OPEN BAR: it rubs the lotion on the skin or it gets the hose again

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

28 more chemistry problems.

Incidentally, this is what I like about the higher end undergrad and postgrad courses.  No more constant tests of your patience and ability to read the source material.  If you didn't do the reading, well then that's a gap in your knowledge and you are to blame.  Sure will suck if you need to know any of that.

Conversely, if you really know the stuff you need to in order to get the work on the graded pieces, you don't have to jump through hoops for anything else.  Which is why I'm skipping this week's required reading...that and I read it two years ago.

But then, it seems American and British higher education are quite a bit different anyway (British seems much more specialized...the American system seems to require a broader range of study topics, such as maths classes etc), so maybe that difference isn't one you'll see so much of either.

The only stipulation on my choices were: no timetable clashes, and they had to be drawn from the Arts Faculty (for the purposes of module choice, Psychology is considered both an Art and a Science.  Which funnily enough, I agree with).  I could have done Russian, or Anthropology, or History (I shoulda done more History) or literature. 

My impression is that in the American system it is far more prescriptive, as in you must have x amount of credits in maths or a language or whatever.

Well, the way it works here is that the first two years they're basically filling you in on foundational material, and test the crap out of you partly to see if you're actually learning, and partly to weed out people who aren't stupidly dedicated, religious about  their study schedules, and willing to sacrifice their personal lives and occasionally even basic needs in order to complete the course. Yes, they really do that; for example, scheduling lab 10 minutes after the end of class so you're in from 4pm until 9pm with no chance to eat. It's a total dick move, but it's just how it is. This is lab sciences; if you're majoring in humanities the first two years are pretty cushy.

One of the things this does is enforces a completely artificial separation between the science nerds, who are mostly too shell-shocked and exhausted to be able to formulate a complete sentence, and the arts and humanities people, who are busy having parties and developing full, rich, rewarding social networks.

The second two years, if you're in arts and humanities, the breadth and depth of the papers you're supposed to write increases along with your reading load, and if you're in science, you finally get a fucking break and can start taking some fun classes, like genetics and cell biology and stuff like that. But not too many fun classes because you still have your third-year requirements like Anatomy and Physiology or whatever specific torture applies to your subfield. You also have Junior Cluster, which at my university is a cluster of classes that are totally unrelated to your major (at PSU all Junior Clusters are oriented toward social justice or environmentalism, because Portland), and from your Junior Cluster springs your capstone project, which is some kind of original research you do senior year. I am pretty sure I already know what my capstone is going to be in, because it will allow me to maintain collaboration with the School of Public Health even though neither of my majors have anything to do with the School of Public Health, but I love them and I want to keep my fingers in the pool.

I think that what you do for graduate degrees varies a lot. The program I most want to get into, you take some classes the first year, spend the second year in lab rotations, and then by the third year you should have found a lab to work in to complete your
doctoral research.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and yeah, the "Foundational Requirements" for a degree are pretty broad. For my degree, I had to have 90 credits (one three-month class is typically 4 credits, 5 if it's a particularly heavy math or science class) and 12 credits per 3-month term is considered full-time, though you can go up to 18. I do not recommend taking 18 credits, I did that once. I generally hover around 15.

You have to have a certain minimum of credits from every single "umbrella" discipline category in order to graduate, which is why I've taken architecture.  I needed 12 credits of arts.

I actually have way more credits than I needed to graduate, but a lot of them are prerequisites for the grad program and I figured I'd do them now.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, pretty sure the last 7 days have been the worst days of my life, at least the worst days since I left the fucking military.  I tried to get fired, they fucking promoted me.  I am full to the gills with benzos, and I'm still so stressed that my muscles keep fucking cramping up.  I hate my fucking job, I hate my fucking city, I hate my fucking life, and right now, I hate everybody and everything.

4 more months.  4 stinking months and I can flee back into the fucking desert, where I belong.  Benson area, maybe.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Chemistry prof says that I can get 80% on the final and still end up with an A in the class.

I can relax a little.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh my god, you know what I'm looking forward to about university classes?

Grading on the curve.

[Ben Shapiro]

What Roger needs is a plasma chainsaw. Harpoon??? What are you a English man??

[Cain]

Nigel, that sounds a bit more like the Scottish system actually.  In most of England and Wales, you get a year to dick around a little bit, but from the second year onwards, you're in on your course and nothing else.  Not sure about how the sciences work down here, as my only science friends did medicine and vetinary surgery, and those are a lot more vocational.

But in Scotland, it seems much the same.  The first two years, if you're humanities, you have about 10 hours a week of classes, and maybe another 10 hours a week of reading (which, if you're even halfway competent, is mostly optional).  Sciences have a lot more lab time and definitely get shafted on the whole "social life" bit...I got a taste of this, doing Psych, and being in a dorm with a lot of astronomy and chem majors (Astronomy guys got it tough...their tutorials would start at 1800 and go on to 2300 on paper, and often beyond that in reality). 

