Fields of Study

Important: The use of updated Fields of Study below is mandatory for Exchange Year 2019.

The list for Fields of Study is taken from the US Department of Education - National Center for Education Statistics - Classification of Instructional Programs - 2010, with a selection for use by IAESTE as defined by Decision 695. 11 July 2015 (73rd Board Meeting Minutes - Madrid, Spain).

Since Exchange Year 2019, according to Decision 846, certain general disciplines were divided into more groups (Engineering and Physical Sciences) and certain names of the general disciplines were simplified in order to simplify search for offers and to improve matching offer with students. Rarely used fields of study were removed and study fields often mentioned as Other were added.

Full lists of updated General Disciplines and Fields of Study are here:

The General Disciplines for Exchange Year 2019 are the following:

01 Agriculture and Food Science
03 Natural Resources and Conservation
04 Architecture
11 Computer and Information Sciences
13 Education
14A Engineering, Other
14B Civil Engineering, Geology and Mining
14C Electrical and Electronics Engineering
14D Mechanical Engineering
26 Biological and Biomedical Sciences
27 Mathematics and Statistics
40A Physical Sciences, Other
40B Physics
40C Chemistry, Material Science, and Chemical Engineering
45 Economics and Social Sciences
52 Business, Management, and Marketing

CIPCodes:

The 2-digit code for each General Discipline is called the CIP Family.
Every General Discipline has a number of Fields of Study with a 6-digit CIPCode e.g. xx.xxxx.
- The first 2 digits of the Field of Study CIPCode refer to the General Discipline, e.g. 01.xxxx refers to General Discipline "01 AGRICULTURE, AGRICULTURE OPERATIONS, AND RELATED SCIENCES."
- Field of Study CIPCodes with the same two middle digits are grouped together, e.g. xx.01xx belong to the same group.
- Fields of Study with CIPCode ending with xx.xx00 or xx.xx01 are usually generic for that group.
- Fields of Study with CIPCode ending with xx.xx99 are usually miscellaneous fields of study within that group.
CIPCodes are used in the CSV for importing/exporting offers.

Notes:

Every General Discipline and Field of Study has an associated Definition which is a complete description of what is comprised in that General Discipline or Field of Study.
There is no one-to-one mapping of the new Fields of Study to the old ones, therefore an automatic conversion is not possible. We propose to use the search functions (e.g. Ctrl+F) on the list to search for keywords for choosing the correct new Field of Study.
For any offer, you must use a maximum of 3 General Disciplines and for practical reasons there should not be more than 5 Fields of Study. Otherwise the uploaded offer might look very messy.

References

Decision 695. 11 July 2015 (73rd Board Meeting Minutes - Madrid, Spain)

The Board agreed to accept that the classification of the US Department of Education NCES Classification of Instructional Programs - 2010 should be used in IAESTE. The List of Fields of study should be implemented for the exchange season in 2017. The year 2016 will be used to implement the new fields of study list in IntraWeb, and to allow countries to prepare their own systems. Enclosure 4.

22 July 2016 (83rd Board Meeting Minutes - Msida, Malta)

The Board discussed the implementation of the new Study Fields and the Board decided to use the number codes for the new study fields in the CSV, while displaying the name in the O form.

28 October 2016 (Newsletter #105)

The Board decided to be open to having both possibilities for the exchange season 2017 in the current Intraweb. This solution should help to prepare all the users for the next step – the full implementation of the only new study fields list in the new Exchange Platform. Please remember that this solution is proposed only for this exchange season [2017].

22 August 2018 (107th Board Meeting Minutes)

The Board would like to remind members that the fields of study list has been updated based on previous general disciplines, based on input from the SID Working group and from Members.

Certain general disciplines were divided into more groups (Engineering and Physical Sciences) and certain names of the general disciplines were simplified in order to simplify search for offers and to improve matching offer with students. Rarely used fields of study were removed and study fields often mentioned as Other were added.

Decision 846

The Board decide to accept the changes to the fields of study as in the attached enclosure.

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