Course Selection for Incoming Graduate Exchange Students | Fall 2025

A full-time course load for undergraduate (Bachelor's) students at U of G is 2.0 to 2.5 credits. Most U of G courses are 0.5 credits; therefore, our students usually take 4-5 courses per semester. Note, 1.5 credits or less is considered part-time at the University of Guelph. It is ultimately up to your home university to decide the credit equivalency for the courses you will be taking while on exchange.

Although a full undergraduate course load at the University of Guelph is 4 or 5 courses per semester (2.0 - 2.5 credits), it is recommended to list 8 or 9 courses on the course selection survey (and have all of them approved by your university, if required). When it is time for us to register you for your courses, this should ensure that at least some of the courses you have requested will be possible.

The Fall course schedule is usually posted by mid-June and Winter by mid-October. 

1. Visit WebAdvisor
2. Select the ‘Log In’ button at the top right-hand corner, sign in with your U of G login information
3. Select ‘Course Catalogue’
4. Select ‘Advanced Search’ along the top and specify the following items:
   1. Term: select the term that you will be studying in Guelph (e.g. Fall)
   2. Subject Area: Choose one or more subject area(s) that interest you
   3. Location: select Guelph (you are NOT eligible to take courses at Guelph-Humber or the Ridgetown campus)
   4. Academic Level: choose graduate-level programs.
      1. 600 – Graduate (Masters and PhD)
      2. 700 – Graduate (Masters and PhD)
      3. 100 – Undergraduate (first year)
      4. 200 – Undergraduate (second year)
      5. 300 – Undergraduate (third year)
      6. 400 – Undergraduate (forth year)
   5. Leave everything else blank
5. Select the ‘search’ button

Here is an example of a course description from our Academic Calendar:

Prerequisites are courses that must be completed before registering for this course to ensure students have the required background knowledge needed to understand the material and do well in the course. Prerequisites are listed on WebAdvisor, and you can select courses to see a short description of topics that were covered. Please note:

• You are required to make sure you have completed similar prerequisites courses from your home institution or have equivalent background knowledge
• You are NOT required to prove that you meet each prerequisite (with some exceptions)
• U of G is not responsible for academic problems that exchanges may encounter because they do not have appropriate prerequisites for a course

Some courses require a U of G Academic Advisor and/or the course instructor’s approval before we can register exchange students for the courses. We will contact the Academic Advisor and/or instructor to provide a copy of your academic transcript so that they can assess if you have completed the prerequisites. 

Exchange students will require the Academic Advisor and/or course instructor's approval for registration in most of the courses in the following faculties: 

• CIS (Computer & Info. Science)
• ECON (Economics)
• ENGG (Engineering)
• ENGL (English)
• FRAN (Family Relations and Applied Nutrition)
• HROB (Human Resources and Organizational Behaviour)
• HTM (Hotel & Tourism Mgmt)
• IDEV (International Development)
• MCS (Marketing and Consumer Studies)
• MGMT (Management)
• MUS (Music)
• PSYC (Psychology)
• REAL (Real Estate)
• SART (Studio Art)
• BIOL (some courses in Biological Science have restrictions)

The following ENGL courses are restricted to student with:

1.  An English major, minor, area of concentration, or minor in Creative Writing (exchange students interested in these courses must provide a writing sample):
   1. ENGL*2120 Seminar: Critical Practives [F, W]
   2. ENGL*2130 Seminar: Literature and Social Change [F,W]
   3. ENGL*3940 Seminar: Form Genre, and Literature Value [F, W]
   4. ENGL*3960: Literature in History [F, W]
   5. All 4000-level ENGL courses
2. A Creative Writing major/minor. Enrolment subject to academic history and course availability:
   1. ENGL*3050: Intermediate Fiction Writing Workship [F, W]
   2. ENGL*3060: Intermediate Poetry Writing Workshop [F]
   3. ENGL*3070: Intermediate Screenwriting Workshop [W]
   4. ENGL*3090: Special Topics in Creative Writing Workshop [F, W]

ENGL courses not listed above, registration will depend on the course availability.

