This article is only for degree students.
Even though study regulations apply to all students and breaching them may lead to fatal consequences, only a few can honestly say that they are acquainted with them. We offer you a brief extract interpreting what you should know about studies at Masaryk University and what shouldn't surprise you even during the first semester... but you'd better look at the regulations anyway.
Credits
Forget about counting sheep to fall asleep at university – the only thing you'll be counting is credits, and you'd better start before the semester even begins. Credits are important and their absence/sufficiency decides the overall success of your studies.
They are gathered from required, elective, and also optional courses. In the study catalogue of your field, you can find the number of credits you can obtain by passing all the required courses and then you can easily count the number of credits from elective courses that you have to obtain in order to have enough credits at the end of your studies.
Student consultants recommend reading the catalogue very carefully. "It is well-advised to follow recommendations in the catalogue especially during the first two semesters," consultant Jaroslav Čechák stresses.
How many do I need?
During the full three-year single-field Bachelor's studies a student has to obtain a minimum of 180 credits, 300 credits during five-year Master's studies (alternatively 360 credits for six-year studies at the Faculty of Medicine), and 120 credits during two-year follow-up Master's studies. A student in the first semester needs at least 20 to be enrolled in the second semester, later they may make use of the condition that it is enough to have 45 credits altogether for two consecutive semesters.
Study Consultant Michaela Tvrdoňová warns that it is important to count the number of credits before the beginning of the semester. "From our experience we recommend the first year students to register for courses with overall credit value of 30 or 35 credits. It often happens that they fail a course in the first semester and just one credit suddenly prevents them from continuing their studies," says Tvrdoňová.
It is necessary to request enrolment in the next semester via the Information System of MU (IS). A lot of first year students suffer for not having read the study regulations. It is because of the fact that their first enrolment is done by the Office for Studies and so they may forget about doing it themselves before the second semester begins.
Registration is not Enrolment
Course registration takes place in the IS before course enrolment. Thanks to the registration, a list of students interested in the course is created. If students don't get into the course because of limited capacity, thanks to the registration they may find out about it before the actual course enrolment and may adjust their schedules accordingly. Course registration and enrolment is possible only during the previously stated periods of time.
It's important to think through the course selection and also to have an alternative schedule planned. "A schedule well planned in advance may spare students a lot of stress when clicking for courses en masse, which may result in unsuccessful enrolment into a course due to system overload," says Tvrdoňová.
Examination or a course-unit credit?
A course may be completed by an examination, course-unit credit, or a colloquium. It is generally known that a course-unit credit is the easier way of completion and it may be taken as early as during the credit week, which means the last week of semester before the beginning of the exam period.
If students fail to complete a course, the study regulations state the responsibility to retake the course immediately during the first semester possible. It is also possible to ask not to repeat the course, but that applies only to courses of less than one tenth of the credit value of the whole studies. What is more, the option to cancel course repetition applies only to optional courses. In the case of elective courses, this option is applicable if a student has already accomplished the required minimum stated by the study catalogue.
"Bachelors have 18 credits, out of which they may 'cut' uncompleted courses. Therefore, for example, they may choose not to repeat three courses with a total value of 6 credits. This, of course, doesn't apply to compulsory courses, which must turn green in the IS to the very last one," explains Tvrdoňová. A course can be retaken only once, with three exam attempts during the first enrolment and only two attempts during the second one.
Rewards for the clever ones
Along with the Study Regulations there are also Scholarship and Bursary Regulations specifying rules for obtaining various forms of scholarships. It's advised to read them too and find out what scholarships there are and under what conditions the university offers them.
Student Consultants
University students who don't know their way out of a complicated situation may ask consultants for help. Their team consists of specially trained students of MU who understand all the corners of the study regulations. You may reach them by consulting us or via the Internet. You'll find them at poradci.muni.cz.