Practical guides
Choosing your study pace
Pace is the decision that determines whether you finish. It is chosen on the week you genuinely have, not the one you hope for. Three paces exist in the catalogue, each with its stated load and its own weekly volume.
What pace governs
Pace governs three things: the number of weekly hours expected, the flexibility of intermediate deadlines, and the total length of the path. Assessment dates, for their part, are published at the start of the year in every case: they are the calendar's only fixed points, and everything else is built around them.
- The weekly volume of actual work expected
- The flexibility of deadlines between two assessments
- The total length of the path, in months
- The ability to adjust mid-year on request
Setting your pace in four decisions
- 01
Count your real slots
Across seven days, note the slots of an hour or more genuinely available. Add them up: that total is your weekly budget.
- 02
Take off a safety margin
Keep four fifths of that total. The margin absorbs busy weeks, and it is what prevents accumulated backlog.
- 03
Match against the catalogue
Filter for programmes whose load fits your budget: 12–20 h for a job-compatible pace, 20 h full time.
- 04
Confirm at interview
State your weekly budget as it is. The pace chosen is the one that holds for twelve months, not the one that holds for three weeks.
Paces in figures
- per week on a job-compatible pace
- 12–20 h
- per week full time
- 20 h
- per week self-paced
- 8–20 h
- firm assessments per year
- 2
One per semester, dated at the start of the year.
What is planned, what is chosen
What the calendar fixes
- The two end-of-semester assessments, dated at the start of the year
- The submission milestones of the year-long project
- Certifying examination sessions, with identity checks
- Session dates for resuming a module after a pause
What you choose freely
- The hour and day of every work session
- The order of modules within a semester
- When you watch a recorded session
- The move to a more spread-out pace, on request
Pace questions
What happens in a week where I can do nothing?
You resume the next week where you stopped: content stays open and nothing expires between two assessments. The safety margin set at the outset exists precisely for those weeks.
Does self-paced suit a first programme?
Self-paced covers 8 programmes, mostly short formats and certifications, where the goal is sharp and the duration brief. For a long programme, a cadenced pace gives a regularity that holds across several years.
Can I speed up if I have more time than planned?
Yes, a semester's content is available as soon as it opens: you move at your own speed within it. Assessments stay on the published dates, which gives the whole cohort a common meeting point.
Explore next
- Building your fileThe 4 documents in an IHETC application: identity, qualification, transcript and free text, with their exact purpose.
- Scanning your documentsScanning your application documents with a phone: framing, light, file naming and sending to your IHETC file.
- The motivation textWriting the ten lines of an IHETC application: four-sentence structure, five-pass method, and what the text sets up for the interview.
- The interviewThe IHETC admission interview: thirty remote minutes, announced running order, the questions asked and one hour of preparation.
- The calendarThe IHETC application calendar: continuous filing, interview within a week, decision within ten working days, access from enrolment.
- Tracking your fileTracking your IHETC application: successive states, timestamped receipt, adding documents and a named contact at each step.