Courses & Exams

LSM proposes courses at the master level (year 4 and 5).
Prerequisites may be necessary for some courses. Please check the course descriptions.

At LSM, the languages of instruction is English but some courses can be found in French (when the title of the course is in French, the course is taught in French).

Choosing your courses and other learning activities must be done in close consultation with your home school coordinator. He/she has to sign your Learning Agreement.

Courses available at LSM for exchange students

Check the list of courses and their prerequisite. If you click on the course code, you get redirected to the course description on the UCL webpage

CEMS students :

CEMS students must follow the CEMS-MIM program (please see CEMS Student Guide on cems.org). Specific information will be sent to you by e-mail. You can contact your CEMS Programme Manager.

Double-Degree students :

A specific curriculum has been designed for those students. Refer to the dedicated webpage or contact your Double-Degree Programme Officer.

Courses outside LSM :

As LSM is part of UCL, a full university, you can also take some courses at the bachelor level and/or from other departments. To do so, you need the approval of your home university and the professor who teaches the course (upon your arrival at the beginning of the semester).

French Courses :

ILV, the language school of UCL, offers a large option of French courses at every level. Check their offer and schedule.

You can take maximum 2 French courses (same level) during one semester at LSM. It is free of charge if you include it in your Learning Agreement.

Workload

An academic year at UCL equals 60 ECTS. The normal workload at LSM is 30 ECTS per term, which represent 6 courses of 5 ECTS each.
At UCL, exchange students are expected to follow the workload of a UCL full-time academic semester. However, the exact number of credits you have to take is set up by your home university. We usually allow exchange students to take French language courses (a basic one and its complementary) but these ones are not to be taken into consideration for ECTS workload requirements.

LSM courses are often worth 5 ECTS each, which corresponds to 30 contact hours per course. Contact hours are the number of hours of lectures for the course. Courses at LSM being given on 6 weeks, you will in most of the case have 5 hours per week of lectures. You need to be aware that, for each course, you will need several hours outside lectures to prepare the lectures or group works.

Schedule

The LSM course schedule (page only accessible for students with a UCL ID access) is updated just before the beginning of each academic year.

You may use the UCL schedule engine (link currently not available) to organize your stay.
At the bottom of that page, you can enter your courses code separated by a comma in the field with title "Horaire d'un ou plusieurs cours spécifiques" (Schedule of one or more specific courses). You will be redirected to a timetable application (ADE) where you can see your courses schedule week by week.

Finding Information about Courses

1. Using the list of courses offered at LSM
   You can click on the code of the course and you will be redirected to the URL of the course description on UCL website.
    
2. Using the UCL website "votre recherche"
   By typing the course code or the title of the course you are looking for in the field « votre recherche » on the top right of the UCL website, you will get a list of search results. Select the first description you find and make sure you have the last version by looking at the year mentioned in the URL. If not, change it manually to the academic year concerned.

Before you finalize your selection, pay particular attention to some practical elements listed in the course description; such as the language of instruction, the term course is given (Q1 or Q2), the prerequisites.

Group Works

The teaching system at LSM includes a large amount of group work. Group work generally counts for your final grade and most of the time you have a final exam in addition.

While planning your courses consider that group work takes quite a lot of time. The course description mentions if there will be group work or it will be explained by the Professor during the first lecture.

Please note that the groups are formed the first week of the semester.

Continuous Evaluation

In case of continous evalution, the professor will expect individual works throughout the semester. You will have a final exam to present at the end of the semester.

Note that the evaluation system will be explained by the Professor during the first lecture.

Lecture Notes

Professors explain during the first lecture whether there is a “Syllabus” (handout) or other materials for the class and where to find them.

There are two ways to get your lecture notes :

• on the UCL intranet through Moodle, for the electronic version
• in the DUC, situated in Grand’rue, for the paper version. The DUC is a place where you can find handouts for most of the courses. 

ECTS Credits & Grading System

ECTS credits are the measuring units to build your programme.

They reflect the amount of work necessary to pass a particular learning activity (e.g. a course or a seminar) and are calculated taking into account the total time needed in order to achieve the desired learning outcomes, including the time spent in individual study.
Being a standard European measure, ECTS credits will make it easier for your studies at UCL to be recognized by your home university.

Grading Table :

UCL uses the ECTS grading table. 10/20 is a passing grade.

Learning Agreement 

Your choice of courses must respect your home university requirements and the LSM rules.

Please use the LSM Learning Agreement template.
If needed, we can also sign another template that you send us by email.

If you are thinking of learning French, you can mention "French Course" without the course code in your Learning Agreement. You have the possibility to do a language test to evaluate your level of French when arriving in Belgium and thus select the course(s) you need.

LSM recommends a workload of 30 ECTS credits for one semester. The below ECTS rules are of application :

• The maximum workload per semester at LSM is 30 ECTS.
• Regular exchange students minimum workload is 20 ECTS (besides language courses).
• CEMS exchange students minimum workload is 25 ECTS (besides Block Seminar, seminars & language courses).

