Observations About School and University

In honor of finishing my first of two exams just a bit ago, I thought I would write a quick post about what I have learned about the British school system. Some of it might not be totally accurate, or it might only apply to some places/schools in the UK.

• School refers to anything lower than university. University is referred to as university or uni. If you talk about something you did at school, the British person will assume it happened in high school, or perhaps earlier.

• It is quite common for children to attend boarding schools. They might board even if there homes are not that far away. 

• Both public and private schools have uniforms.

• You can leave school when you are sixteen, but it normally is not seen as "dropping out." It does not have the same stigma as in the USA.

• Their last two years of high school is devoted to taking A-levels in several subjects. The scores on the A-levels will affect which universities they will be accepted to.  

• At university you can a course, not a major, and they typically take three years to complete.

• All you study at university is your course (major). There are no general education requirements.

• Once you have enrolled in a course and started studying, you can not change courses. To change a course you must drop out, and then wait a year to apply for another course. So, if you end up half way through your course and discover that you actually hate that subject, then you either have to just finish and earn a degree you don't want, or leave school and the previous years were wasted.

• It is very common to take at least one or two gap years before starting university. Students take that time to discover what they really want to study since once they start they cannot change.

• As a result of gap years, the average Fresher (name for a first year student) is older than freshmen in the USA.

• Very few students bring their laptops to class. Legal pads are very popular for note-taking.

• Most professors insist that you call them by their first name.

• At the end of the semester you do not review for the test, you revise.

• Classes, at least at Oxford-Brookes University, only meet one day a week for two hours. The two hours are usually split into lecture and seminar.