one down, two to go

Completed my first exam this morning. Honestly, this blog is more of a distraction from studying for my second exam than anything. Not that you all aren't important, but my days lately have been filled with attempts to study and learn last minute things before being evaluated. I have to say, though, in my studying with my friends from the UK, we've gotten into a lot of discussions about coursework and grades and one thing I'm realizing is there are so many differences between the US and UK educational systems.

I cannot even begin to explain the high school system here to you. To me, it sounds like they are in high school for two years and then they do two years of courses that are more focused on their interest area and structured in a way that is more transitional to a university-style schedule. Then, university and college are not the same thing here. The way I understand it, college is more like a technical school education and university is like our universities and colleges. Some people go to "college" instead of doing the last two years of high school. I think I have discussed this before, but the concept of a liberal arts education is definitely more rare in the UK. The US university system requires a much broader spectrum of classes, and therefore takes longer to achieve an undergraduate degree. While it takes at least four years in the States, undergraduate degree programs in the UK hardly ever take more than three years.

The differences abound when you start talking about how things are evaluated. We call it grading, they call it marking. While we have the gradepoint system that we are all familiar with-- I never realized how complicated it really is until I tried to explain it to a friend here. Hah! Maybe I'm just not very good at explaining! Nevertheless, for evaluating a specific assignment or exam, our grading is based on taking away points while theirs is based on earning points. So our professors give you 100% and then take away points for what you answer wrong or are missing. Here, they start at zero and give you points based on what components you have.

On a larger scale, our numerical grades are converted into letter grades while theirs are converted into another numerical system. Our top grade is an A+ depending on where you go, and theirs is called a 1st (so the top grade is a 1st, the next is a 2-1 followed by a 2-2, and then a 3rd). Step back another step and while our grades are converted into the gradepoint system and averaged based on the credit hours and accumulated as you take classes, theirs again, is different. The first year of their degree program is pass/fail. Then the next two years are weighted- sometimes each year is worth equal parts, but sometimes it is split where the second year is worth 30% and the third worth 70%. Like I said, it is very complicated.

In any sense, I must be getting back to my studying. One down, two to go!!