Note that this choice is not final as you have the opportunity to test the courses you selected during the two first weeks of the semester. You will be able to change your choice of courses and make a final decision.

This is the time to confirm your courses choice made in your Learning Agreement or modify it using an appendix (called the Annex) to the initial Learning Agreement.

The choice of courses made through your ECTS learning agreement can be modified during the first two weeks of the semester with the approval of your home university and LSM.

When you want to modify your courses initially selected and when your courses choice is final, you must fill-in the Annex to the Learning Agreement and hand it over to the LSM Incoming Coordinator. The deadline is the second Friday following the start of the semester. The LSM Incoming Students Coordinator will register you for all the courses you selected.

ECTS rules:

• The maximum workload at LSM is 30 ECTS.
• Regular exchange students may take less than 20 ECTS besides language courses. An email from the home coordinator is needed to confirm this low workload is agreed.
• CEMS exchange students need a minimum of 25 ECTS besides Block Seminar, seminars and language courses.

Courses Organisation

Most professors use Moodle to organise their courses.

Your registration on Moodle is not an official registration but only an information platform used for communication between students and Professors.

Check your Registration

After the deadline to submit your Learning Agreement (or its Annex), we will finalize your registration to courses.

You will be asked to check your courses registration on "MyUCL" on your UCL account. The exact code and title of courses must appear. If there is any discrepancies with your final courses choices, you should inform the LSM Incoming Students Coordinator without delay.

Remember that, if this course registration is not correct, it will not be possible to make any changes during the semester.

Be aware of the issues this can raise :

• If a course you want to follow is not listed on "MyUCL", it will not appear on your Transcript of Records and no grade will be given for it
• If a course you do not want to follow stays on "MyUCL", it will appear on your Transcript of Records with the mention "NE" meaning "Not Evaluated"

Moodle

Moodle is a distance course information platform used by the professors to give students information, exercises, documents and communication tools regarding their courses. Professors will inform students if they use this tool during their first lecture.

Your registration on Moodle is not an official registration. To access Moodle you must be registered as a UCL student and have your UCL account activated.

Create your Moodle user account by going on https://moodleucl.uclouvain.be/. 

You will then have to possibility search for the course using the course code in order to find your lecture notes or any other document the professor has posted there for you.

For the first term (September to January), the exams are held in January and, for the second term (January to June), they are held in June. 

The re-sit of an exam can only be done in Belgium in August/September. 

Each student has the right to take the same exam twice during the same academic year, the regular exam session at the end of the semester the course is given and the resit exam session (August-September).

The UCL does not allow the organisation of exams outside the official exam session.

In order to take an exam or resit an exam you must be registered for it. The LSM Incoming Student Coordinator will register you to your exams by default.
You will anyway be asked to check your registration online via your UCL account.

If you want to drop an exam, you will need to fill in the Drop Exam(s) Form.
Be aware that, if you register to a course but choose not to take the exam, the course is still listed on your Transcript of Records with the mention "NE" for "Not Evaluated".

The evaluation system depends on the course and may be composed of :

• class participation
• oral presentations (individual and by group)
• written exams (essays/projects/group reports)
• oral exams

The exam schedule is available before the end of the semester on LSM webpage (only accessible for students with a UCL ID access). Please check this page regularly when the exam session approaches.

Students who must return to their home university for academic reasons in January will be allowed to take their exams from their home university. A proof from the home university is required by the LSM International Coordinator. These exams taken from abroad must take place on the same day and, when possible, at the same time as the UCL examination.

Register to exam from abroad (this is the only valid procedure) :

1. The LSM Incoming Students Coordinator will send you an email with the registration procedure shortly after the exam schedule is communicate
2. Complete the "Exams from Abroad" form. The information needed is :
   
   1. Course code (letters and number)
   2. Course title
   3. Name of the professor
   4. Day and time of examination (should be the same as UCL examination) 
   5. Name and e-mail address of the responsible person who will supervise your exam at your home university
3. You have to contact your home university coordinator to make your exam(s) arrangements 
4. The LSM Incoming Students Officer will get in touch with your university coordinator for the administrative follow-up of your exam(s). 

Resit examinations take place during the resit exam session in August/September.

In order to re-sit an exam and to receive its results, students must be registered for the course and the exam.

Students must be in Belgium to take their resit exam(s). In some exceptional cases, and always with the professor's approval, students can take a resit exam from their home university.

Transcript of Records are sent electronically to your home university coordinator.
A paper version will only be sent to the home university upon request.

They are prepared within the weeks following each exams session :

• For exams taken in January, the Transcript of Records is sent mid-February
• For exams taken in June, the Transcript of Records is sent mid-July
• For exams taken in August-September (resit), the Transcript of Records is sent mid-September