Study Abroad Guidelines

Guidelines for study abroad course approval in Romance Languages.

Romance Languages encourages all students to study abroad, especially our majors and minors. You'll need a number of approvals to study abroad:

1) for coursework abroad, 2) for your plan of study from your academic advisor, 3) from the Center for International Education (CIE), and 4) from the program or institution where you plan to study, typically an application. For guidelines on W&L approval of your study abroad plans, contact the Center for International Education. For guidelines on course approvals and choosing a program, see below.   

For all students. W&L requires that you have a full-time course load approved prior to studying abroad. We are happy to approve the courses you need for a full-time course load, typically four courses. It may happen that courses you register for while still at W&L are not available once you arrive at your study abroad destination, or that once abroad you decide to change your course selection. This is not a problem you should try to foresee or resolve prior to departure since all course approvals can be modified once you return to campus from study abroad. Course approvals are not transferred to your W&L transcript until after the study abroad transcript arrives in the registrar's office, often a month or more after you return to campus. Therefore, seek approval only for the courses you will need to carry the requisite full load, typically no more than four courses in all. If you are subsequently placed into a different course than the one approved, or decide to change courses while abroad, the changes required for credit approval can be made after you return to campus. Remember that no credit decisions are final until the university registrar processes your study abroad course transcripts, usually well after you return to campus from study abroad.  

For students not majoring or minoring in Romance Languages.   

First step: choose your courses. Course choices are crucial to the successful integration of your study abroad plans into your program of study. Choose the courses that interest you and discuss with your major advisor how these courses can complement your academic goals. We ask that you choose your courses first, since choosing a program first will limit course offerings. Some courses have been pre-approved for credit at W&L, so check these first.  

Post your course choices and the requisite information on the study abroad credit transfer website: http://go.wlu.edu/studyabroadcredit Complete syllabi are required for course approval. It is especially important to clarify the 'contact hours per week' and the 'weeks of instruction,' without which we cannot give approval. If you are unsure about these details, contact the program and ask for a clarification. Once you post the course information on the study abroad website, the request goes directly to the approving faculty member. If the course(s) you choose for approval is language-focused and class meetings add up to the standard 45 hours, you will typically receive approval for 3 credits of 100-level language. This may be the appropriate designation even in cases where you have completed the FDR-FL in the same language. Courses on culture and literature in a Romance language that do not have language skills as the main focus of the course may be approved at the 200 level for non-major credit.  

If you are requesting credit for the requisite study-abroad language course (example: if you study in Italy, you must take one Italian language course), limit your request to one section of that course. If you are placed into a different section once you are abroad, we can acknowledge that change when you return to campus.  

Second step: choose a program. This decision should be based on as much information as possible, but most importantly the coursework outlined in the syllabus needs to be equivalent to coursework at W&L. One aspect of study abroad that you should consider in choosing a program is the variety of study options that programs provide. In some programs you will study exclusively in classes of international students taught outside of the regular university curriculum, as a kind of university extension program. Other programs allow you to take some or all of your coursework in regular university classes with students native to the country, as is the case with international students at W&L.  

For Spanish, French, and Romance Languages majors and French minors.  

First step: choose your courses. Course choices are crucial to the successful integration of your study abroad plans into the completion of a ROML major or minor. Choose the courses that interest you in consultation with your ROML academic advisor. Romance Languages expects you to take the majority of your major or minor coursework on campus, but we also encourage you to expand the breadth of your coursework and to improve your language skills  and cultural knowledge through study abroad. Study abroad programs that are most suitable to ROML majors and minors will offer a variety of in-depth courses in literature, language, linguistics, and culture that are country specific, and therefore greatly expand the range of intellectual inquiry available to you. Some courses have been pre-approved for credit at W&L, so check these first.

  Post your course choices and the requisite information on the study abroad credit transfer website: http://go.wlu.edu/studyabroadcredit Complete syllabi are required for course approval. It is especially important to clarify the 'contact hours per week' and the 'weeks of instruction,' without which we cannot give approval. If you are unsure about these details, contact the program and ask for a clarification. Once you post the course information on the study abroad website, the request goes directly to the approving faculty member. Although it is possible that the courses you choose won't be available once you arrive at your study abroad program site, or once there that you will decide to take a different course, limit your requests for approval to the number of courses required for a full course load, typically no more four courses in all. If placement tests or course availability abroad require changes in course choices, approvals can be modified after you return to campus.  

Romance Languages will grant credit for a wide variety of course taken abroad in the target language. The courses taken abroad for credit at the 200 and 300 level are approved as elective credit and need to be equivalent to others that we offer (equivalent in the amounts of reading, writing, and testing, not necessarily in topic). If upon returning from study abroad you wish to request a new credit designation for any course, you'll need to make a case based on the course syllabus and the coursework completed, including tests, reports and papers.  

Second step: choose a program. This decision should be based on as much information as possible but should be finalized only after coursework has been approved. One aspect of study abroad that you should consider in choosing a program is the variety of study options that different programs provide. In some programs you will study exclusively with international students taught outside of the regular university curriculum, as a kind of university extension program. Other programs allow you to study in regular university classes with students from that country, as is the case with international students at W&L, or to take one or two classes with native university students and the remainder with international students like yourself. Studying in classes with native speakers is an excellent option since the classroom experience offers invaluable cultural insights and the rigor of the coursework is generally comparable to that of W&L.