The majority of courses are 20 credits each, however there are 10 credit courses and full year courses worth 40 credits.

We recommend that for every 1 credit you should aim to do around 10 hours of independent study. This means that for each 20 credit course, you should be putting in 200 hours of study per semester.

An example course enrolment for one semester
HIST08026                       Introduction to Medieval Europe 220 credits         
BILG09007Immunology 320 credits
PSYL10002Biological Psychology10 credits
PSYL10101Intelligence, Personality and Health10 credits

Postgraduate course options

Visiting undergraduate students are not permitted to take postgraduate level courses.

Students applying to study here at postgraduate level should not select their courses from our course finder. Please see the ‘Study options’ section of the website, which will provide more information about the postgraduate application process:

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