Faculty & Advisor Instructions on SF State Abroad Coursework Approval Process

The page is geared towards San Francisco State University (SF State) faculty and advisors who support SF State students in studying on an SF State Abroad Program. For faculty-led programs, please work with Isabel Seiden (iseiden@sfsu.edu) in CPaGE. Information on non-SF State Abroad Programs can be found here. 

Students are strongly encouraged and advised to begin thinking about how studying abroad will fit into their degree plan as early as possible. In their initial application for study abroad, they must list potential classes they would like to take abroad. At this stage, it is recommended, but not required to meet with an advisor. Once they have been nominated or selected to study abroad in either an SF State Exchange Program or a CSU IP Program it becomes mandatory to obtain approval for major/minor coursework before they leave. Students are given two months to work with their departments for major or minor course approvals. General Education requirements have a slightly different process with the Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC) noted below. 

Timeline:

• Apply by the deadline, which varies by program and term (Sept. 15th to Oct. 15th for Spring, Feb. 15th to Mar. 15th for fall).
• Receive an email notification of nomination/selection with detailed next steps (Sept. 20th to Oct. 20th for Spring, Feb. 20th to Mar. 20th for fall).
• Once they receive that email, they are instructed to begin seeking approvals for study abroad courses.
• Attend all mandatory meetings, including the Nomination Meeting or the CSU IP Next Steps Meeting which goes over the process verbally but they can refer to the written instructions as well in their application portal. 
• Overseas Course Approval Form is due around the last week of classes of the semester. The exact date may vary slightly from semester to semester. 

Students are advised to not wait and begin this process as soon as possible since there are periods when faculty and advisors may not be able to respond quickly, such as at the end of the semester and over semester breaks. 

Students are given instructions in writing and verbally. Before they meet with you, they should prepare the following: 

1. Find classes abroad and course descriptions. (Hint: Look at the academic tab of the program page in the SF State Abroad Database.) They can speak with an SF State Abroad Advisor if they need help with this during advising hours. 
2. Next, they are advised to note the unit conversion between the university abroad and SF State. (Hint: Look at the end of the page on the academic tab of the program page in the SF State Abroad Database.) 
3. They are responsible for bringing the Overseas Course Approval Form with them to any discussion, which can be on Zoom or in person.
4. Students should fill out the form as much as possible by typing on the form only. The document is a fillable PDF. 
5. The form should be submitted in the student's study abroad portal on the SF State Abroad Database.

We do not recommend that they just email you requesting approval unless they have already had an initial conversation on Zoom or in person. 

Japanese major/minor note: Since these students will be taking a language placement with the Japanese university to determine which Japanese classes they may take; these students are encouraged to work with the Japanese Program after they have taken the exam. Therefore, they may ignore our December/May deadlines and instead submit the Overseas Course Approval Form at the beginning of the semester while in Japan. 

Students will begin reaching out to you starting mid-semester (October/March) requesting your help in obtaining approval for their major and minor classes abroad. Some may wait until the last minute, but they have known about this since the middle of the semester. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to support them in their study abroad journeys! 

Signing and Submitting:

• The student should fill out the form as much as possible so that you can focus on reviewing the classes abroad and approving them or not. Please do sign on the individual lines as well as at the end to make it clear which classes are approved, and which are not. 
• Filling out the form does not mean the student must take the class. Therefore, students should follow-up with you later if they change their class schedule. 
• We are happy to accept the form via DocuSign if your department prefers a digital signature process. 
• Please reach out to the SF State Abroad Team at studyabroad@sfsu.edu if you have any questions and if there is any unique or different that we should share with students about the approval process for your department. 

Level Abroad:

Lower and upper division is a grey area. We encourage you to consider first-year classes abroad for upper-division credit when warranted based on course content. Upper and lower division does not exist abroad or at least not the way we have it. Therefore, students abroad may start their major classes during their first year of university. 

Units:

Please note that unit conversion on the SF State Abroad Database under the academic tab of the program page. The Registrar's Office is very strict that we cannot add units and that all units abroad must appear on the transcript, but that does not mean the units count towards the major or minor. 

• United Kingdom note: Classes may come back worth more than 3 units. Therefore, if a class comes back as 5 units consider approving 3 of those units for a core and 2 units for electives or some other combination. You can break apart the larger unit values into small unit classes here, but we cannot add extra units.
• France & Japan note: Some programs in these countries like the small 1-2 units. If a class would come back as 2 units, you may ask a student to take two classes abroad to fill one requirement. For example, the student may need to take two classes abroad each worth 2 units for a total of 4 SF State units to fill a 3-unit requirement. 

Degree Progress Report (DPR): 

There are two ways of adding a course to a student's Degree Progress Report (DPR).

1. Adding the DPR information to the Overseas Course Approval Form.
   1. Please add the DPR line number. This tells the Graduation Team in the Registrar's Office which section of the DPR is being updated.
   2. Next, include a short description as to where in that section the course is being added. For many majors, a section may include 10 different sections.
   3. When this is unclear, the Registrar's Office may not add it, and an Advisor Request System (ARS) becomes necessary. 
2. Or, using the Advisor Request System (ARS) or Advisor Request when the course appears on the SF State transcript after the end of the program. Please note that it can take the Registrar's Office weeks to add the class to the transcript and the ARS cannot be used until the transcript is updated. 

At the request of the Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC), students are advised to reach out just before they enroll in their classes abroad. This means the timeline will vary greatly from program to program. Some students will enroll in classes abroad with the paperwork to the partner university while others will have an online registration time and others will do it when they arrive in the country. Therefore, students might reach out as soon as they are nominated, and others may request a Zoom meeting from abroad. 

1. If students have never worked with the UAC, we advise them to become familiar with them now so that they know who to work with when the time comes to enroll in classes.
2. Once the student knows what they can take and are about to register, they should reach out to their advisor.
3. Students are strongly encouraged to save all information regarding which classes they should take and how it will count towards the General Education requirements here.
4. When they finish their program abroad, they should check their unofficial transcript in Gateway to see when the classes from abroad post noting that the Registrar's Office may take time to process their transcript.
5. Once they see the class on the transcript, they should contact their UAC advisor to complete the GE petition.