American education

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Could someone please explain how the American education system works?

In Australia and England you go from high school to university. Then after three or perhaps four years you graduate as a Ba or a Bsc or perhaps as a lawyer. Obviously it takes longer to become a doctor.

In other words you go straight from high school to medical school.

It would seem that in America you go to "college" (whatever that is) for several years and then do "pre med" or "pre-law" courses (whatever they are) and only after that do you start learning to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Holy cow! How old are you when you graduate?

"pre-med" and "pre-law" are actually regular undergraduate (college after high school) programs, but the courses are geared towards going on to law or medical school. Just like any other post-doctorate study (like a Biology major might choose a Master's course in Biology). It is only an area of study and not an actual degree specification.

well...


most of occurrs in hell,

but first you start out in the acid river,
then you're moved to the stone,
and then there's the falcon that eats your guts out,

then you finish up chained to the side of a mountain overlooking a gentle italian countryside village where children are running free in play and people enjoy their lives...


oh, and by that time your somewhere around 26 years of age and no longer able to wipe your own *ss from all the torture

So would someone explain how it works?

Say you want to be a lawyer. As I said, in Australia you go straight into law school.

In America you have to do what? Two years of "college"? Four years of college?
Do you have to get a degree like a Ba before you even start to learn law or medicine?

How long does it take? Then how long to get a Master's degree and how long to get a Phd?

okay...In America a BA or Bs or any bachelor degree is four years long. There is no such thing as a "general" three year BA and an "honours" four year BA as there is in England Australia or Canada.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor%2 ... ted_States

A law degree in America or the States is a second degree after a BA in anything (doesn't have to be pre-law) but it helps with entry into law school. It is considered a professional degree (like a medical or dental degree). I'm pretty sure most law degrees take three years to complete.

masters and PHD length vary. quite a bit ....depending on what you study and how long it takes you to complete work on your dissertation/thesis......

btw...I am Canadian...I just have two sisters who live in the states.

=)

So in America you have to do a four year BA before you even start to do your three year law degree?

Wow! That sucks big time.

So a guy 25 years old is still dependent on his parents. (Can I have $50 and borrow the car so that I can take a girl to the movies?)
That is so degrading.

I was in the workforce as an apprentice electrician when I was 16. I roared around town on my own motorcycle.

At the age of 20 I was a qualified electrician making good money and living in another city.
I had my own apartment and a sports car. Life was good.

Most of my male friends were married by the age of 22 or 23, paying off a house and with a child or two with a "stay at home" wife.

I was late. I didn't marry until I was 24 but I am still married to the same woman 38 years later.

Hold on, what? In England you go from secondary school to college, then you go to university.

To become a either a barrister or a solicitor in England you don't just get a law degree I thought you had to have post-grad qualifications as well.

If you mean GCSEs and A Levels, then no, you don't. In fact - and I got this information from a lawyer - A Level Law is a complete waste of time.

Well most students in graduate school (general US name for post-bachelor's degree education such as law school, medical school, or those seeking a more advanced degree in whatever field they're in) have jobs. Not as well-paying as lawyer, but they may work as an intern in a law firm. So I wouldn't say they're all still living on their parents' money by any means.

LOL I am 25 and I still live at home and am going to university!
I’m still working on an undergrad degree though... I switched majors a lot.....I am writing my honours thesis this year...so I'm not the typical case

I would have to (will probably) live at home if I were to go to grad school and my independence would be prolonged bcs I couldn't handle being married , having children working ect AND going to grad school at the same time. Some people do keep jobs during grad school ...often as "tutorial assistants" which are assistants to the professors that grade papers and what-not and some grad students are even married with children. I even have a female prof who just got off maternity leave and has a 6 month old baby (who goes to daycare while she teaches). Some live at home with family but others somehow manage to pay their own rent. I think these people are super-human! =)

In general though...I think the more education people have the more they prolong their independence. For example my mom comes from a family of very educated people ......her and her sisters did not move out of the family home or get married until they were in their early thirties or late twenties. My mum and one of her sisters got masters degrees. For my sister and I it would be considered marrying early if we got married at 24 and a REALLY early (a little scandalous) if we got married before that. This is a very different life then one where you are independent at 16 and established by 20....I actually can't even imagine that!

They give you a test then put you in a box for the rest of your life.



Almost that bad.

Typical American education (today). Pre-school (optional...to get a kid ready for kindergarten...really just a daycare center with some education thrown in). K-5 (six years typically) is elementary education...the basics. 6-8 is "middle school" where they start teaching you more advanced stuff to prepare you for high school. 9-12 is "high school" which is supposed to produce kids ready to go to work in a vocation or go on to college. Nowadays, kids emerge from high school at the common age of 18 prepared for neither.

After high school, your options are all yours. You have tech schools that could last from a couple months to a few years that focus on training your for a specific job field. You can go to college for 2, 4 or 6 years (Associates, Bachelors, Masters degrees). Bachelors degrees are the most common. Most masters programs require special admission even if you are already going to the school that it's hosted at. Doctorate degrees for most programs are not so much a special school as just another level above Masters degree and you must publish a dissertation to earn your degree.

For a frame of reference, to "major" in a field for a BA/BS degree, you only need to take ten 3-credit-hour classes (total of 30 hours/week for about 14-16 weeks) in that field of study...which is why college is criticized so much. A lot of money and time to learn something that on-the-job you could be taught in under 6 months as an apprentice.

There are specialty school programs and schools beyond college. Pharmacy school, medical school, law school, etc. Typically 3-4 years and all your training is focused on the discipline you're studying...even your elective classes are based on that area of study.

A person going through the system on to med or law school can expect to graduate by the time they reach 25...more or less.

The real shame with the American system is that the public school system is so broken that rather than kids being job-ready on graduation day, most need additional schooling to be eligible to get a half-decent job. Schooling that they must now pay for out of their own pockets. This had created a load of problems across the board. College was only supposed to be for a select few needing advanced education. Now, so many employers have been brainwashed to think a college degree is needed to do the most basic of jobs and many have shifted off of apprenticeships and on-the-job training to put the burden on the job applicant and the academic market, but it's not possible for a job applicant to know what specific skills are needed and obtain them BEFORE applying for work unless they decide they want to spend their lives doing a given profession when they are too young and inexperienced to know what they really would like to do with their lives.

My major requires 51 credit hours in the major field itself (not counting the required math sequence) plus a minor. I'm planning on taking 2 minors, one of which is 21 hours, the other is 24 hours. In the 2 minor fields, one requires 48 hours for a major, and one requires 39 hours.

But even if you only needed 30 hours worth of stuff, that's more than 6 months. And it's assuming that you could actually take all of it at once. For some fields, you probably could, but in a lot of fields, you need to complete prerequisites in order to understand higher-level material. For my major, prerequisites nest 4 deep, and there are only 2 classes at the beginning level; if you were immune to mental exhaustion you could probably knock out the major part of it in about 2 and a half years. A very rough 2 and a half years.

No I meant after undergraduate. Although yeah A level Law is pretty much unnecessary.

A valid point, but really, the "prerequisite" stuff is sometimes a sham...just a way to make you take more "mandatory classes" at considerable expense. When it comes to "career-relevant" course work, you take very little compared to everything else they make you take for your degree.