Filling in the free elective space - Faculty of Arts (from cohort 2024 onwards)

If you started your Bachelor's programme at the Faculty of Arts in or after September 2024, you have 30 ECTS of free elective space in your third year. The free elective space provides you with many opportunities to continue to develop yourself and expand your studies by taking courses from different study programmes. The main purpose of the free elective space is to broaden your horizons; therefore, you are not permitted to include courses that are a part of (another specialisation within) your own degree programme.

What does the B3 with free elective space look like?

In general, the free elective space consists of 15 EC in the first semester and 15 EC in the second semester of B3. Are you going abroad or doing the educational minor? Then the first semester generally consists entirely of free elective space (30 EC). The exact structure of year 3 of your programme will be available in the EER 2026-2027.

For students of Comparative European History that started their programme in 2024-2025: you will have 40 EC of free elective space (instead of 30 EC).

The accordions below show a schematic overview of both options.

Regular B3 programme

Semester 1		Semester 2
Major courses	15 ECTS	Major course	5 ECTS
		Bachelor's thesis	10 ECTS
Free elective space	15 ECTS	Free elective space	15 ECTS

B3 programme with (compulsory) courses abroad or the educational minor

Semester 1		Semester 2
Free elective space	30 ECTS	Major courses	20 ECTS
		Bachelor's thesis	10 ECTS

This is a simplified overview; for specific details and applicable agreements regarding the replacement of the major courses from semester 1 that you are missing, please consult your student advisor or the OER for 2026-2027, as soon as it becomes available. This applies in particular to students of French and Spanish.

Possibilities

Now that you know what the B3 will look like, you need to start thinking about how you want to fill this free elective space. The courses you choose in your free elective space do not have to form a coherent whole. This means you can fill this space in almost any way you choose. You could consider, for example:

A (part of a) pre-Master's programme for a Master's programme you are not directly admissable for (for example: you are studying English Language and Culture and want to continue to the Master's programme Arts and Culture Studies)
One of the new Faculty of Arts minors that will be offered from 2026-2027 onwards. More information will follow soon.
Courses from one or more different study programmes within or outside of the faculty
Courses regarding sustainability.
Courses from an existing minor or premaster at a different faculty at Radboud University or at another university in the Netherlands (e.g. the Arts and Heritage minor at Maastricht University)
The educational minor at Radboud Docenten Academie (Dutch only)
If you are considering this minor, take into account that you need to sign up before 21 May. You can find more information on the RDA website.
Courses abroad
If you are considering this option, take into account that you have to sign up at the beginning of 2026 at IO Arts (deadline outside of Europe: 14 January; deadline in Europe: 28 February). You can find more information on the website of International Office Arts.
An internship of 15 ECTS
This can be an internship at a company/organisation or a research internship.

You can only select courses that are open to students taking subsidiary courses. It is your own responsibility to check if this is the case for your chosen courses.

How do I check whether a course can be taken as a subsidiary course and is open to my study programme/faculty?

Courses from another study programme within the Faculty of Arts

If you want to select courses from another study programme within the Faculty of Arts and want to find out whether the course is open to you, please do the following:

Open the Course catalogue.
You will now see a long list of all the courses at the Faculty of Arts. Do you already know which study programmes you want to take courses from? Then use the search filter 'LET-[study-programme abbreviation]' to easily find all courses from that programme.
In the list of results, please check the comments field for a course:
1. Open to students of the Faculty of Arts/Open to all students: the course can be selected as part of your elective space
2. Only open to students for whom this is part of their major programme: the course can not be selected as part of your elective space

Courses from a different faculty

If you want to take courses at another faculty in your free elective space, please do the following:

Open the Course catalogue.
Choose 'Courses' and click on 'Show all courses'.
Filter on the correct academic year and the faculty you want to take a course from and - under 'Student taking subsidiary courses?' - on 'Open for students taking subsidiary courses'.

Please note: only by setting the filter in this way can you see whether the desired course(s) are open to be taken as a subsidiary course. This information cannot be found in the results list or the course information.

Requirements

The primary goal of this free elective space is to broaden your horizons. It is therefore not allowed to take courses that are part of (a different specialisation of) your own study programme in your free elective space. That means, for example, that:

CIW and IBC students: cannot take courses that start with LET-CIW.
ACW, ACS, and Samenleving, Taal en Cultuur students: cannot take courses with LET-ACW
ELC and American Studies students: cannot take courses with LET-ETC
Etc.

There is an exception for the Roman Languages and Cultures programmes: students of French cannot take courses with LET-RTCBF, but they are allowed to take courses from Spanish (LET-RTCBS) in their free elective space. Students of Spanish cannot take courses with LET-RTCBS, but can take courses from French (LET-RTCBF) in their free elective space.