Third year is where actual reading and work kicks in...I probably had about 30 hours a week of just reading, most of it mandatory, and much more demanding essays.

But yeah, the broadness is still kinda surprising.  I mean, 12 points from the arts?  None of our scientists could even take an art module, and most wouldn't want to anyway.

Our credit system was basically 120 credits a year to pass.  So my first year modules were either worth 20 points or, in the case of the 2 philosophy classes, 10 points each (but less classes per week).  A full third of those must come from your degree course, but otherwise you're free to choose from within whatever modules the School of Arts or Science provides, depending on which one you are enrolled in.  In the final two years, each module is worth 30 credits, so you're really only doing two modules a semester, and if you're doing a double degree, then it's one from each of your topics.  Scotland only has two semesters, I should point out. 

[Suu]

Oh my god, you know what I'm looking forward to about university classes?

Grading on the curve.

In a large undergrad class, it's okay. In a small graduate cohort, that curve can mean pass or fail.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

28 more chemistry problems.

Incidentally, this is what I like about the higher end undergrad and postgrad courses.  No more constant tests of your patience and ability to read the source material.  If you didn't do the reading, well then that's a gap in your knowledge and you are to blame.  Sure will suck if you need to know any of that.

Conversely, if you really know the stuff you need to in order to get the work on the graded pieces, you don't have to jump through hoops for anything else.  Which is why I'm skipping this week's required reading...that and I read it two years ago.

But then, it seems American and British higher education are quite a bit different anyway (British seems much more specialized...the American system seems to require a broader range of study topics, such as maths classes etc), so maybe that difference isn't one you'll see so much of either.

The only stipulation on my choices were: no timetable clashes, and they had to be drawn from the Arts Faculty (for the purposes of module choice, Psychology is considered both an Art and a Science.  Which funnily enough, I agree with).  I could have done Russian, or Anthropology, or History (I shoulda done more History) or literature. 

My impression is that in the American system it is far more prescriptive, as in you must have x amount of credits in maths or a language or whatever.

Well, the way it works here is that the first two years they're basically filling you in on foundational material, and test the crap out of you partly to see if you're actually learning, and partly to weed out people who aren't stupidly dedicated, religious about  their study schedules, and willing to sacrifice their personal lives and occasionally even basic needs in order to complete the course. Yes, they really do that; for example, scheduling lab 10 minutes after the end of class so you're in from 4pm until 9pm with no chance to eat. It's a total dick move, but it's just how it is. This is lab sciences; if you're majoring in humanities the first two years are pretty cushy.

One of the things this does is enforces a completely artificial separation between the science nerds, who are mostly too shell-shocked and exhausted to be able to formulate a complete sentence, and the arts and humanities people, who are busy having parties and developing full, rich, rewarding social networks.

The second two years, if you're in arts and humanities, the breadth and depth of the papers you're supposed to write increases along with your reading load, and if you're in science, you finally get a fucking break and can start taking some fun classes, like genetics and cell biology and stuff like that. But not too many fun classes because you still have your third-year requirements like Anatomy and Physiology or whatever specific torture applies to your subfield. You also have Junior Cluster, which at my university is a cluster of classes that are totally unrelated to your major (at PSU all Junior Clusters are oriented toward social justice or environmentalism, because Portland), and from your Junior Cluster springs your capstone project, which is some kind of original research you do senior year. I am pretty sure I already know what my capstone is going to be in, because it will allow me to maintain collaboration with the School of Public Health even though neither of my majors have anything to do with the School of Public Health, but I love them and I want to keep my fingers in the pool.

I think that what you do for graduate degrees varies a lot. The program I most want to get into, you take some classes the first year, spend the second year in lab rotations, and then by the third year you should have found a lab to work in to complete your
doctoral research.

...and all this varies by University and locale, of course. Junior clusters weren't a thing at the university I worked for. We just had "Freshman Seminars." They were specific to your college. Little 3 credit "Welcome to the College of Natural Sciences. Do your work. Study hard. Don't die of alcohol poisoning, please." Outside of that there were 3 very broad core areas. You had to touch each, but could reach the relatively low number of total required credits however you wanted beyond that. The only specific university requirements were composition and college algebra. The math(s) requirement changed 3 times in the 6 years I worked there, though--trying to strike some reasonable balance between accommodating majors that are in no way related to a proficiency in logarithmic functions, and the University's interest in making sure that people don't see a CSU bachelor's degree on the wall of somebody who has to remove their shoes to count to 20.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

28 more chemistry problems.

Incidentally, this is what I like about the higher end undergrad and postgrad courses.  No more constant tests of your patience and ability to read the source material.  If you didn't do the reading, well then that's a gap in your knowledge and you are to blame.  Sure will suck if you need to know any of that.

Conversely, if you really know the stuff you need to in order to get the work on the graded pieces, you don't have to jump through hoops for anything else.  Which is why I'm skipping this week's required reading...that and I read it two years ago.

