In the US, “in university” or “in hospital” sounds strange, just like it would sound strange in other English-speaking countries to say “in football stadium” or “in department store.” Your listener could probably figure out what you mean, but would first think “which university” or “which department store?”
The words “school” and “college” do work like that however, to denote a general condition of being enrolled in a school or college/university. I doubt there’s an explanation; it’s just an idiom.
Once upon a time in Merry Olde, intellectually thirsty young men would go to inns of court and hang about dining tables for a while – years even, while they learned from the regulars. Once the regulars figured that the youth were knowledgeable and responsible enough to not become embuggerances, the youth were called up past the bar that separated the old codgers who ruled the roost over the rabble.
Some common law jurisdictions still figuratively do it this way, including mine in Ontario, the Law Society of Upper Canada, only these days, after about a year of courses and articling (apprenticing) we’re called to the bar (graduated) and handed a degree called Barrister at Law rather than a tankard of ale. That degree is a significant component of a tradesperson’s ticket to practising law in Ontario (the others being the Superior Court welcoming you with another certificate, and the LSUC registering you as being a member in good standing who is in compliance with conduct/good character, ongoing education and fees requirements). The years of university undergrad and university law school courses are only pre-requisites to getting into the non-university bar admission process that then includes about a year of courses and articling/apprenticing before a person is admitted to the guild and permitted to practice as a lawyer. http://www.lincolnsinn.org.uk/index.php/history-of-the-inn
So yeh, Yllaria, there are some real one-year degrees that are issued after a year of real work and study by organizations that are not universities, but note that as lawyer Northern Piper has pointed out, there are Canadian jurisdictions such as his in which the body that governs lawyers does not grant a degree to people who are admitted to the practice of law after completing their year of courses and articling/apprenticeship.
I expect that the holy vorpal sword’s non-university decree of degree is a historical artifact. Where it gets interesting is the back and forth between the legal guilds’ governing bodies and the universities, with universities increasingly taking on the education tasks that the guilds traditionally had. For example, in my town the university’s bouncing baby new law school offers a program that includes some practical work that exempts its graduates from having to spend a further year in the Law Society’s course/exam/articling/apprenticing program, but that is for another thread.
I’m from the same part of Canada as elbows. He is right most Canadians would say university. Having several American friends, I prefer saying college because:
it sounds much less pretentious
it helps identify snobs, who always emphasize the distinction here
many Canadians have some higher education, so it is more inclusive
to my ear it just sounds more international and flows better
I have graduated from four universities and am studying at a fifth, some on full scholarship. The more I learn, the more trivial the difference between “college” and “uni” seems.
This is just an unsupported guess, but I wonder if the usage difference between Canada (university v. college) and the USA (college v. college) might have something to do with the USA having had a great many junior colleges long before the community college boom that both countries had in the 60s. Prior to the development of community colleges to meet the needs of baby boomers, there were not many junior colleges in Canada. Formal institutional post-secondary education was for the most part university education, so folks got into the habit of calling it university rather than college. When colleges burst forth in the 60s and 70s, they were not officially named universities because they offered something very different than universities, and there was no reason to stop commonly referring to universities as universities and instead refer to them as colleges just because colleges that were not universities came onto the scene.
Today there is some overlap between Canadian universities and Canadian colleges. Some college courses can be applied for transfer credit to university programs, and some colleges are offering degrees in some programs. The American usage of “college” as a catch-all for post secondary education would make more sense to describe what exists in Canada now, and the direction in which Canada is moving, but the history of the development of our post-secondary institutions has left us with usage that is antiquated.
As an addendum to “going to the University”, that construction would only be used in the US if it’s clear from context what university is meant. If you’re in a college town, for instance (and there’s another usage where “college” is used broadly), you might say “I’m going up to the University to see a public talk by such-and-such speaker”, and everyone would know that you meant the University that sits in the middle of town. On the other hand, you probably wouldn’t say that in Cleveland, because we have multiple universities: You’d either say that you were going up to CSU, or that you were going up to Case.
I think it has more to do with the USA’s long tradition of (small) liberal arts colleges, which are not junior colleges. They are known officially as Colleges, not Universities, but they offer four-year degrees which can be (depending on the institution) just as respectable or even prestigious as those awarded by universities. For example, see at least some of the schools on US News & World Report’s list of National Liberal Arts Colleges.
Nothing like it, and I expect one hell of a lot more fun!
My cadre of six went through the program in the back end of beyond, a thousand-mile drive from the bar course locations, so we did it courtesy of the tremendous generosity of our local judges and lawyers who graciously took us into their offices and helped us learn what we needed to know, including learning to deeply appreciate how important it is to play well in the sandbox as professionals trying to solve problems together despite being at the pointy end of an extremely adversarial system. I cannot think of a single lawyer in the region whom I could not call up for advice, shoot ideas off of, or have critique my arguments, just as other lawyers in the region, particularly junior lawyers, call me for the same.
There are some things that don’t come with book learning. As our education and certification process continues to evolve, I hope we do not lose this focus on professional collegiality – of knowing that we’re all in it together. I don’t want us to lose an appreciation for the ancient inns at court, not out of as sense of tradition, but rather out of a need to make lawyers who are better at meeting the legal needs of the public rather than emotionally and financially destroying clients while chewing on each others’ shins.
All of my degrees have been well worth it, but the one that has been the most useful was that little one-year bar program that wasn’t from a university and that at the time I didn’t even realize ended with a formal degree.
Until this thread, I wasn’t aware that there was a difference between colleges and universities in most of the world. Some places have “college” in the name and some have “university,” but damned if I know why they pick one or the other. There are “junior colleges” and “community colleges” that generally don’t offer four-year degrees. Also, many universities, for example Texas A&M where my son goes, have a College of Engineering and other sub-universities within them.
But I was never aware of a formal difference, just a difference in how the terms were commonly used. Then there’s the grammatical idiom where we will say “in college” but not “in university.”
My son is in college. Where? At Texas A&M University. And by the way, you didn’t ask, but he’s in the College of Engineering.