US Universities

**Demon of Light** · 10-01-2004, 09:32

If you come to UCSD (University of California, San Diego) you'll get a quality education in a temperate climate. San Diego really does have the best weather of any place I've been and UCSD is a quality institution with an established record in accepting foreign students.

**Teutonic Knight** · 10-01-2004, 14:20

University of Virginia

**English assassin** · 10-01-2004, 16:02

Originally Posted by Teutonic Knight

University of Virginia

I know a few of the profs in the law school there. It seems like a good place. Really nice campus too.

**BDC** · 10-01-2004, 16:13

Yes this Saturday in London there is some thing about studying in America... I would have gone but sadly my school only decided to inform us today and guess what, some people have to work Saturdays! So thanks for that my sixth form. I should have gone to college...

**Mount Suribachi** · 10-02-2004, 21:03

Well as someone who has studied at both a British and an American university I feel qualified to speak on this subject

I studied Chemistry btw, at the Universities of Salford and Toledo.

1. As Soly says, you will have to pay for your edumecation. We're not just talking living costs, we're talking tuition fees, the whole shebang.

2. This is expensive - we're talking 10s of thousands of $$ over a 4 year degree. Most of the US students I knew held at least 1 and often 2 part time jobs during term time. During holidays they would go home and work a full time job. To us lazy Brits this was a real culture shock, we were used to spending our free time in the pub, spending the money the government gave/loaned us. Unless of course you have rich parents. And if you're not a US citizen you may very well struggle to get a job on a student visa

3. Yes, the education is broader, but it does narrow down as you go through the years. In the UK we specialise a lot earlier, though since I was a stoodent 10 years ago our curriculum has been dumbed down a bit to match the US way of doing things eg you no longer do Physics/Chemistry/Biology at GCSE, you do "general science"

4. Due to their later specialisation, as others have intimated, US degrees are less "advanced" than British degrees, for want of a better word. Much of the Freshmen & Sophomore curriculum I found to be roughly equivalent to A-level, Junior and Senior courses were about the same as a 1st or 2nd year British degree. It is my learned opinion that to get the same level of education as a British degree (in your chosen field) you would have to do a 1 year Masters degree at a US university.

Any questions feel free to ask

**Mount Suribachi** · 10-02-2004, 21:13

Oh, I forgot to add, although it is academically "easier", its actually not quite the case.

Our first term there, all us Brits breezed through our classes laughing about how easy it was, doing as little work as possible and when we got 70% in our exams we patted ourselves on the back at how well we'd done. 70% in a British exam is an A grade. 70% in a US exam is, at best, a grade C. To get an A you would need 90%, and to get 90% you need to do some serious swotting, even for a relatively easy subject.

Although the subjects and questions were generally easier, we found we had to work much harder when revising for our exams - which were btw much more numerous than in the UK, lots of mid-term exams, all of which contributed to your final grade.

In my second term I did much more swotting and my GPA jumped from 1.9 in my first term to 3.2

And finally, lest anyone thinks I am bashing US Academia, whilst in the US I had to study Statistical Mechanics, which to this day remains the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. 1 hour, 3 times a week I would concentrate furiously and leave class with a spinning head......