Home >Academics>Academic Resources>Academic Calendar

Academic Calendar

Academic Year

The academic year at GUGC starts late August and ends in August the next calendar year. It is divided in two semesters: the fall semester (semester 1) and the spring semester (semester 2). The majority of courses start and end within one semester, however a limited set of courses runs throughout the entire academic year.

For Bachelor 4 students the fall semester is to be spent at home campus in Belgium, and runs from the last week of September until the end of January (incl. examination period).

Academic Calendar

The academic calendar gives an overview of the start and end date of the academic year, educational and catch-up activities, exam periods, recess periods, and official holidays.

Academic Calendar 2020-2021

Preparatory Semester?

An academic year at Ghent University Global Campus starts in late August and ends in June the next calendar year, just as it does in Belgium. However, admitted students can already enroll in March and follow selected courses in a Preparatory Semester.

Through this Preparatory Semester, students can re-allocate their course load and start their studies earlier: students will be better prepared for Mathematics and English and will have the opportunity to take some courses from the upcoming semesters. This spreads the first year of the Bachelor of Science over three semesters, at no extra cost, creating more time to study all the courses. Since the first year of the programme is often the hardest, as students are adapting to university life, the extra semester lightens the burden.

We emphasize that the Preparatory Semester is not designed to reduce the four years of curriculum. Students take the 1st year curriculum spread over three semesters instead of two. Within the Preparatory Semester students can take three credit-recognized courses. If a student starts the preparatory semester in March, the student will be eligible to take the remaining bachelor 1 courses until the following September semester and the next March semester.