Credit Transfer: Department of Spanish & Portuguese

Credit Transfer

When seeking departmental credit upon their return, students must submit to one of the major or minor faculty advisers the following documents for each course taken abroad:

A pdf copy of the official transcript from Study Abroad Program
Study Abroad Program catalog course description
Course syllabus
The weekly schedule of topics
The reading list

Credit Transfer Instructions:

To initiate the process to petition for major or minor study abroad credit, please use this form. You will need to complete a separate form for each individual course that you would like to count toward a major/minor requirement.
Upload the supporting documentation outlined above.
Your major/minor adviser(s) will evaluate the petition(s). If there are any questions or concerns, the form will be sent back to you for revisions. Once the course has been evaluated, and any approved rearticulations are processed by the Office of the Registrar, you will receive an email with the entire form in a PDF.

A year-long program is preferable to a one-quarter or summer program, but the department accepts credit from courses taken abroad for any length of time as long as they meet the following criteria:

The department will accept up to four credits towards departmental minor requirements and up to seven credits towards departmental major requirements, but in no case more than four credits per single quarter/semester abroad.
Credit for Study Abroad courses is determined by their content, and not only by language or place in which the course was taught, therefore course content must be similar to content of courses offered by the department. ie Spanish language, Spanish and Latin American literature, and Spanish and Latin American culture and civilization.
All courses abroad must meet for a minimum of 30 class hours in any given subject. The department has the final decision regarding which and how many study abroad credits fulfill requirements for major and minor.
The department will accept for credit only courses taken at a foreign host University for the complete length of the course (i.e., Europe: first "cuatrimestre" from October to January; second "cuatrimestre" from February to June.)
Foreign transcripts must specify individual courses and grades.
Regardless of content, one course taken completely in Spanish in a Spanish-speaking country may be credited as Spanish 20x, as long as no credit is sought for it in another NU department.

Major elective courses: courses such as History of Chile, Contemporary Politics in Argentina, Spanish Baroque Art, etc. may receive credit towards the major as part of its two electives, as long as the appropriate NU department approves them as equivalent to their own courses and no credit is sought for them in another NU department. Students should contact the appropriate department to determine the equivalency of these courses prior to meeting with the faculty adviser in the Spanish and Portuguese department.