Course Structure

If you're coming from the USA like me, you're not going to be used to the way courses are run here at DTU. Here are some major differences.

First, discussions aren't called discussions. They're called group tutorials. But they're the exact same thing. You sit with a group, working on some problems from the textbook or other source. There's also a TA present to help you as needed.

Arguably the biggest difference is that you don't meet multiple times a week for one hour at a time for lecture, then once for discussion, and maybe once for lab. Instead, at DTU, you meet once a week, for 4 hours at a time. Yeah, 4 hours. But, it's not just 4 hours of lecture. It's typically half lecture, half group tutorial There are, of course, breaks every hour or so. Usually people go and get coffee during this time.

This is how it is for 5 ECTS courses. For 10 ECTS, you will meet two separate times. There is also a few 7.5 ECTS courses, but I believe those are at the other campus, so they don't follow the normal rules.

The scheduling is different here, given that you only meet once/twice a week for long periods of time. For each day of the week, there are two time slots: 8:00-12:00, 13:00-17:00 (get used to the 24 hour format!). There is also a 17-21 slot, but there are very few classes in this slot.

You would imagine that each slot would follow something like, in order: F1A, F1B, F2A...F5B. Alas, it doesn't. Instead, it goes F1A, F2A...F5A, F1B...F5B. The only logic for this is so a 10 ECTS course (whose slot would be something like F3, which is F3A and F3B) doesn't meet for a full day. What I find funnier is that the exam schedule does follow the logical setup.

A small quirk I noticed: one of my courses only has 5 people enrolled in it. However, it (thankfully) didn't get cancelled. I suspect that it didn't get cancelled because it's a masters class, which usually has fewer people.

Exams

There are two types of exmas at DTU: written and oral. Written exams are your regular final exams where you sit down for a few hours and answers as many questions as you can.

Oral exams are a completely different animal. Like with written exams, you have to study all the course material, because anything could come up.

However, when you actually go and take the exam, you're actually presenting to your professor (and/or sometimes an external examinator). A random topic is chosen, and you just have to talk about it for 10 minutes. You basically have to create a series of short presentations, and remember everything. After, they can ask you questions about anything during the semester, especially since there's a chance you don't choose one of the major topics.

This may sound horrible, but I think it might be better than it sounds. On a written exam, if you're stuck on something, you're basically screwed. From what I've heard about oral exams, however, the professor might ask you a leading question to get you back on track. I have a feeling this is going to be extremely helpful for anyone.

Side-note: you can actually sign up for any exam, even if you haven't taken the course. This is similar to AP courses or proficiency exams where you can just study on your own and take the exam. However, the intention here is to allow people who failed a course the first time to have another chance.

8 AM Courses

I haven't had to deal with 8AMs since first semester, so having two 8AM classes this semester, and for 4 hours, was rough for me. I'm not a morning person at all. If you're like me, be ready to have this struggle.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about courses, exams, etc here!