Study organization

SPL and SSC

Following admission to the University, the Study Program Directorate (German: Studienprogrammleitungenen, or SPL) is responsible for your studies in the chosen subject. Study Program Directorate is responsible for a degree programme’s course offer and questions related to study law; your SPL are your first point of contact regarding all questions relating to your studies and progress towards the degree.

Directorates of studies are supported by the Studies Service Centers (SSC). SSC office is where you go for all organisational and administrative matters related to your degree programme. SSC supports the students in the following tasks:

• registration to courses and exams (including commissional exams)
• issuance and submission of the examination records (Prüfungspasse)
• correction of erroneous study codes or exam assignments (for correction of the course grades, please refer to the responsible course head)
• recognition of courses completed at other institutions
• registration of the Bachelor project topic and Bachelor thesis submission
• issuance of coursework transcripts and Bachelor certificates

Semester planning

At the University of Vienna, you do not get a ready-made schedule, telling you what courses to complete each semester. Rather, you have to plan your semester yourself. The most important tools for doing so are the student platform u:space and the course directory u:find. Follow these steps to put together your semester plan:

• Pay tuition- and Students Union fee
  Your are admitted and can register for the course in the given semester only upon payment of the tuition and Students Union fees 
• Plan your study schedule
  Use the Curriculum as well as your examination record (Prüfungspass) in u:space to choose relevant and required courses from the University of Vienna online course directory u:find. Tip: you can compile your personal "watchlist" by clicking on the star next to the course title, if you are logged in with your personal u:account details
• Register for courses and examinations (also see below)
  Notice, that you MUST register to each course and each examination attempt using the University online course directory u:find
• Complete courses
  The first examination date for a course without continuous assessment (i.e., lecture courses, VO) will take place after the last unit of the semester. Subsequently, the responsible course head will offer three additional examination dates. The fourth examination attempt has to take place before an examination committee (so-called commissional examination)

Further information regarding semester planning can be found at this link.

Registration for courses and examinations

First and foremost: you MUST register for each course and each exam! Without registration, you cannot be admitted to the courses or the exams nor be graded. To register for courses and exams, you must be admitted to the University of Vienna and have an active u:account. 

After you click on "Register for this course" in the course catalogue u:find, you will be automatically forwarded to u:space. Here, you can select your study direction and the respective point in the curriculum (module). When the course is offered in several groups (so called parallel courses), you may also choose one of the groups.

When registering for courses without continuous assessment (i.e., lectures, VO), there are basically no restrictions on the number of course participants. Such restrictions, however, could exist for certain courses with continuous assessment (e.g. seminars (SE, PS), practicals (UE, PP), etc). Please note that the time of registration within the specified period has NO effect on the allocation of places (NO 'first come - first served' principle).

Registration for the examinations and for the courses with continuous assessment (seminars, practicals, etc) is only possible within certain registration periods: for courses with continuous assessment, this is in September for the winter semester and in February for the summer semester. Your registration for such courses will be first confirmed after the end of the limited registration period. For courses with the restricted number of participants, you must additionally allocate points from your account for the current semester: the more points you set for a given course, the more likely it is that you will be registered. (NB: You can change the allocation of points between different courses during the registration period. However, points cannot be saved nor carried over to the next semester; unused points are forfeited.)

After the end of the registration period, place allocation will take place (NB: allocation is an automatic process, which neither SPL, SSC nor anyone else can influence). The registrations are sorted according to the curricular requirements and the points you have given and the available number of places in the course. If you do not yet meet the requirements (e.g. STEOP) for the course, the status "Requirements not yet met" will be displayed. After allocation, your status will change to 'registered', 'on waiting list', 'place not allocated', etc.

Further information on the topic of course and exam registration can be found at this link.