Choosing to study at UCL

Bruxelles Saint-Gilles, Bruxelles Woluwe, Charleroi, Louvain-La-Neuve, Mons, Tournai

When you decide to study at UCL, you choose to take a journey that will empower you to understand and grasp complexity, exercise independent, critical thinking, and, ultimately, make a unique and sustained contribution to society.

Such empowerment is possible because the student’s learning process lies at the heart of UCL’s teaching methodology, which continually incorporates the most innovative techniques—especially through the use of digital tools and professor training—that help the student acquire and refine knowledge and skills. At the same time, UCL encourages the mutually beneficial relationship between teaching and research that so often brings the cutting-edge into the classroom.

Meanwhile, ample UCL student services and support, including orientation, learning assistance, financial and need-based aid, and housing, to name just a few, help students pursue their studies in the best possible conditions. The university also encourages students to complement their academic lives by participating in enriching student activities, clubs, debates, and sport, partaking in the vast programme of cultural offerings, and engaging in any of the many possibilities to serve society both near and far.

Mind you, the rest of the world is never far from UCL, because international-mindedness is crucial to the university’s institutional philosophy. Through its presence in international networks and its many partnerships throughout the world, UCL is a window on the world, providing its students the possibility of rounding out their education by studying abroad at some point during their programme. And with students and researchers from 150 countries already present on UCL campuses, incoming international students can feel at home away from home.

To choose UCL is to choose a university with an international reputation for world-class education and research, where students receive individual attention from the faculties that help shape their programmes. The fourteen faculties on UCL’s six campuses offer programmes across all fields of knowledge.

In terms of degree programmes, UCL awards bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.

The bachelor’s programme consists of 180 credits completed over three years. It aims to familiarise the student with academic subjects and study methods and enable the student to acquire fundamental knowledge in the chosen field and cultivate methodological skills such as synthesis, analysis, research and communication.

The master’s programme consists of 120 credits over two years. It aims, among other objectives, to enable the student to master the field and fully acquire the skills and expertise required to practise a profession.

UCL also offers a wide range of continuing education, such as flexible- or staggered-schedule master’s programmes, certificates and at-large coursework, intended for working adults who wish to enhance or redirect their professional development and/or skills. Courses, classes, seminars, and field and laboratory work are taught by professors who are expert researchers in their field.