Credit for Study Abroad Courses
If you plan to study abroad or if you are transferring from another campus to UW-Madison and wish to request consideration of any
outside course work for your Environmental Studies Certificate Program, there are a number of steps which you must follow. If you are
going abroad, these steps should be initiated before you depart. If you are transferring to this campus from another, you will of course
be initiating this process sometime after the courses have been completed.
Steps to Follow
- Determine how you will get the course(s) added to your UW-Madison transcript.
- If your courses will be (or have been) taken on a UW-Madison sponsored study abroad or exchange program, you will need to
work with the program coordinator in the sponsoring office to get your courses evaluated. This typically involves sending a copy
of your course materials and/or syllabus along with an approval form to the department or faculty member who teaches a UW course
that is most like the one you will take (or have taken). Once the department or professor approves the course equivalency, the
program coordinator will send this information along with your transcript from your study abroad program to the Registrar's
Office to have your courses put on your UW-Madison transcript. The Office of Admissions does not get involved because UW-Madison
sponsored programs are "in residence" programs (i.e., the credits count as if you took them on this campus). Depending on what
the courses under consideration are like, the process of getting equivalencies may take a while and involve quite a bit of
searching and contacting professors or departments. Also, depending on which UW-Madison office you are
working with, the program coordinator may assist you in this process or may expect you to get all of your course equivalencies
approved on your own. For details contact the Study Abroad Office.
- If your courses will be (or have been) taken through a non-UW-Madison study abroad or exchange program, you
will need to take care of finding course equivalencies on your own because in this situation you will be transferring coursework
from another university. You will need to begin this process at the UW-Madison Office of Admissions (3rd floor Red Gym, 716
Langdon Street). However, if the course in question has not been reviewed before and is not in their course database, this office
will advise you to seek out departmental staff and faculty who might be willing to evaluate the course for you. Be prepared to do
extensive searching; it may take a lot of time and many contacts to locate just the right person. Depending on the content of the
course, it may be similar to another course (or courses) taught on this campus. If so, you will want to begin by visiting those
departments. Take along whatever course information you may have; a syllabus is especially useful. For additional information on
transferring course work, see the study abroad web site of the UW-Madison
Admissions Office.
- Regardless of where you take a course, if you feel that a course resembles an environmental studies course and that you would like
to have it equated as that particular course, your next step will be to contact the instructor of that course and ask him or her to
evaluate the outside course for you. If they feel that it does indeed resemble the course that they teach, ask them to write a short
letter or memo supporting that evaluation; or ask them to complete the environmental studies course equivalency form which is available
on the forms webpage. (If you are working with a UW study abroad/exchange coordinator, they will have their own form for you to use.)
Whatever the case, once you have obtained the instructor's written approval of course equivalency, submit that approval either to your
UW study abroad/exchange coordinator or to the Office of Admissions and your course will be added to your UW-Madison transcript.
- If the course in question does not resemble any course on campus, it may be possible to have it evaluated and transferred to your
UW-Madison transcript as some type of independent study or directed study course. This can be done by using the same process described
above--asking a faculty member or a department (in a discipline related to the course that you completed) to evaluate the course and to
recommend it as an independent study or directed study course.
- And finally, if you also want to have the course evaluated as a potential course for your Environmental Studies
Certificate (and if the course was not equated as a course currently on the Certificate course list),
you need to submit a Certificate Course Substitution form to our office in 70 Science Hall. This, of course, applies only to your
Environmental Studies Certificate. If you also hope to have the course count toward your major or college requirements, you will need
to check with those advisors and departments, too.
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