UPC's syllabuses are designed so as to address the educational needs of society. By adapting them to the changes taking place at the University and in society, they are submitted to a continuous process of revision and improvement. The syllabuses are divided into curricular areas and the first of these areas corresponds to the selection phase.

The selection phase is designed to evaluate students' ability to make satisfactory progress in the subjects they choose and to finish them in the length of time foreseen; for this reason, it includes both basic course materials and technological subjects specific to the qualification. Not all of the qualifications establish the selection phase at the same point during the course. There are one- and two-semester selection phases. Students must pass the selection phase in no longer than double the amount of time allotted to it: if the selection phase is one semester long, then the student must obtain a pass grade in a maximum of two semesters' time. This time limit does not apply to people who wish to work whilst undertaking their studies. In this case, they can request to take the selection phase under special conditions.

The content of the syllabuses is divided into subjects. There are various types:

• Core subjects, which are established by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport and are common to all the courses that lead to the same qualification.
• Compulsory subjects, which are those that students must study in order to obtain the qualification, which include core subjects and those that UPC established as compulsory when designing the syllabus.
• Optional subjects, which are established freely by each university.
• Free elective subjects, which include anything from academic projects and practicals to subjects one can choose from any of those offered by UPC or any other school with which the University has an agreement.

Most syllabuses include a final thesis, which must be passed in order to obtain the qualification.

The subjects are measured in credits. The credit is the unit used to measure students' progress in the course and thus also serves to evaluate the work and practicals carried out by the students. One credit is equivalent to 10 theory or practical class hours. The number of credits one must pass in order to obtain a qualification is called the study load.

The study load of each subject is taught both through contact learning activities (theory classes, laboratory practicals, etc.) and complementary distance learning activities.

Unlike the type of assessment based on a final examination and isolated subjects, at UPC each subject is evaluated continuously, taking into account the work that students have done over the course of the academic year. Every subject is designated as belonging to a specific syllabus area, and assessed not individually but instead together with the rest of the subjects in its area once they have all been completed.

Assessment is thus carried out on two levels:

• the assessment tied to students' progress in a subject, based on examinations, work, exercises and evaluations as established by lecturers, and
• the assessment related to the eventual issuing of a university degree based on the curricular areas, which is done once a student has completed all the subjects in an area according to a set of overall criteria by a committee named by the school. This curricular assessment serves to determine students' progress in the subjects they have finished from the syllabus; if the curricular assessment is positive, the student is considered to have passed all the subjects in the syllabus area, with compensation criteria if necessary.