Courses, Credits, and Grades
Course Load
A course load for Copenhagen students is usually three courses, depending on the number of credits per course. Dartmouth students will carry a similar course load. Some departments may not allow you to take courses unless you have already had a course in their field prior to arriving in Copenhagen or if you have not fulfilled the prerequisites at Dartmouth. For example, if you never took a sociology course before, the Department of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen may not let you register for their courses. Also, some courses may be more advanced than their titles indicate. This may be especially true for courses in the economics department. If you are unsure about whether a course is too advanced for you, check with the international coordinators of each department. Finally, because Danish university students normally complete their Bachelor’s degree in three years, first year Master’s level courses are sometimes equivalent in difficulty to fourth year Bachelor’s courses at Dartmouth. Students from Dartmouth may take first year Master’s courses at Copenhagen University if they have the appropriate prerequisites. But again students should be careful not to get in over their heads in such courses.
Transfer Credits
Students can receive up to three credits at Dartmouth for work completed successfully at Copenhagen. You will receive 1 credit at Dartmouth for every 10 ECTS worth of credits at Copenhagen. (ECTS is the way Danes count credits for courses.) If you take less than 30 ECTS, then you will not receive 3 transfer credits at Dartmouth. For instance, if you only take 25 ECTS then you will only receive 2 transfer credits at Dartmouth.
Some courses in Copenhagen carry less than 10 ECTS (e.g., 5 or 7.5 ECTS). The economics and anthropology departments at Copenhagen offer courses worth 7.5 ECTS. Within a few years this will be true for all social science departments. Students who want to take these courses should be careful to take enough additional course work in the same department to ensure that they receive adequate course credit at Dartmouth. There are several ways you can handle this.
1. Take two courses in the same department each worth 5 ECTS in order to receive 1 transfer credit.
2. Take two courses in the same department each worth 7.5 ECTS in order to receive 1 transfer credit.
3. Negotiate with the professor for fewer ECTS to bring it down to 5 ECTS. This would mean a reduced work load. Then take a second 5 ECTS course along the same lines to receive 1 transfer credit.
4. Negotiate with the professor for more ECTS to bring it up to 10 ECTS, such as by writing additional assignments, a longer term paper, doing more reading, etc.
5. Take an independent study to make up the additional few ECTS. Perhaps do this with the professor from whom you take the 7.5 ECTS course.
Obtaining Transfer Credit Approval
Dartmouth requires students to obtain written approval of courses they wish to take at other universities in order for them to receive transfer credit for these courses. This includes the Dartmouth-Copenhagen exchange program. This must be done before the course is taken. Do not wait until the last minute to do this. It involves obtaining the appropriate transfer credit forms from the Registrar’s Office, and seeking permission for transfer credit from the relevant department. Sociology courses are approved by the Sociology Department; government courses by the Government Department; and so on. At the department’s discretion, students must often provide a copy of the course syllabus from Denmark and share it with the department from which transfer credit approval is being sought. This may take weeks to do so do not wait until the last minute. Grades received at Copenhagen are not recorded on the Dartmouth transcript. Instead, Dartmouth only records transfer credits as TR. Courses taken TR can be used for distributive credit at Dartmouth, if approved by the relevant department.
A partial list of courses offered in Copenhagen and approved in the past for transfer credit to Dartmouth includes the following. Not all courses are necessarily available every year:
Approving Dept. Course Title
Socy Sociology of Human Rights
Socy Conflict and Peacemaking in Divided Societies
Socy Marginalization in Society
Socy Danish Society: Sociological Perspectives
Socy Media Sociology
Socy Gender, Work and Organizations
Socy Comparative Health Policy: Regulation and Management
Socy Changing European Welfare Systems
Socy Health, Health Care and Promotion
Socy Flight, Migration and Transnationalism
Socy Danish Culture
Socy Comparative Welfare State Research
Socy Danish Society and Policy
Socy Doing Identity the European Way
Socy Globalization and its Discontents
Socy Health in Central and Eastern Europe
Socy International Social Welfare
Govy Europe and America
Govy The European Union as an International Actor
Govy Politics and Fear: Terrorism
Anth Danish Cultural Heritage
Anth Economic Anthropology
Anth Religion, Youth and Society in Africa
Anth Migration
Anth Political Anthropology
Anth Medical Anthropology
Psyc Social Psychology I
Psyc Social Psychology II
Psyc Work Related Stress
Psyc Psychological Job Stress
Econ Corporate Governance
Econ Contract Theory and Economic Organization
Econ Theory of Finance
Econ Economics of the European Union
Econ Behavioral Economics and Finance
Econ Games and Economic Behavior
Econ The Danish Welfare Model
Econ History of Economic Thought: International Trade
Grades
In order for a course credit at Copenhagen to be transferred for credit at Dartmouth you must receive no less than a grade of 4. A grade of 4 is equivalent to a C at Dartmouth. The Danish system of grading uses a 7 point scale with 12 being the highest grade—one achieved by only a small fraction of students. The Danish-U.S. equivalences and performance requirements as stipulated by the University of Copenhagen are as follows:
| Danish Scale | Danish Performance Requirements | USA Scale |
| 12 | For an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material, with no or only a few minor weaknesses | A+ |
| 10 | For a very good performance displaying a high level of command of most aspects of the relevant material, with only minor weaknesses | A, A- |
| 7 | For a good performance displaying good command of the relevant material but also some weaknesses | B+, B |
| 4 | For a fair performance displaying some command of the relevant material but also some major weaknesses | B-, C+, C |
| 02 | For a performance meeting only the minimum requirements for acceptance | C-, D+, D |
| 00 | For a performance which does not meet the minimum requirements for acceptance | D-, F |
| -3 | For a performance which is unacceptable in all respects | F |
Transcripts and Reporting Grades to Dartmouth
Grades for courses taken at the University of Copenhagen on available on-line in late January. Transcripts with these grades are sent to the Dartmouth Registrar by about mid-March.