OK fine, that is super duper clear. But it is not the common usage of the terms in the US, so don’t complain if not everyone is familiar with it.
OK, so you are a second semester sophomore according to the usage I am most familiar with. Does that match up with how you see it on that scale? If so, we are good to go
Yeah, that is very unusual I think. My own University had/has many schools within it, that much is not unusual. We had Schools of Engineering, Arts and Sciences., Education, Business, Nursing, etc, all a the undergrad level. But not one group that handled the prereqs for all the rest - all the lower level courses still fell within this department or that inside of a School. E.g. There were various options for Calculus, but they were all in the Math Department, and we didn’t wait until we were juniors to take departmental courses, we took them once we had the pre-reqs if any.
I assumed that was pretty common, maybe not, maybe my ignorance is being fought on that matter.
I just asked. It was someone else that said what s/he thought I might be thinking.
BTW, I just googled “upper college”. The usage seems rare enough that at first glance only one college in the US is using it. That school does not seem to have a nursing progam, and it does not describe itself as a University either. I googled “lower college” “upper college”, that turned up a US University with a Nursing program.
It seems like a very rare usage indeed, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Protip: nitpicking is the Straight Dope past time. It seems really annoying, and doesn’t really stop being annoying, but I think most of them mean well, except for the ones that are jerks.
However the same strategy works for both. Don’t take it personal, and maybe learn from it, if there’s something to be learned. If they mean well then mission accomplished. If they’re jerks then they’ve failed in their mission. Either way you come out ahead. not_alice doesn’t strike me as being a jerk, just a bit confused and unintentionally harsh in that confusion.
Lower college = undergraduate (pre-law, pre-medicine, etc.)
Upper college = professional school (law, medicine, etc., for which you need an undergrad degree)
My understanding now is that for freshman and sophomore years, the students take pre-reqs and other courses needed to provide a broad educational base (the terminology for that might vary from school to school in the US so I will use a generic one instead).
Then during junior and senior year, they focus (primarily but not quite exclusively?) on their departmental courses.
But I am pretty sure most of us would just consider this a regular 4 year University, and this is just their internal process, albeit apparently unusual in how they refer to it internally.
The process itself does not seem out of the realm of how schools might do this I suppose, but the way it is expressed seems to be unique. I don’t see that as good or bad, but I now await the day it turns up in a crossword puzzle because I know about it!
I wonder if it’s meant to mirror primary education.
We had elementary, middle and then high school. Some places have elementary, junior high, and then high school. The last school is almost always high school.
I guess it’s supposed to be like you’re advancing in the ranks, but it mainly gave the stoners something extra to giggle about.
Hmm, now that I think about it, a colleague of mine might be an alumnus of the University in question. I will try to remember to ask him about this next time I talk to him.
Holy moly. :rolleyes: How did this thread end up here?
And how do you think you know where I attend school based on your google search?
No, the University itself does call itself a lower college, or refer to the colleges as upper colleges. Those are terms we students use. Jeez!
And I do take offense to not_alice, because s/he is just being an ass. I came here to vent about something and you feel the need to shred it apart! Why???
I have a friend who is in her junior year here, and still it’s referred to as being in lower college, because she has not completed the class load required for her upper college. So no, it’s not a freshman/sophomore, junior/senior thing.
So now that my original feelings have been dealt with, how the hell do I close this thread? I really don’t feel like getting ripped a new one anymore by someone who thinks they know it all.
While I’m not familiar with the terms used by the OP, it’s not uncommon for students to have to apply to a department/school/college after a year or two at the college/university. I applied to be a chemistry major toward the end of my 4th semester in college. Granted, I’d been taking chemistry and other required classes until then with the assumption that I would be a chemistry major, and I don’t know of them ever telling someone “no”.
I don’t care where you attend school. It is just that the jargon you used seems unique enough that only one school seems to turn up thus in google.
If you told us about an incident in your “eating club” we’d pretty much be able to guess the school too.
My school had internal slang/jargon too that is probably enough to identify it were I to use it here.
Well, oddly google does not have any string of blogs or web pages or other material originating from students anywhere using those terms. Your use of them in written form outside the university may be seminal! My sincere congratulations on that! It is not often we get to see verbal usage become written usage! Language nerds appreciate that kind of stuff!
I am not shredding it apart. You used terminology EVERYONE on this thread was unfamiliar with, not just me. Being among the inquisitive types around here, I ask when exposed to new vocabulary so that I might best understand what I am reading.
As for your questions about the tests, may I suggest not asking questions if you don’t really want the answers? Or alternatively, to accept that rational answers offered in good faith might be worth considering aside one’s emotions that result from the effects of “studying” my rote memorization?
There’s a lot fo really smart people here, whether we agree with them or not. Perhaps, since it appears that you might have a lot of time on your hands next year, you can ask either here or other places where you trust to tell you the truth instead of what you want to hear, if memorization is a study skill that will take you far in your studies and chosen career path, and if not, what other skills can you practice?