You can only take courses at Bachelor's level in your free elective space.

Procedure

After the study guide is published (around 1 July 2026), familiarise yourself with the possibilities and choose 30 ECTS worth of courses.
Please check:
1. if the courses you have selected are not part of your own major programme;
2. if the courses you have selected are open to students taking subsidiary courses;
  Please note: You cannot select a course that is not open to students taking subsidiary courses. You check this yourself!
3. if the schedule allows you to take the selected courses (in July, you will only be able to check this for semester 1).
Register on time for all your courses.
Please note: Other faculties may apply different registration deadlines and/or registration periods for courses. It is therefore important to check when the registration period for your courses takes place.

Contact

If you need help making decisions or if you have other questions about the free elective space, please contact your programme's student advisor.

Free elective space: how will that be shown in my Study Progress Overview?

The free elective space is designed in such a way that all courses that are not a fixed part of your examination programme are automatically displayed here. For example, you can see courses from a previous programme (which you did not complete), from your second programme (if you are doing a double degree) or – if you started your studies in 2025 or later – courses that are part of your minor. If the free elective space is also filled with 30 ECTS, any additional courses will be placed under 'Other'. These will not be visible in your diploma supplement. If you would like them to be included, you can have them placed under the extracurricular space by submitting a request to STIP (for Faculty of Arts-courses) or the Examination Board (for other courses). Extracurricular courses do not count towards your distinction.

If there are courses in your free elective space that do not belong there or that you do not wish to have there, determine which of the following scenarios applies to you and follow the instructions.

The courses in the free elective space are part of a minor (as of cohort 2025)

PLEASE NOTE: This scenario only applies to students who started their study programme in September 2025 or later. If you started your study programme in 2024, this scenario does not apply to you.

Check in Osiris Student via MINOR if you are correctly enrolled for the minor that includes these courses. Once you have enrolled yourself for the minor, the courses from the free elective space will automatically be moved to the corresponding minor.

In order to fill the minor space, it is important that there are at least two registrations for Faculty of Arts-minors. If you choose to also take a minor in your 30 EC free elective space and register for it in Osiris under MINOR, it will appear in your Study Programme Overview and diploma supplement under the heading minor space, not in the free elective space.

You completed the courses in the free elective space during an unfinished study programme

If you are certain you do not wish to finish the unfinished study programme, you can leave it as it is without any problems. They will simply count towards your free elective space. If you would like to take other courses in your free elective space, please contact STIP via stip [at] let.ru.nl (stip[at]let[dot]ru[dot]nl) and ask them to include the courses you do want to include in your free elective space. Only do this after you have registered for these courses.

You want to move one or more courses that are currently in the free elective space to ‘Other’ or the extracurricular space

When you have taken more courses than you need for your examination programme, the system will determine which courses will be placed in the free elective space and which will be placed under ‘Other'. If this does not correspond with what you want, please do the following:

If you want to replace courses that are currently under free elective space with courses that are listed under ‘Other’, please contact STIP via stip [at] let.ru.nl (stip[at]let[dot]ru[dot]nl) with a request to move the courses. Courses under ‘Other’ do not count towards your examination programme and will not be included in your diploma supplement.
If you want to move Faculty of Arts courses that are currently in the free elective space to the extracurricular space (instead of ‘Other’), so that they are visible on your diploma supplement, please contact STIP via stip [at] let.ru.nl (stip[at]let[dot]ru[dot]nl) with a request to move the desired LET courses. Other courses will then automatically be moved from ‘Other’ to the free elective space.
If the course(s) that are currently in the free elective space and that you want to move to the extracurricular space are not Faculty of Arts courses, please submit a request to the Examination Board.

You are following a double degree programme

The system will automatically place 30 ECTS of courses from the second Bachelor's programme in the free elective space. These should not be included here, because courses may only be included in one examination programme. Once you have obtained at least 30 ECTS from your second programme, you can apply for an exemption for the free elective space (in accordance with EER 2026-2027) with the Examination Board.

If you wish to make use of this option, submit a request for exemption from the free elective space to the Examination Board Arts as soon as you have obtained 30 ECTS from your second programme. An exemption for the free elective space will be registered, which means that no other courses will be placed there.
If you do not wish to make use of this option, please contact STIP as soon as you know how you want to fill your free elective space.
Are these courses from Radboud University? Then you can ask STIP to place them in the free elective space after you have registered for the courses in question.
Are these courses from a different university in the Netherlands? Then they can only be placed in the free elective space after you have submitted an official Transcript of Records.
Are these courses from a different university abroad? Then they can only be placed in the free elective space after you have submitted an official Transcript of Records.