Studying abroad can be a great way to broaden your horizons and get exposed to other ideas, people, and cultures. There are many strong programs around the world that offer term-long study-abroad programs. Depending on their content, study-abroad computer science courses can count for CS concentration credit, and satisfy requirements such as elective, breadth, theory or basic software.
If you are considering studying abroad, you should talk to the Office of International Education. The DUS make the determination on a case-by-case basis of whether a particular course would count for a concentration requirement (and if so which particular requirement). The information we’ll need from you includes the syllabus and the structure of the course, including the total number of contact hours. You should not assume that a course will count without checking it with us in advance.
In our experience, students studying abroad often end up taking somewhat different courses than initially planned. Enrollment might be capped, a new course might be offered, or you might simply change your mind. If your plans change, feel free to email us at any point. The final approval only comes after you have completed the term and we receive the transcripts from the institution you studied in.
The following are some examples of programs where Harvard students have studied in recent years and successfully received computer science credit. Note that this does not mean that every course offered under “Computer Science” in those programs will count. You can and should always ask us about specific courses, but the general rule of thumb is that if a course is similar in both level and scientific content to Harvard CS courses, then it is likely to count.
AIT Budapest
Chinese University of Hong Kong
CIEE Madrid: Engineering & Society
Consortium for Advanced Studies Abroad (CASA) in Barcelona
Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France
Oxford University
King’s College, University of London
University College London
University of Edinburgh, Scotland
This list keeps growing every year: the fact that a program you are interested is not here should not prevent you from pursuing it!
Please note that we review courses each semester as courses change over time. These are examples of some of the courses where Computer Science concentrators have received concentration credit while abroad.
| Term | Year | Program | City | Country | Course for CC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall | 2019 | National Taiwan University | Taipei | Taiwan | Computer Networks |
| Fall | 2019 | Ecole Polytechnique | Paris | France | Compilers |
| Fall | 2020 | Oxford University, St. Catherine’s College | Oxford | England | Functional Programming |
| Fall | 2020 | Oxford University, St. Catherine’s College | Oxford | England | Linear Algebra |
| Spring | 2014 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Algorithms and Data Structures |
| Spring | 2015 | University College London | London | England | Compilers (COMP207P) |
| Spring | 2015 | University College London | London | England | Interaction Design (COMP3012) |
| Spring | 2015 | University College London | London | England | Artificial Intelligence and Neural Computing |
| Spring | 2015 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Computer Vision Applications for Digital Cinema |
| Spring | 2015 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Structure and Dynamics of Complex Networks |
| Spring | 2016 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Theory of Computing |
| Spring | 2017 | King’s College, University of London | London | England | Programming Language Design Paradigms |
| Spring | 2017 | King’s College, University of London | London | England | Database Systems |
| Spring | 2017 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Data Mining |
| Spring | 2018 | Oxford University, St. Catherine’s College | Oxford | England | Ethics of Technology |
| Spring | 2018 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Data Mining 1: Models and Algorithms |
| Spring | 2018 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Data Mining 2: Applications |
| Spring | 2019 | Center for University Programs Abroad (CUPA) | Paris | France | Artificial intelligence and games |
| Spring | 2019 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Computer Graphics |
| Spring | 2019 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Applied Cryptography |
| Spring | 2019 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Semantic and Declarative Technologies |
| Spring | 2019 | Pembroke College, University of Cambridge | Cambridge | England | Quantum Information and Computation |
| Spring | 2019 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | Scalable Systems and Development Processes |
| Spring | 2019 | AIT Budapest | Budapest | Hungary | User Experience Design |
For summer study abroad funding, please check out this resource from the Office of International Education. You can also check in with your financial aid officer, who is visible to you in my.harvard.