Courses

Looking for courses in the Study Handbook

You can find courses by looking at our online Study Handbook and Schedule.

There are various ways to look for courses in the Study Handbook using the different tabs in the green bar on top and the filters on the left:

  1. Per BSc or MSc programme: this is always a good starting point to find possible interesting courses within your field of study and to get acquainted with the some of the Chair Groups that teach in the particular programme.
  2. Per minor: this is a good way to find an interesting minor and get a feeling of what areas of teaching are covered in Wageningen.
  3. The Courses tab then allows you to search by Department (so by Chair Group); this is very useful if you have particular interest in the work and teaching of certain Chair Groups. This is a very good starting point as you get a good overview of everything on offer within a particular department/chair group and thus specific field of study. You can also use the Courses tab to search per Period and then you can specify to look for courses in different parts of day (MO = morning; AF =afternoon; WD = whole day).
  4. Courses can be searched also by study period (we have 6 study periods per year).

When you have selected a specific course you will see detailed information about the course (think of course content, assumed knowledge, language of instruction, period of teaching). Under Practical Information you can see to which degree programmes and/or minors the course belongs. 

Reading the subject code

Every course has its own subject code, e.g. AEP20306 Economics of Agribusiness. The three letters in this code indicate the Chair Group offering the course. The next part of the code indicates the level of the course. Digit 1 indicates introductory (bachelor) level and digit 2 and above a more advanced level course. If the first digit is more than a 3 it no longer means that a higher digit is a more advanced course. Courses with a first digit of 1 are sometimes offered in Dutch only. The last two digits indicate the number of ECTS credits the course is worth. The subject code contains the hyperlink to the detailed course information in the most recent Study Handbook.

Language of instruction

Always check carefully whether you are able to follow the course. All the subjects of our MSc programmes are taught in English as well as most of the 3rd year BSc courses. We have several international BSc programmes that are fully taught in English.

Maximum number of participants

Note that some courses have a maximum number of participants (this is indicated in the Study Handbook). We never advise exchange students to take these courses as they do not get priority to participate. Nevertheless, you can select these MAX-courses but you must consider that students from the regular programme get priority, since these courses are often compulsory or restricted optional courses for their programme. You always need to select an alternative course for each MAX-course in case you are not admitted in the MAX-course.

Excluded courses

Exchange students are not allowed to follow Advanced MSc courses and Academic Master Cluster courses including MOS-modules (1.5 ECTS). These courses have a course code with starting digit 4 or 6 after the first three letters, e.g. FTE40306 or ELS65500.

Teaching methods

The most used teaching methods are lectures and practicals. The courses often contain (group) assignments, presentations, tutorials, literature/case studies, excursions and fieldwork. You can find the specific teaching methods for each course in the Study Handbook.

Extra costs

For courses that include an excursion, please know that the travel and lodging expenses usually involve extra costs for exchange students. For exact information about this, please see the course description in the Study Handbook and/or contact the relevant course coordinator.