About

Semester Zero is the bridge between acceptance and your first day of class.

Every year, thousands of students open an acceptance letter and feel two things at once: excitement, and quiet panic. Semester Zero exists for the second feeling.

Mission

Help students prepare for their Master's before classes even begin, so they arrive understanding the foundations, terminology and concepts they're about to study.

Vision

A guide for every Master's programme in the world — beautifully designed, practical and written for complete beginners.

Why it exists

Universities teach brilliantly, but they start at chapter three. We wrote chapters one and two.

How we got here

  1. 2023

    A difficult first semester

    Our founder started a Master's and spent three months translating vocabulary instead of learning ideas.

  2. 2024

    The first guide

    A 300-page preparation book written for one programme, shared with a handful of incoming students.

  3. 2025

    Semester Zero

    The guide became a publishing house: one beautifully designed book per Master's programme.

  4. Today

    Five programmes, many more coming

    Business, Technology, Marketing, Psychology and Tourism — with hundreds of guides planned.

Not a university. A head start.

Find the guide written for your programme.

Browse Guides