But then, it seems American and British higher education are quite a bit different anyway (British seems much more specialized...the American system seems to require a broader range of study topics, such as maths classes etc), so maybe that difference isn't one you'll see so much of either.

The only stipulation on my choices were: no timetable clashes, and they had to be drawn from the Arts Faculty (for the purposes of module choice, Psychology is considered both an Art and a Science.  Which funnily enough, I agree with).  I could have done Russian, or Anthropology, or History (I shoulda done more History) or literature. 

My impression is that in the American system it is far more prescriptive, as in you must have x amount of credits in maths or a language or whatever.

Well, the way it works here is that the first two years they're basically filling you in on foundational material, and test the crap out of you partly to see if you're actually learning, and partly to weed out people who aren't stupidly dedicated, religious about  their study schedules, and willing to sacrifice their personal lives and occasionally even basic needs in order to complete the course. Yes, they really do that; for example, scheduling lab 10 minutes after the end of class so you're in from 4pm until 9pm with no chance to eat. It's a total dick move, but it's just how it is. This is lab sciences; if you're majoring in humanities the first two years are pretty cushy.

One of the things this does is enforces a completely artificial separation between the science nerds, who are mostly too shell-shocked and exhausted to be able to formulate a complete sentence, and the arts and humanities people, who are busy having parties and developing full, rich, rewarding social networks.

The second two years, if you're in arts and humanities, the breadth and depth of the papers you're supposed to write increases along with your reading load, and if you're in science, you finally get a fucking break and can start taking some fun classes, like genetics and cell biology and stuff like that. But not too many fun classes because you still have your third-year requirements like Anatomy and Physiology or whatever specific torture applies to your subfield. You also have Junior Cluster, which at my university is a cluster of classes that are totally unrelated to your major (at PSU all Junior Clusters are oriented toward social justice or environmentalism, because Portland), and from your Junior Cluster springs your capstone project, which is some kind of original research you do senior year. I am pretty sure I already know what my capstone is going to be in, because it will allow me to maintain collaboration with the School of Public Health even though neither of my majors have anything to do with the School of Public Health, but I love them and I want to keep my fingers in the pool.

I think that what you do for graduate degrees varies a lot. The program I most want to get into, you take some classes the first year, spend the second year in lab rotations, and then by the third year you should have found a lab to work in to complete your
doctoral research.

...and all this varies by University and locale, of course. Junior clusters weren't a thing at the university I worked for. We just had "Freshman Seminars." They were specific to your college. Little 3 credit "Welcome to the College of Natural Sciences. Do your work. Study hard. Don't die of alcohol poisoning, please." Outside of that there were 3 very broad core areas. You had to touch each, but could reach the relatively low number of total required credits however you wanted beyond that. The only specific university requirements were composition and college algebra. The math(s) requirement changed 3 times in the 6 years I worked there, though--trying to strike some reasonable balance between accommodating majors that are in no way related to a proficiency in logarithmic functions, and the University's interest in making sure that people don't see a CSU bachelor's degree on the wall of somebody who has to remove their shoes to count to 20.

That's why I said "here". Standards and requirements vary by state and may be completely different in private schools.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Flashmobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh3i3vWgPyk

FLASHMOBS!

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Our credit system was basically 120 credits a year to pass.  So my first year modules were either worth 20 points or, in the case of the 2 philosophy classes, 10 points each (but less classes per week).  A full third of those must come from your degree course, but otherwise you're free to choose from within whatever modules the School of Arts or Science provides, depending on which one you are enrolled in.  In the final two years, each module is worth 30 credits, so you're really only doing two modules a semester, and if you're doing a double degree, then it's one from each of your topics.  Scotland only has two semesters, I should point out.

I like semesters much better than quarters so far. If I were more on top of things, that may be different, but as it stands, I feel deadlines nipping at my ass all term. Then you get a couple weeks off to breathe, and it's run, run, run, again.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh my god, you know what I'm looking forward to about university classes?

Grading on the curve.

In a large undergrad class, it's okay. In a small graduate cohort, that curve can mean pass or fail.

I suppose that would be true for students who tend to fall closer to the 90th percentile.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Our credit system was basically 120 credits a year to pass.  So my first year modules were either worth 20 points or, in the case of the 2 philosophy classes, 10 points each (but less classes per week).  A full third of those must come from your degree course, but otherwise you're free to choose from within whatever modules the School of Arts or Science provides, depending on which one you are enrolled in.  In the final two years, each module is worth 30 credits, so you're really only doing two modules a semester, and if you're doing a double degree, then it's one from each of your topics.  Scotland only has two semesters, I should point out.

I like semesters much better than quarters so far. If I were more on top of things, that may be different, but as it stands, I feel deadlines nipping at my ass all term. Then you get a couple weeks off to breathe, and it's run, run, run, again.

Yeah, it's exhausting.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Flashmobs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh3i3vWgPyk

FLASHMOBS!

Oh, my.