Practice English Speaking&Listening with: University! British VS American | Evan Edinger & Meowitslucy

I have no clue what we're doing here

No, neither do I

Just like in university!

What are we doing there?

[ laughs ]

Hi there everyone, so today I'm here with my friend Lucy Moon

Hello!

And today, I wanted to talk about the interesting differences between universities in the UK versus America

Because I feel like there's SO MANY huge differences

And there's things that I don't know about British university culture

'Cause I only went for a master's degree

And Lucy, coincidentally

goes to one

I am at SOAS, which is in central central London, and I do history

So-as... what do you study?

Soooaaasss

History of... the world

Yeah! I do Asia and Africa, and predominately India

See i just learned American history... and then I learned

American history.... TWO

[ laughter ]

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

[ more laughter ]

First off, my first two years I spent at a community college in America, do you know what that is?

Um, I think it's where you go when you don't get into Ivy Leagues

Do you know what you do at a community college, then

You catch up?

With the really smart people?

um, NO, cause I mean, I got scholarships to go to a community college

It wasn't like

a catchup, for the most part, it's the cheapest

college you can go to

So, if you don't have a huge amount of money to spend 30 grand a year on tuition at a state school, not an Ivy League,

just any - uh - university

then you go to a community college

What you learn there is all the basic courses that you could take at the state one

For instance, I learned western civilizations,

psychology, sociology, english i, ii, speech... all that stuff

And does everyone who teaches you have a PhD?

No, usually they do at all state schools but at community colleges they usually just have masters degrees

So they're not usually the best

Sometimes you get a doctorate but most of the time its just eh...

So my first two years were free at community college cause I had a lot of scholarships

And then my next two, I had to pay 12 grand in tuition every year.

So... yeah

12 grand ...

12 grand a year

And that's very cheap, I went to the Walmart of universities.

So, like if I'd gone to any other place, I know Boston University was like 50 grand a year.

Is that like the Trader Joe

[ laughter ]

The Trader Joe's

I went to a Whole Foods university

[ laughter ]

Ooh, Okay

Pretty much every university in the UK...

A year?

...is 9 grand a year and then some are 6 grand a year

But they're the bad ones, like you wouldn't pay to go there

But you guys don't even have to pay back in time, you can pay whenever you want

E: I've heard like "oh you're not making enough money..." L: - kinda...

"that's ok, there's not even that much interest"

Just have a nice life

the problem with it is, that, they're probably gonna sell off the loans to actual private companies soon...

E: So it would be like America's then? L: Yeah E: Oooh nooo

So at the moment it's like "oh no, you have to be earning a reasonable salary,

L: ...that's fine, it all gets wiped when you're 50 E: Yeah

L: But I bet you by the time I'm 30 I'm going to be owing a lot of interest

How much did your books cost you when you had to buy school books for school?

L: I've never had to buy books for school. E: I hate you! [both laugh] You know how expensive

...my physics book was? $300

Who pays for that?

ME!

L: Where from?! No one has that money! E: I don't know!!

The physics was $300 and then my linear algebra course was like $200 and like

one semester - six months' courses - is probably like about $1000

One semester?

One semester

And like you can try and get around it by like going to school the first day "or in a uni" and hoping that someone else has it and making a friend and being like.

"Oh yeah nice book do you want to like let me use that?"

Other wise you just spend so much money it's terrible.

And what they do is, they specifically will make you get the next edition

Because every edition, every year they come out with a new book so that you can't use the old one

By changing all of the problems up. so when the teacher L: Oh my god! That's so bad!

says do problem 40, if you have the old edition, not the right problem

You'll get the problem wrong. You'll get no points.

So you literally have to spend the money. It's really annoying.

[Singing] Capitalism

[Laughter] Please can we just make that a ring tone

[Singing] Capitalism

[More Laughter]

When I went to England for my masters they gave me nine little paper back books.

which had problems in them and there was all my course work

and I was like "Oh, how much do I have to pay for this?"

