Transfer of credits of courses

In general, the transfer of credits of academic achievements is possible.

However, please keep the following rules in mind.

For which academic achievements can the credits be transferred?

Please note that the Department of Computer Science usually does not use academic achievements from abroad as replacement for existing courses. Rather, the credits of the academic achievements from abroad are transferred directly and exclusions to existing courses at the TU Darmstadt are formulated. These courses then cannot be taken any more if the credits of the academic achievement from abroad are transferred.

The transfer of credits of courses you have completed during your exchange usually is no problem once the following criteria hold:

• the overlap of the courses you have completed abroad with the category of required courses of your studies in computer science is negligible
• if the Bachelor's or Master's thesis is conducted during your semesters abroad a professor from the Department of Computer Science at the TU Darmstadt has to be the supervisor
• if the courses you have completed during your exchange were never checked by the Examination Committee, the credits may not be transferred; agreements between a student and the Examination Committee are listed in the learning agreement and also in another document that accompanies the learning agreement

Including required courses in your studies can be granted if the course is to a very large extent similar as the one of the TU Darmstadt. For this reason, including one of the canonical introductory courses in most cases is not possible.

Procedure of the transfer of credits of academic achievements

After the nomination by the department of computer science in parallel the application for a learning agreement takes place. Usually you will receive a list of academic achievements for which previously the credit were transferred successfully via mail.

If you like to include other courses please request a preliminary transfer of credits.

Please note that all rcredit transfers have to be issued at the Department of Computer Science independently of your actual study programme. Who finally transfers the credits remains open, but the first contact has to be made either by mail or in the abroad office hour.

Preliminary transfer of credits

During the preliminary transfer of credits of academic achievements it is checked whether or not a course from a foreign university can be included in your studies. Usually credits can be successfully transferred when

• the overlap to required courses is negligible and
• the course has similar content and requirements as requested by the study plans of the Department of Computer Science

In general, it is checked in which category of elective courses of your study plan the course best fits in. There will be also exclusions of courses from the Department of Computer Science given the overlap is too high. In other words, when a transfer of credits takes place the course cannot be already included in your study program and it also cannot be included in the future.

In the preliminary transfer of credits the CPs are not determined. The CP are determined when you come back from your stay abroad.

Transfer of credits after your return (final transfer of credits)

For all of the courses that only have preliminary transfer of credits the final transfer of credits has to take place after your return. After the contents are checked it is determined how many CP the course counts for your study program. Also, the grades are converted. For an overview of conversions of grades please see this page.

Note that all the materials that are available for your courses have to be present in digital form. Please create a folder for each course. Then sort the material and be careful to name all the sources correctly.

For a successful transfer of credits the following material has to be available:

• slides of the lecture
• exercise of the lecture
• exam (if present)
• a list of literature
• syllabus (including a thematical overview for each lecture)
• diploma supplement (in English)
• If the material of the lecture is not available in English, please translate the material either to German or English. It should become clear which topic was covered in which week of the semester. Also, each of the topics should be described by a brief summary (some informative sentences). An overview of a week should show to what extent a topic was handled

Transfer of credits for the Application Subject or the minor subject Computer Science as well as combined study programmes

Detailed information about transfer of credits for the Application Subject or in the minor Computer Science can be found in the FAQ section (items “Is it possible to use academic achievements from studies abroad for the Application Subject?” and “Is it possible to use academic achievements from abroad in the minor subject computer science or in combined study programs?”).

Transcript of records and reports

The transfer of credits can only be completed if your transcript of records (report, certificate about grades) is available for us in its original form.

Please submit the transcript unopened in a sealed envelope.

Recalculation of grades

Given that the grade system of the partner university is matchable to our system the grades can be recalculated. If the grade system is entirely different a course is only evaluated by a “passed” sign not with a grade (see APB §17.4)

Transfer of credits for a second study programme

If you like to use already transferred credits for other study programmes, please contact use via mail or via the other contacting possibilities. Please note that you have to give a list of all courses and the exact assignment to the study programmes.