The College Structure

Since I'm not in college and one of my characters is, I might as well ask how the college sets itself up. What's the schedule like? How do students entertain themselves? When do the students entertain themselves? Terminology for classes and teachers and staff? Are there certain classes students must take? Student hierarchy (as in who is generally at the top and what are they usually called)? The whole Bachelors and masters degree thing? So on?

Any help would be much appreciated.

edited 2nd Jan '11 6:12:59 PM by SandJosieph

From what I can tell, schedules are much more sporadic. You have a class once a week, and your schedule will vary in school length. Some days might have one class at 1 pm, others might have three starting at 10 am, etc. etc.

Are these classes based on a set curriculum?

There are many classes you have to have taken (or equivalence) for other classes, but for the most part the average class may be once or twice a week depending on how many hours the class is. Your schedule is your creation; the staff doesn’t give you classes you have to sign up for them.

As for a social hierarchy, there wasn’t much of one in high school and there is even less of one now.

Professors have far more control over the curriculum and how they handle their class. Some run it almost like a high school class, while some really don’t care if you show up at all.

It depends a lot on what area of study you're in (note, I'm in Australia and doing primarily science courses so not everything I say may be applicable to you).

For example, my degree requires me to have classes 9am-4pm 4 days a week, plus pracs on fridays. But people in other degrees only need to do a few hours a week. Some degrees also railroad you into taking exactly these courses, in this order, and you get little choice. Others have a lot of choice.

Nobody will make you come to lectures if you don't. Some practical classes might be compulsory and if you don't attend you have to do the course over, but lecturers don't care if you skip lectures. My lectures sometimes had 200+ people in them.

Generally I found that there isn't much of a social hierarchy. There will tend to be a lot of people interested in the same subject as you - if they didn't want to be here doing the work they wouldn't be.

edited 2nd Jan '11 10:28:52 PM by LoniJay

Most universities have tons of clubs, too, so people in those will often hang out there. It depends on the university, though, but in general people tend to hang out on campus, especially so if they're in residence (dorms).

I'd say the average amount of hours for an average class schedule is about half that of high school, since students in university tend to have to work a lot more to get money.

A Bachelor's Degree (in Arts, Humanities, Science, Business, etc.) is what most people go for. A Master's degree takes much more time, while a Bachelor's is about 4 years.

Again, though, it varies from university to university.

What exactly is a Masters or Bachelors degree?

The schedule is somewhat flexible... minus when there's one class open in what you want or if you're at the end up the queue for signing up for classes (or if you slept through or forgot your registration appointment), then you're kinda screwed if it's inconvenient. Though for the most part I find it possible to cram things... College life has made me allergic to work on Fridays, I've only taken Friday classes two semesters out of three years. @_@' The first time because I thought a six hour class on a Friday was a good idea (it is not) and the second time because I couldn't get myself in the two-day classes.... though due to one of the two professors on that day not taking attendance and being ungodly boring and in love with Freud, I ditched a lot.

General education is the stuff all students must take. The basics are about the same (English, math, history, social sciences, science-science, and some waste-of-time-class under the "expanding your horizons" header), but the more advanced stuff varies with the major. I can skid by with nothing but algebra skills because I'm an art major, but other majors would need calculus and that sort of stuff.

According to every college I've been to (two community colleges and a State University), the number of units each class is worth is supposed to correspond with hours of homework (3 units = 3 hours of homework), but that is rare unless the professor is demanding or anal retentive or you just suck at the subject or you like the subject and want your work to be extra awesome. And lots of college students are juggling jobs since having a life is kind of expensive.

Entertaining themselves... >_> I'm bad for this since I just go to school and go home and go out with my boyfriend to sketch animals at the zoo, watch movies, buy more microwave dinners, eat, and stock up on supplies. I'm a boring shut-in like that. But we have clubs and the R As at the dorms are always trying to set up something to do in the multi-purpose room and I've noticed that you apparently can't make college students do anything unless you assure them you will feed them because I frankly have never seen a sign for any sort of gathering that didn't mention pizza, root beer floats, cake, or whatever minus one sign for the Fencing Club that instead said "Prepare for Zombie Apocalypse!"

There's not much social hierarchy in college. If someone isn't in your major, you're likely to never see them again anyway so godonlyknows how much clique-y buttholery you'd manage anyway. That and you've got to pay to be there so it's not really the same as primary education where the law says you gotta show up (though some people pay but stop showing up halfway through the semester... what a waste of money). :-/ I've heard people call community college "High School Part 2" but I don't think it feels much like high school. Or at least it gets rid of the bits of high school I didn't like and the art teachers actually taught me something worth speaking of.

A Bachelor's is a 4-year degree (give or take, over-crowding in schools and bad planning can make it take longer) and you get a Master's after you've got a Bachelors if you want to/need to. Most people just get a Bachelor's and then go off to get a job, you need a Masters for some jobs like teaching.