How to learn in the US (continued)

At the numerous requests of workers, the continuation of the article “How they are taught in the USA” , in which I hope to reveal the topic of and about the first cruise, or about studying as such.

So.

Diplomas

State diplomas are different: white, blue, summa cum laude.
There are several serious etops of learning, separated by the assignment of a certain degree. The lowest level - Associate, is assigned after about two years of study, or ~ 60 credits. It roughly corresponds to the Russian technical school. Such a diploma can be obtained at any 2-year college. Then you can transfer to a university or college more seriously: the next milestone is Bachelors (bachelor). This is about 2 years or 120 credits (total ~ 4 years). This is more or less some kind of achievement. This is followed by the Masters (Master?), This is another year or two depending on the load. This is already cool, with such a piece of paper you can already show off. But the best of perfection, to my knowledge, is the PhD. This is still a couple of years of scientific work and can probably be compared only with a doctoral program. The tuition fee during this entire process increases almost exponentially from milestone to milestone. Those. PhD costs 10 times more than Associate.

Diplomas with distinction are divided into three types: cum laude (lat. "With honor"), magna cum laude (lat. "With great honor") and summa cum laude (lat. "With great honor"). These are given only to the scored excellent students, whose average score for the whole time of training is approximated or equal to 4.0 (maximum possible).

Training

Salt Lake Community College (this is where I entered) is fairly easy to study. Generally Community (public?) Colleges are considered the cheapest and not prestigious, because they go there all and sundry. Appropriate teachers: many have a different job, and they are taught only because it is required for a degree. Many specifically put on you, you learn or not. If you more or less appear on objects and pass everything on time, then it is very realistic to get all the fives.
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Subjects are divided into general education and profile. General education, in turn, are compulsory or optional. Mandatory - this is Math, English and a few more. Then you still have to choose from a dozen subjects from other categories such as humanitarian disciplines, sociology, philosophy, exact sciences, etc., in order to be “fully developed”.

Profile subjects are determined strictly depending on the chosen specialty and are mandatory. Many of these items have mandatory prerequisites, i.e. To register for such specific items, you must successfully pass the other (s) subject (s), which should precede the logic. For example: to start learning matan nada first learn algebra and trigonometry.

schedule

Obligation as such does not exist. In general, you can go to the university just for fun. Nobody owes anything to anyone (well, except for tuition money). Since the training system is credit, the only thing that they look at when issuing a diploma is the accumulation of accumulated credits for compulsory subjects. At each school there is a whole army of consultants who, for free, will help everyone who wants to choose a schedule for taste, availability of free time and money. For myself, I made a schedule, according to which, if I take an average of 4 subjects per semester, then I will finish a 2-year course in a year and a half.

Due to such freedom of action, such a thing as a “group” is completely absent. Since even those who entered the same specialty at the same time may have different schedules, the probability that two people will ever meet in more than one class is very small.

Semesters

Depending on the university, there may be 3 or 4 semesters per year. Autumn is 3.5 months, spring is 3.5 months, summer is 2 months, and in some cases there is also a short winter semester - up to 3 weeks. The first three semesters usually have 2 more sub-semesters in themselves: the first third (~ month) and the second 2/3. If possible, you can take the item, calculated only for a month. Those. In a few weeks of straining, you can gain the required number of hours to get a credit for the entire subject. Nobody forces you, but if you want to get a diploma quickly, then this is a good option. For example, this summer I will have a course of lectures on oratory, calculated for 3 weeks. Thus, during 3 weeks from Monday to Friday, I will spend 4 hours a day in these lectures, but in the end I will get rid of this junk quickly and forever.

First grade

The division into courses as such does not exist. Depending on the personal schedule, students can study the same program from one year to infinity. But roughly divided as follows: the first year - freshman (like a novice), the second - sophomore (ignoramus), the third - junior (junior), and senior (guarded).

I'm probably already sophomore, but the first year was pretty difficult for me. As if I knew something to expect, but I wasn’t exactly sure. One of my very first subjects was a 3 week course in US Political History. So I was messing around: I sat at nights, wrote notes. But with experience comes wisdom, and now I go to school lightly - only with a netbook (the benefit of the whole area is free internet).

You come to the school on the first day of the semester, and the first thing the teacher gives you is the so-called syllabus (training plan). Everything is written there in detail, starting with the full name of the professor, his contact information and academic titles, and ending with the requirements for the subject and literally the hourly schedule of the day. The most interesting thing is that by law every teacher must mention that the college is fully prepared to support students with “difficulties”, i.e. disabled people, etc.

Lectures usually last an hour and a half, the homework may or may not be set, depending on the degree of laziness of the teacher. Tests and examinations are all written, in most cases you need to choose the correct answer and show the work done. Although I had a couple of times that it was possible to solve the test from home or on a computer.

In general, a lot of extracurricular communication between pupils and teachers takes place via email. Some professors already trust the Internet so much that they set up home tests online.

Well, from the beginning of my studies I have already completed the following subjects: Political History of the USA, English, Advanced English, Matane, Physiology, Private Entrepreneurship, Accounting, Database, Microeconomics, HTML, Operating Systems. But still learn and learn. So wish me luck in this fight.

There’s really a lot to tell, but I'm already going to bed. So ask questions

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