Some courses in other faculties may also have restrictions which require the approval of the Program Counsellor and/or course instructor. This is usually the case if, next to ‘Restrictions’ in the course description, it says ‘Instructor consent required’, ‘This is a Priority Access Course’, or ‘Restricted to students registered in the ____ major’. Students who wish to take courses requiring approval should also list non-restricted course alternatives in case you are not admitted into some of the courses. Course restrictions are listed under the course description in the Undergraduate Calendar.

Restrictions: may include a list of courses that are very similar and therefore, students cannot take both. Restrictions may also list a course as a ‘Priority Access Course’ which means U of G full degree students will be given priority to register. Therefore, your registration depends on availability after the full degree students have registered.

Exchange students cannot register for courses in the following faculties/campuses: 

• VETM – Veterinary Medicine
• Master of Business Administration
• Master of Hospitality and Tourism
• Master of Leadership
• COOP – Co-op Education (internships that are part of U of G degree programs)
• DTM – Turf management Diploma
• Diploma courses at the Ridgetown campus: DAFL, DAGR, DENM, DEQN, DFN, DHTM, DTM, DVT
• University of Guelph – Humber College courses: AHSS, BADM, ECS, FCSS, JUST, KIN, MDST, SCMA
• U of G Human Anatomy courses: HK*3401 Human Anatomy: Dissection, HK: 3402: Human Anatomy: Dissection, HK*3501 Human Anatomy: Prosection, HK*3502 Human Anatomy, HK*4441 Advanced Study in Human Anatomy, HK*4442 Advanced Study in Human Anatomy
• Usually, exchange students cannot take (LARC) Landscape Architecture and (SART) Studio Art courses unless it’s related to their main area of study, due to limited studio space. Note: SART courses usually have a studio fee that will be charged to the student’s account and must be paid by the deadline for all student fees.
• Practicum courses are typically not approved for exchange students.

Distance Education (DE) Courses are not taught in a classroom, but instead involve independent study. You must do all the reading and work on your own and correspond with the professor by email, these courses are completed online. The course instructor will post all the information, assignments, discussions and sometimes even tests on CourseLink (U of G’s online learning platform).

Since you are coming to Canada to experience Canadian classes and interact with other students, we don’t recommend that exchange students take more than one DE course. Please note that there is an $35 administrative fee for each DE course which exchange students must also pay.

Closed courses are full. You can still request enrolment in closed courses on the course selection survey as sometimes your Study Abroad Advisor is able to get permission from the academic departments to register students even if the class is full. If we can’t register you for the course, there are some other options available: 

• Many students change the courses they are registered for during the first week of classes and spaces often become available.
• Once you arrive, you can ask the professor for special permission to be added to the class; the professor will have to sign a waiver form if they agree.

Some courses offer different ‘sections’ listed on WebAdvisor. The section number is listed after the course code, for example BIOM*4070*0102, and *0102 is the section number. A course may have different sections if:

• There are different times when the course is offered,
• The course time stays the same, but the laboratory/seminar time changes,
• Some very large classes there is no time difference between sections, therefore it doesn’t matter which section you register for (as long as the section isn’t closed)

You must choose the section of the class that fits your schedule best. If the course schedule is available on WebAdvisor when you complete your course selection forms, please make sure to include the course section for all courses that you list.

If you need more detailed course outlines (syllabi) for specific courses, see the list of departmental course outline websites on this page. If you can’t find the course outline you are looking for there, try typing the course code in the search box at the top right hand corner of the U of G homepage and a link to the course outline may come up in the search results.

Some courses involve a field trip during the month of August before the beginning of the regular fall semester at U of G. If you want to try to register for one of these pre-semester courses, please email us at cip@uoguelph.ca, to inform us as early as possible, as spaces in these courses fill up quickly. If you are able to register, we will put you in contact with the professor for information about the travel plans and additional costs of the program (for travel to the field location, accommodations, food, etc.). Some courses include ZOO*4300 Marine Biology & Oceanography, BIOL*4410 Field Ecology, CROP*4260 Crop Science Field Trip, and GEOG*4690 Geography Field Research.

It is often not possible to take a practicum/placement course as an exchange student at U of G. These are often restricted to U of G students in specific programs.

College of Arts (COA)

College of Biological Science (CBS)

Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics (Lang)

College of Physical and Engineering Science

College of Social and Applied Human Sciences (CSAHS)

Ontario Agricultural College (OAC)