I bet few if any here will tell you that memorization is the way to go in the mid or long term, and is risky and limited (as you found out) in the short term.
What is inappropriate about asking my colleague, about a feature of the education at his undergrad school that google shows to be unique in the US?
What on earth is inappropriate about comparing features of schools? Is it inappropriate to ask Princetonians about eating clubs?
Note I haven’t listed the school in question, and the OP denies that the school I found is her school anyway.
So, until this thread, I confess ignorance that there were such programs with prereqs structured as described, and now I know I have a colleague that went to such a school. I already said the structure itself is neither good nor bad to me, so what is inappropriate to me asking my colleague about it so I can fight my ignorance on the matter?
I’d do it here, but I don’t think the OP is in a reflective mood
I realize that a lot of people applaud efforts by professors to make sure that students show up for lectures, and generally during my first degree I did show up at most of my classes, however…
Asking questions on a test that have nothing to do with the subject I am paying the university to learn is rather stupid, IMO. I don’t care about the irrelevant details about the professor’s personal life. Test me on the subject, or I’ll take the course from another professor or another university.
If you want me to show up to your lectures, make your requirements challenging, not meaningless. Or just make attendance part of the grade, I’m fine with that.
Hmm, maybe my experience was unusual. My university did not advertise that you would only learn the material specifically in a text book, or even a series of topics related to the class.
Indeed, being exposed to great minds, and the process of learning itself was a major draw. Also, learning to live on our own, take responsibility in context, and so on seem to be features that schools I am most familiar with (both my alma mater and those attended or being considered by the current crop of nieces and nephews) sell themselves as.
Are there universities that pride themselves on eliminating all that and getting right to the essence of the material and nothing else?
Honest question, maybe there are. Those are not the sorts of schools that would appeal to me, so i admit they would disappear under my radar immediately if they exist. So do they exist? If so, can anyone give me a few examples by school name? I would find it fascinating to compare and contrast!
As a current student myself, I’m always happy when I see a wonky question like that on an exam. I think of them as a gimmie, a free point, because even if you’re struggling with the material you can still remember the lecture when he mentioned his 4 year old telling him her favorite color was pink or the day he told the story about a shopping trip to Costco.
If I’m stressed out during the exam I use these as a reminder to slow down, stay calm, and check my work.
I am a junior at my university and just submitted my application to the “college” which covers my major, so I get the “lower and upper school” thing.
But until recently, I didn’t know anything about it. I thought the deal was I had to officially “declare my major” to take all the upper division courses IN my major (which happens to be Film), since that is how I had heard it explained.
Nope.
I needed to apply for admission to the College of Fine and Performing Arts/Film, after completing a certain number of credit hours AND maintaining a certain GPA AND having completed certain required courses.
Assuming I am accepted (sure HOPE so, since I’ve almost run out of relevant courses to take w/o moving on to the required ones in the upper division!) I will be able to take the last year or so of stuff I need to graduate starting with the Spring term.
Re’ the OP’s “butt kicking class”, BTDT, but mine was French (which I was thrilled to get a C in, as it turned out) and not required for me to move on. I still have to pass an upper division course (or test out of it) to graduate, but I opted to skip the classes and learn on my own, using those hours to take other things more related to my major as electives.
And I’ve had professors whose tests and general teaching style were not a good match for me…is there any possibility of re-taking the course with someone else?
I’ve got a few friends in or aiming for nursing school, and I have to say, I would probably crash and burn if I had to pass some of the courses they have to take (there’s a reason I opted to go for my BA instead of a BS :D).
not_alice, you’re sitting on the OP a little hard for MPSIMS. Perhaps you are indeed hoping to fight your own ignorance on the “upper college” and “lower college” issue, but it strikes me as a little strident given the OP’s distress over her academic career. Back off a bit.
Can you let me know specifically whoch post(s) yhou are referring to.
My original question was:
That’s all I asked on that.
In response I got:
It is not me using vulgar language, or attacking people like that. But then I am not the one who had the bad day. I brushed it off, and answered the questions the OP asked of me fairly and honestly and without snark, treating her as a fair and equal conversation partner.
Then there was more snark about “super duper clear” which I also brushed off while continuing to answer the questions posed to me.
Then a bunch of other people came in and said they didn’t get the terminology either, so, remembering “google is my friend” when seeing no clear definition forthcoming here, I looked and found out what was meant and reported back to those who also did not know.
Then, OP still didn’t want to participate without insult, and called me an ass.
And the Moderator is telling me I am behaving incorrectly? As I see it I was polite in asking for a needed vocab clarification, none was forthcoming so I looked it up myself and shared, while patiently answering the OP’s questions of me, and got nothing in response but snark and insults which I wrote off to the OP’s having had a rough day) This doesn’t strike me as right, so I am open to explanations. Should I have been snarky and insulting? Not been interested in learning new vocabulary that seemed important to the OP’s story?