Like I genuinely asked someone that and they laughed at me and I went "Oh."

Public school is a private school here

But we also call them private schools

E: Whaaat? L: I don't know!

Everything is school in America.

So if I'm going to University, I'm going to school. If I'm going to college, I'm going to school

What your masters only one year?

Yeah, which is great 'cause in America the masters is six years

Umm.. of course I already had a bachelors that's why I'm a masters one year

In a bachelors degree you don't have to write a dissertation

No I just had to take a course where I had to like research something in mathematics

For instance I was a math major so I'm not gonna write much

But I had to like research some cool thing and write a big old paper about it, but it wasn't anything new

Pretty much, every Humanities bachelor, you have to write between 10 000 and 14 000 words

in your final year on top of your other essays

E: that's not fun... L: and if you don't write it, then you don't get your thing

and that gets graded and that's what a lot of your final grade is based on

and it has to include the dependent research

Ours, I had one of those for my Masters in England

Um, except it was not that long; I waited until the day before to start it

because they told me to pass, you just need over 50%

E: and I was like, [chuckles] that's so easy! L: oh my god!

So, I literally started the night before, finished it, got a 52. Passed.

No stress.

Oh my god, that is literally like my worst nightmare.

We go to university with one specific subject in mind, we do that subject entirely pretty much-

L: -and then graduate E: Yeah, whereas I do all these things

E: Yeah L: Yeah, you do everything, surely.

Yeah, well, you kind of have to, like, you cannot graduate with a maths degree in New Jersey without taking

three different English courses, three writing courses, history courses, sociology

L: You've already done that for like 18 years.. 14 years E: No you haven't, it's America

L: So you haven't studied English for 14 years? E: Oh, no you have, but the thing is everybody's high school's are different

You could've struggled through and they'd still pass you, but when you get to university, that's where it's like

no one's babying you anymore, it's time to actually learn English.

No lie my English 101 class in college, my first year, she taught us what a subject and predicate was.

I don't actually know what that is.

Oh my God!

What is a sorority? Why do people go to them? In addition why are they so mean?

What?! They're not mean

You only hear about fraternities and sororities doing horrible things.

Well that's because horrible stuff is in the news.

They also have brotherhood which is what fraternity stands for; sorority - sisterhood.

I know a lot of really nice people that are sisters and have bigs and littles and they like care for each other.

Like for instance, you would go to a sorority and you would be assigned a big and this would be like a senior in the sorority they would like look after you as like a fresher.

And would be like "Oh hey yeah" and she'd like always make sure you were doing well.

And it's nice to have someone have your back, but you have to pay for that. Like you pay for being in the sorority.

Why would you bother?

It's really hard when you go to university and you don't have any friends. If you're in a new area...

You're paying for your friends!

You're paying for the opportunity to make friends very easily, yes.

It helps jump start you and make you social.

I didn't do it I wasn't in a fraternity or anything.

But I th- I understand it

In the UK just everyone makes friends.

That's 'cause you guys can drink, I mean we can't legally drink un till our senior year of eh

But like everyone drinks

Ye- Not really like if you get caught. I remember at my university

eh.. I you had four people in your accommodation and one of them was under 21 none of them could drink.

Completely not allowed, and if any alcohol was found in the flat everyone gets written up.

What was your application to college like? Because for us you have to go through UCAS you have to go through the big formal system

You have GCSE's right?

No, no, no. You do your GCSE's. You've past those. They are like your SAT's, and then you do A-Levels

And while you're doing your A-Levels you apply to a university through the system called UCAS

and it's a centralised system. You all have to write a personal statement. You have to get reference from your teachers

you probably went through it to get your Masters.

I had to write a - no, no I, yeah I did, I did yeah. But for my Bachelors I had to like apply to a university

and I had to write them a personal statement but you have to do it in a creative writing way

so you can't just be like "This is why I wanna join." You have to make a story

and kind of have it represent who you are and you values.