Center for Global Experiences

Academic Planning

While you're certainly embarking on an adventure, it still remains important to determine how your program will contribute effectively to your degree Tennessee Tech.  Academic planning can go a long way to maximizing what you'll get from studying abroad. 

1. Check your Degree Works and determine with your advisor which courses will be useful to your academic plan.  You will need to gather as much information about the courses you are interested in (syllabi if available).  Past course equivalencies are available upon request. 
2. Communicate to the Center for Global Experiences staff which classes work best for you.  They will then complete a Transfer Credit Form and Financial Aid Form to be signed via Docusign before you depart. 
3. If you are going abroad for a semester or more, you will need to put alternate courses on the Transfer Credit Form and get approvals for those in case the partner school is not offering your first course selections upon arrival. The more flexible you are with your courses, the better.
4. Register for courses following the instructions of your host university. It is your responsibility to maintain full time status (12 credit hours for Undergraduate students) if you are abroad for a semester.   If the number of hours on your placeholder SA course do not reflect the actual number of hours you are taking abroad, please notify the TN Tech Center for Global Experiences immediately.  If you take less than what you are registered for, you may have to pay back any Financial Aid you received.
5. While abroad, keep a file of your coursework: syllabi, exams, homework, etc. and bring it home with you.  In some circumstances, your work may need additional review before awarding credit.

 

 

Credit Conversion

• Arrange for an official transcript to be sent to the TN Tech Center for Global Experiences 
• TN Tech uses this online guide to determine the grade equivalencies.
• The TN Tech Study Abroad, Graduation and Records Office will process your foreign transcript and post grades to your TN Tech transcript as well as notify Financial Aid so that they can release the hold on your account.
• All grades for courses you complete abroad will be reported on your TN Tech transcript regardless of the final mark or need for credit. This will have an impact on your Financial Aid, Scholarships and Graduation Honors.
• Transfer Credit- Upon return, when we receive your transcript we will process it according to the Tennessee Tech policies. The letter grade you get for each class will be converted into US letter grades initially. Then we make sure the classes you took abroad match the ones you put on the Transfer Credit form.  Then it is passed to the Graduation Office for the actual posting of grades. On your Tennessee Tech transcript you will see the letter T(transfer) in front of each grade so it would be a TA, TB, TC, etc. The GPA for these classes are calculated into the Inclusive Combined GPA.

 

A few more important considerations

• Take your advisor's contact information with you abroad in case you need to change classes when you arrive, and also so you can pre-register online for the following semester when registration opens.
• If you receive a transcript from your host school, please give it to the TN Tech Center for Global Experiences to begin the process of evaluating your credits.
• All study abroad grades must be processed before you will be allowed to graduate.

 

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