How study works at a European university: cycles, ECTS, grades

One full-time academic year at a European university is 60 ECTS credits, and one credit stands for 25-30 hours of student work, including independent work. That is why a Bachelor’s program of 180 credits takes three years and one of 240 takes four. In Poland the first cycle full-time lasts at least 6 semesters, and if the program gives engineering competences, at least 7.

What follows explains where these numbers come from, what the cycles are called in Polish and how the semester, the exam session and grades work. This is a description of the system, not an admission instruction: procedures, deadlines and money live on other pages, with links at the end.

An ECTS credit counts all the work, not classroom hours

An ECTS credit measures not time in the classroom but the entire volume of student work: lectures, seminars, labs, projects, placements and independent preparation. That is exactly why a course with four contact hours a week can be worth 5 credits or 12.

The arithmetic is fixed in the ECTS Users’ Guide published by the European Commission. 60 credits correspond to the learning outcomes and the workload of a full academic year of full-time study. The workload of such a year in most cases amounts to between 1500 and 1800 hours, and from this it follows that one credit is 25-30 hours of work. The guide states separately that this is a typical figure and that the actual time for an individual student will differ.

Poland transferred the same rule into its law word for word. Article 67 of the law of 20 July 2018 on higher education and science says that ECTS credits are a measure of the average volume of student work, and that one credit corresponds to 25-30 hours of work, including classes organized by the university and the student’s individual work connected with those classes.

The second thing to understand about credits: they are not awarded for attendance. Credits are assigned only after the student has completed the academic work and achieved the learning outcomes, confirmed by a grade. If a course is not passed, there are no credits for it, no matter how many classes were attended.

The numbers in the hours column are multiplication: 25-30 hours by the number of credits. The credit figures are taken from the European Commission guide and from Polish law, while the hours are derived from them by arithmetic, so they should be treated as an order-of-magnitude estimate and not as a norm that anyone checks.

Three cycles, and how credits turn into years

The European Higher Education Area has three cycles: bachelor, master, doctor. The ECTS Users’ Guide gives credit ranges for them: the first cycle is usually 180 or 240 credits, the second usually 90 or 120, of which at least 60 must be at second-cycle level. There is also a short cycle of about 120 credits, and in the third cycle the use of ECTS differs from country to country.

After that it is division by 60. 180 credits is three years, 240 is four, 90 is a year and a half, 120 is two. That is exactly how a Master’s program turns out to be two years long in one country and three semesters long in another, though both award a second-cycle diploma.

In Poland the levels and their duration are written into the law. Article 64 names the three levels, Article 65 sets the duration of full-time programs, Article 76 sets the minimum credits for the diploma and Article 77 sets the graduate title.

Three caveats to this table, each of which changes the calculation.

These are minimums, not the length of a specific program. The law says “at least 6 semesters” and “at least 180 credits”. How many semesters and credits your chosen program has is stated by the university, and that is where to check.

Part-time (niestacjonarne) studies may last longer than full-time ones. The law expressly allows this, and it does not affect the diploma, only how many years you will have to study.

A diploma is not given by a set of credits alone. To finish, you have to achieve the learning outcomes for the required number of credits, pass the diploma exam and receive a positive grade for the diploma thesis. The thesis is mandatory in the second cycle and in a long-cycle Master’s program, and in the first cycle only if the program provides for it. The date of completion of studies is the date the diploma exam is passed.

Polish words you will meet in the documents

Seven terms cover almost the whole set a Kazakhstani reader will see on a Polish university website. None of them translates one to one, so it is easier to remember them as they are.

Two more details about modes of study from Article 63. Classes on stacjonarne and niestacjonarne programs are held separately, that is, it is not one program with two timetables. And the list of niestacjonarne programs is approved by the university through a senate resolution, not announced freely.

What this looks like on real programs

Here are four programs at two Warsaw universities to make the table above concrete.

• Informatyka, stacjonarne, pierwszego stopnia at the University of Warsaw: 3 years, the title licencjat. In the curriculum the credits of the first semester add up to exactly 30, while individual courses are worth from 0.5 to 12 credits.
• Informatyka, stacjonarne, drugiego stopnia at the same university: 2 years, the title magister.
• Prawo, stacjonarne, jednolite magisterskie at the University of Warsaw: 5 years, the title magister. The program requires a placement of 2 months and 320 hours, of which at least 80 hours in a court.
• Informatyka i systemy informacyjne, studia I stopnia at the Warsaw University of Technology: 7 semesters, the title inżynier. This is that extra semester for engineering competences.

