How do University Summer Terms work?

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Hi, so I have a few offers from UK universities (undergrad) and since I am an international student I'm not quite sure how the summer term works (I'm most curious about UCL in particular).

I have read that there are no actual lectures during the summer term there as it is only for exams, and so once you're done with exams you're free to leave. The term goes to about mid-June, but most summer internships that I would want to do start in late May... so I wanted to ask what the exam timeline usually is over the summer so I can do some early planning. It would be a bit of a bummer if the term times interfered with internships, but I just want to make sure I'm understanding things correctly because I'm not familiar with the system :smile:

There is no summer semester. so you'll basically go
semester 1: 1st week of October - end of January
semester 2: End of Jan/February - end of May/mid June

July/August/1st half of September is a good opportunity for internships, maybe a holiday.

If you do post graduate course then you do 3 semesters and uni is full year, but this isn't the case for undergrad.

You can look up your uni exam windows on the websites but id say loosely speaking
January exams: 2nd/3rd week of January
May/june exams will be May 3rd/4th week & first week of June.
(they wont interfere with an internship)

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 2

Noodlzzz

As above but also even less so from my UCL experience where lectures end April ( think!) for a month of revision before exams

Reply 3

MrMusician95

It depends on the uni tbh. My uni was just exams in third term so we usually finished our second term a bit later than other unis. Some have lectures then exams in third term, as far as I know.

Reply 4

Catherine1973

Mine works that April time is easter break, after semester 2 ends and then may month is exams. So nothing in June. And will know by mid March when my actual exams are and this when I am finished. But each university will be different and you can generally get term dates off their websites (at least this years as an idea)