University of Canterbury Department of Civil and Natural Resources ...

• Timetable conflicts invariably occur for students who take courses from two
professional years. When this happens, a student must make a choice about
which lectures to attend and then obtain class notes from a friend for missed
lectures. Priority should be given to passing the earlier course(s).
• Certain courses cannot be taken until the prerequisites have been passed. This
may require an additional year of study.
Students who are required to enrol for failed courses are strongly advised not to
enrol for too many new courses. If one or more courses have been failed, then it is
most likely that graduation will require an extra half or full year. Such students
should enrol only for enough courses to allow classification as full-time students
(course weighting of 0.8 EFTS).
4.5.1 Waiving of Prerequisites
The waiving of a prerequisite for a course can be granted in any of the following
three circumstances.
(a) The student has not taken the prerequisite course but can present evidence of
prior learning that would indicate that they have learnt the key concepts
contained in it. This essentially corresponds to an exemption from the
prerequisite, and is normally required for international exchange students
seeking to take a course as a certificate of proficiency.
For local students some additional evidence may be required before the
exemption can be granted. One example of this might be an oral examination
given by the academic in charge of the course for which the prerequisite is
required. Such an oral examination would be wholly at the discretion of the
academic. Alternatively, the Director of Undergraduate Studies may require
the student to undertake at least one semester of study at the University of
Canterbury. In this way the academic performance of the student, who may
have come from a different tertiary environment, can be evaluated before an
exemption is given.
In all cases, the decision will be made by the Head of Department (actually the
Director of Undergraduate Studies through delegation) in consultation with the
academic staff member who is responsible for the course for which the
prerequisite is required.
(b) The student has failed the prerequisite course. In this case a waiver will be
granted when
• the student received a D grade in the prerequisite course,
• the student’s overall GPA in the previous year of study exceeded 5, and
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