What they are and why students attend single course units
Anyone who is eligible for the Master's degree program is also eligible to enroll in single course units.
The admission to the single course units is determined by each Degree program Board, according to organizational, managerial and cultural assessments.
For degree programs with restricted access there may be a limit to the number of students who can be admitted to the single course units. There may also need to be special arrangements to access the single course units for the programs that are not restricted.
Enrolment into single course units is valid for one academic year only. Courses may run in periods other than the academic year you want to enroll. Before enrolling, check that the lessons are still to be held.
Please note: by enrolling in single course units you are NOT enrolled in the Master’s degree or Bachelor’s degree program: you are just enrolled to take single subjects for the duration of one year only. You may sit for the courses' exams which, if successfully passed, grants you to obtain a certificate from the University stating that you passed a single course unit. It might be useful if for some reasons you need to consolidate your background, or anticipate some subjects of the degree program before enrolling.
Students usually have two main reasons for attending single course units:
1. If your academic background does not meet the requirements for accessing a given Master's degree program, you may wish to integrate it by taking single course units. The Degree Board may identify and suggest to you which course units you need to attend. These units can be taken at your home university, or you may choose to take them at the University of Bologna. The advantage of taking them in Bologna is that you can settle down in Bologna in advance, instead of waiting for the beginning of the Master's program. Moreover, if you are an international student with Visa requirements, the bureaucracy for obtaining the Visa can be solved when you are already a resident in Italy, therefore making the whole procedure simpler. However, you will need to obtain a temporary Visa to attend the single course units (you may require an admission letter written by the Master degree board for this).
2. If you missed the deadline for enrolling to a Master's degree program, you may evaluate the opportunity to enroll in single courses at the University of Bologna. This is a temporary enrollment that might be useful to do while waiting for the next running of the Master’s Degree program. Students should note that by enrolling in these single courses, they are not enrolled in the actual Master's program. They are enrolled in Master's-level single course units only, for a duration of one year, while waiting for the Master's degree program to start again. These course units would be recognized later on as being complete (given that the exams were passed) when enrolling as a Master's degree student.
Students typically choose this option if they decide to enroll in the Master's Degree program at the University of Bologna after June; namely, after the pre-enrollment deadline at the Embassy has passed. Therefore, they may apply to single course units in either the fall (deadline for applying is around the end of August) or the spring semester (deadline for applying is around the end of the year). In this way students may save time while they wait to be officially enrolled and start the Master Degree program in September next year.
Enrollment in single course units follows the same steps as above (application and pre-enrollment at the Embassy), but with more flexible deadlines: typically, Embassies fix a deadline at the end of August for the courses taken in the first semester, and a deadline at the end for December for the courses of the second semester.
Detailed information on single course units at the University of Bologna can be found on the following webpages:
- Enrolling in single course units (UniBo page)