In order to complete his study plan, the Doctoral candidate must accrue 12 credits, of which 4 credits (Master or PhD level) during the first year before the candidacy exam.
Credits accrued from transversal skills courses do not count for the minumum 4 credits of the first year.
There are several ways of accruing credits:
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- EPFL courses contained in the EDPO course book.
- External courses (other universities, summer schools,…) with an examination. See section below “How to register for a course?”.
- Any other EPFL course (PhD or Master) in agreement with your thesis director.
- No credit is granted for the assistantship, participation to conferences or language courses.
The course choice is subject to the prior agreement of the student’s thesis director, which ensures that his choice entails the acquisition of new knowledge. Any other course than doctoral (e.g. Master or summer shool), must also be approved in advance by the programme director, unless it appears in the EDPO course book .
You will find further information in the internal EDPO regulation:
How to register for a course?
For all courses at EPFL, you must register on is-academia. Do not forget to discuss beforehand with your thesis director the courses you want to take. Kindly note that his approval is mandatory.
Please note that it is not possible to register for Bachelor/Master courses after the deadline which is latest two weeks after the begining of the semester.
If you need any help for registration, please contact the administrative assistant.
External courses
Before the beginning of an external course, Doctoral Candidates are strongly advised to confirm with EDPO that the credits can be recognised.
Requests for ECTS recognition must be submitted online via ServiceNow using the equivalence form (Teaching section).
For external courses that do not include an exam, the PhD supervisor is responsible for organising an exam or equivalent evaluation to validate the credits.
Some suggestions for summer/winter schools
If you are aware about a Summer or Winter School that could be of any interest to the photonics community, kindly send an email with the details to EDPO’s administrative assistant.