The difference between a licencjat in 6 semesters and an inżynier in 7 is not cosmetic: they are different titles on the diploma and a different period for which housing and document extensions have to be planned.

The academic year: two semesters, the session and the retake session

By law the academic year in Poland runs from 1 October to 30 September and is divided into two semesters. Everything else, including the dates of classes and sessions, is set not by the law but by the regulamin studiów of the specific university, and that is the main document worth reading before studies begin.

The regulamin studiów is adopted no later than 5 months before the start of the academic year and is agreed with the student government. At the University of Warsaw it repeats the law about 1 October and adds that the rector determines the organization of the following year no later than 1 February. So the calendar is known in advance, many months ahead.

What that looks like in figures: the order of the rector of the University of Warsaw of 30 January 2026 sets the 2026/2027 year for all three levels at once.

This shows the thing people usually do not think about in advance: the retake session for the summer semester falls at the end of August and the beginning of September, already inside the break. A trip home for the whole summer is planned with that in mind.

The word “session” here means a separate period without classes set aside for exams. At the University of Warsaw each course in one study cycle has two sittings: one in the main session and one in the retake session. You can take the second if you did not sit the exam earlier or received an unsatisfactory grade.

It is not arranged the same way everywhere. At the Warsaw University of Technology each semester of stacjonarne studies includes 15 weeks of classes, and there are three sessions in the year: winter, summer and autumn, each no shorter than two weeks. The autumn session gives a third attempt at courses from both semesters, and the University of Warsaw calendar has no such period. So the number of attempts and their dates are looked up in the regulations of your own university.

What happens if a course is not passed

One failed course usually does not mean a lost year, but it does not pass without trace either. At the University of Warsaw a student who has not passed all the courses of a stage of study may, on their own application, be conditionally registered for the next stage if the total credits of the failed courses do not exceed one third of the credits of that stage. If it does exceed that, the student is sent to repeat the stage.

Note the mechanics: the threshold is counted in credits, not in the number of courses. One failed course worth 12 credits out of the semester’s 30 weighs more than three courses of 3 credits each. That is one more reason to look at a course’s weight in credits and not only at its name on the timetable.

Grades: there is no single European grade

There is no ECTS letter grade any more. The former ECTS scales with letters from A to E were abolished and, from the 2009 edition of the guide, replaced by a grade distribution table: in addition to its own scale, a university must publish the statistical distribution of positive grades on the program the student took. The point is to make it possible to compare a four at one university with a four at another, not to introduce a common scale.

In Poland the grading scale is set by the university’s regulamin studiów. The law does not establish it, which is why the two universities in the capital have different scales.

The two scales share one thing, and it is the main one: 2 is a fail, the course is not credited and no credits are awarded for it. At the Warsaw University of Technology the grade average is calculated as a weighted average in which the weights are the courses’ credits, so a heavy course pulls the average harder.

A Polish grade cannot be converted into a Kazakhstani one with a universal table, and tables of that kind are deliberately absent from this page: no official conversion exists, precisely because ECTS gave up the single letter scale in favor of each university’s grade distribution.

Separately about the document you take home with you. The university issues the graduate the diploma together with the diploma supplement (suplement do dyplomu) within 30 days of the date studies are completed. The supplement is the place where courses, credits and grades are recorded, and it is what explains your studies to someone who does not know the Polish system.

What of this is useful when choosing a program

Three things worth checking on a specific program’s page before deciding anything.

• Level and duration. The first or the second cycle or a long-cycle Master’s program, how many semesters, which title on the diploma. An engineering program is one semester longer, and that affects your timeline.
• Mode of study. Stacjonarny or niestacjonarny. This determines the timetable, and also the fact that a niestacjonarny program may last longer.
• The university’s regulamin studiów. The grading scale, the number of exam attempts, the rules for moving to the next stage and the calendar of sessions. All of these are specific to each university.

How to compare universities and programs with each other is covered separately: choosing a university in Poland. What comes without a fee and where that is fixed: free study in Poland. When to submit what: the month-by-month admission calendar. And if you are going not to the first cycle but to the second with a Kazakhstani Bachelor’s diploma, access is determined by a separate rule: diploma nostrification.