UCL key strengths for international students

Louvain-La-Neuve

The Faculty of psychology and educational sciences relies on major key strengths to welcome international students including a warm and personalized welcome, flexibility and great quality of training. Here are a few of the most interesting highlights for international students :

  • High quality teaching. The faculty relies on evolutionary pedagogy and pays special attention to the job market. An annual assessment of teaching by the students themselves is used to make continuous improvement to teaching methods and course content. UCL is a precursor for using new technologies for teaching and offers MOOCS on edX. 
  • Variety of courses. Courses offered cover fields as varied as neuropsychology, social and organisational psychology, developmental and educational psychology, clinical and health psychology, speech and language therapy, family sciences and sexology, and educational sciences.
  • Advanced Research. Teaching staff are highlevel researchers recognised at national and international level for their scientific qualities. The IPSY and IACCHOS research institutes in which professors carry out their research work are leading institutions in a wide range of scientific fields. International students can apply for a research internships.
  • A warm welcome. UCL organizes Information Days for international students with information stands concerning sports, culture, accommodation, support service, Erasmus Student Network (ESN),…The Faculty also holds a welcome session at the beginning of the semester to greet visiting students. This is a possibility for them to meet the members of the Faculty’s International Relations Committee and UCL students.
  • Free french classes. International students are being offered the possibility to take french classes all year long to improve quickly.
  • Courses and course material in English. The teaching staff gives most of the lectures in French but many of them use also give lectures in English and use support material in English, such as collections of scientific articles, reference works, or slides. This course material proves to be extremely useful to exchange students who do not have perfect French. Courses taught in English are available in the Master in Psychology programme. List of lectures in English.
  • Access to many resources. International students can access the faculty’s and university’s resources including libraries, learning centers or computer rooms.
  • Human mentoring. Teaching staff in the Faculty of Psychological and Educational Sciences are available to listen to student’s concerns. Teacherstudent relations take place in a friendly atmosphere of mutual respect. A number of initiatives testify to this atmosphere, such as the Revue Psycho, a play created by students to parody teachers, Psyrou, a newspaper produced by students that in particular contains articles focussing on amusing stories of Faculty life, and sporting encounters between students and teachers.
  • Many cultural and sports activities are organised for exchange students by the various theme houses and by student associations.