College of Arts & Sciences
Department of French and Francophone Studies
Department of French and Francophone Studies

Credit Transfer Guidelines

Georgetown University Department of French and Francophone Studies Guidelines for Credit Transfer from Study Abroad

Last revised January 16, 2015

  1. Only two courses can be transferred to the French major or minor per semester. If you are a double major (French and another field), a course can transfer for only one major; you may not double count it for both.
  2. The courses must be high level, elective equivalents in order to transfer as upper level courses.
  3. You may not transfer courses below your current level. For instance, if you have completed the Gateway, you may not take an Advanced French language course and expect it will transfer. If you are already at the upper level, you may not take a Gateway equivalent and expect it will transfer.
  4. Courses from Georgetown Tours and Paris programs transfer directly, which means you do not need the signature of the DUS.
  5. Courses you wish to transfer must contain at least 36 inclass hours. This translates to three hours a week for a twelve week semester, or six hours a week for a six week summer.
  6. In the case of programs that offer 24 inclass hours, such as Strasbourg and Brussels, you would combine two study abroad courses to equal one Georgetown course. In these cases, the courses combined must be of the same sort: two modern literature courses, two culture courses, two history courses. For instance: you may combine one nineteenth century French literature course with one twentieth century French literature course to equal one post1800 Georgetown course. You could not, however, combine (for instance) French political systems with medieval literature, because these courses would be of different types and would not add up to one Georgetown course.
  7. In order to transfer to French major or minor credit, courses must be taught entirely in French and all written work must be in French.
  8. In order to transfer a literature course for French major or minor credit, the content of the course must be more than 50% French or Francophone. For instance, “Littérature russe du dix-neuvième siècle” would not transfer, but “Littérature française du dix-neuvième siècle” would. A course that examines two or more national traditions may sometimes transfer, depending on the proportion of French or Francophone content that it contains. When a such course gives you the option of choosing the subject of the final paper, you would select a French or Francophone topic in order to make the course transferable for major or minor credit.
  9. In order to transfer a culture course for French major or minor credit, the course should ideally contain a significant French or Francophone component. We recognize that courses focusing on Europe, the Middle East, and Africa are often deserving of departmental transfer credit; these will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
  10. When applying for approval of study abroad credits upon your return, please bring along the syllabi, tests, and papers from the classes you are seeking to transfer. If you wrote papers that were not returned to you, save them as computer files; you will email them to the DUS.