From autumn 2024, MUNI will have enough so-called CORE courses. Therefore, a Common University Courses will be implemented across the entire university under conditions outlined by Pavel Lízal, Vice-Dean for undergraduate education.
Firstly, it is important to mention that until now, the so-called Common University Courses has been running in a preliminary form. Their purpose was for students to attend certain courses from other faculties in order to broaden their horizons and knowledge beyond their field of study. However, it was necessary to fill this them with an adequate number of courses created over the past four years. Generally speaking, these courses are referred to as CORE subjects.
For the reasons mentioned above, our faculty has been offering courses from the standard faculty curriculum within this Common University Courses. This is now changing because there are enough CORE courses available. Thus, starting from autumn 2024, a Common University Courses will be implemented across the entire university under conditions planned at its inception.
The Common University Courses consist of mandatory two-semester physical education and an English language proficiency test; additionally including courses beyond the field of student’s main area. So far at our faculty students received a total of 4 credits for physical education and language test combined and 11 credits for other subjects (which previously included more courses from our faculty). However, from now on, it will only be possible to choose CORE subjects and students will need to earn 4 credits for the language exam.
What I mentioned applies from September 2024 to first-year students in programmes that have a mandatory Common University Courses requirement. (And that is the majority of programmes at our faculty, except for the programmes mentioned in the following section of the article.) Physical education remains worth 2 credits and the semester language exam remain as well. However, the number of credits for the language exam increases from 2 to 4. It will be a more extensive exam with code JASUZ. To obtain an additional 9 credits, it is mandatory to enroll in CORE courses. These are worth 3 credits each and are included in four categories. Students can only enroll in one subject from the fourth category and can choose the remaining courses according to their preference. Therefore, they choose three subjects so that together with physical education, language, and CORE courses they reach a total of 15 credits required to fulfill their Common University Courses requirement. I would like to add that students can only take CORE subjects if they are outside their field of study. This is ensured by prerequisites which guide students towards enrolling in subjects from other faculties or within our faculty but from different fields than their own area of study. There will be some exceptions because there are certain subjects which have a faculty version and it will be necessary for students to attend those.
Different conditions apply to first-year students who do not have a compulsory Common University Courses; this applies specifically to Medical Genetics and Molecular Diagnostics programme as well as educational-focused programmes. Students in these programmes only have physical education worth 2 credits as compulsory along with JA001 language exam worth another 2 credits. Therefore, they will continue taking JA001 since it is not part of their Common University Courses.
Students in their second and third year will study under original conditions; this means fulfilling physical education (worth 2 credits), JA001 language exam (worth 2 credits), and being able to choose how they fulfill eleven additional credits within Common University Courses' range − except if they opt for CORE courses where new negative prerequisites apply necessitating them choosing another field of study than theirs.
Until now, bachelor's degree students were accustomed to replacing JA001 language exam with JA002 − an obligatory test in subsequent studies − during undergraduate studies itself
So they have already signed up for this more complex JA002 exam in their bachelor's studies. This won't be possible starting autumn term 2024 onwards though. First-year students with Common University Courses requirement programmes have to complete JASUZ course instead.
Enrollment JA002 will be over and above the Common Core and will not count towards it, so it is an extra course.
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