Shanghai University has established a course selection system with the credit system and short-term system as the core and a distinctive talent training model. Students can arrange their own learning process. Generally speaking, the time schedule of undergraduate study is four years, while the academic system of Shanghai University is more flexible. Students can graduate after completing the required credits and corresponding studies. Some students have strong learning ability and can complete all the credits that should be completed in four years in three years. Such students can graduate in three years.

There are other students who want to go abroad during his college years, such as going abroad for exchanges, starting a business, or responding to the call of the state to be a soldier. The arrangement of these students will not affect the study of the whole university at all, and he can continue to finish his studies after he returns. The school gave him a wider study period, up to eight years.