h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Daughter El got a room in College as part of her scholarship. We brought a load of stuff in today and set her up - the room came empty except for furniture, so we had to provide bed linen, table lamp, cups, kettle etc. The University is only about 50 minutes from home, so she'll probably come home a few nights a week. But the room will be useful for Saturday night, when she sings in the Chapel on Sunday morning, and for nights which are followed by a 9am lecture the next morning.

They do seem to grow up that little bit too fast, don't they? I do hope she will be comfy there.

She's just going into 3rd year in college.

How exciting for her - but your house will seem terribly empty the moment she leaves for the first term, even if she does intend to spend a good part of her time with you still.

College or university here is usually around age 18 or 19, so 3rd year would be well on.

The terms college and university are interchangeable here.

She'll be 21 at Christmas.

I have never actually been involved with either, but I was of the understanding that (here) colleges grant diplomas and certificates, where-as universities grant degrees. A bit of Google provides this idea as relates to Canada: "Universities focus on academic and professional programs. Colleges focus more on career training and trades."

isn't a university a collection of collages ???

Seems we don't have the old style Secondary Schools anymore. We now have Academies.

Further education for the Upper Sixth is now done in colleges.

It's all very confusing

its uber confusing

when i went to secondary school the years were 1-5/6

now when my kids go up they will be in year 7????

I took my degrees in Trinity College Dublin, where El is now. It is the only constituent college of the University of Dublin (founded in 1592 on the model of Cambridge). It is more commonly referred to as the college than as the university, the terms being equivalent in this case; but the college is where you attend lectures (and live in rooms if you're clever like El or lucky like me) while the exams and awards are technically given by the university.

I lived in number 9 and number 30; where is El? I'd be unsurprised if she came home less and less; there's nothing like waking up in the centre of the city. Plus, she gets her commons free as a scholar.

and when I started grammar school taff, I was a tiny "Upper Third". After that it was Lower Fourth, etc.

Could someone please put in simple terms when and what 3rd, 4th and 6th's are?

In much of Canada, elementary school is earliest age to the end of the 8th grade ... roughly ages 12/13. Then High School which carries 4 more years in most provinces (Ontario used to have a 5th year, intermediate prep for college or university level maths, sciences, etc)

In Ireland, we have Primary School for 8 years:

Junior Infant
Senior Infant
1st Class
2nd Class
...
6th Class

Then we have Secondary School for 5 or 6 years:

1st Year
2nd Year
3rd Year ending in big state-run examination
(Optional Transition Year)
5th Year
6th Year ending in big state-run examination

When students don't do the Transition Year, they still call the next years 5th and 6th.

After this, there are a number of 3rd Level Education Centres. Yes, colleges offer diplomas and universities offer degrees, but universities are also composed of colleges, so the term "college" is a loose one. As R explained, El is at Trinity College in the University of Dublin.

If I can loosely translate that to 1st class being about age 6, then it doesn't differ much from ours except that the 'split' from elementary to high is a maybe 2 years earlier. Some regions here have a Junior HigH School, which covers the 7th, 8th and 9th years of formal schooling.

Thank you, now I have a much better understanding

The California system, a year of kindergarten, somewhat glorified day care (age 5, curriculum arts and crafts and singing, little or no academic material), six years elementary school (ages ~ 6 - 11, More arts and crafts and music taken together with math, reading and writing & logic), two years junior high school (ages 12 & 13, curriculum expanded to include shop work, metals, wood and electrical, along with labs in the general science classes, typing, organized physical training), high school (ages ~ 14 - 17, more advanced and specialized science classes, shops including auto shop, driver's ed [at 15 1/2 with a learner's permit], theater arts, advanced sports, pre-nursing, competitive sports, agricultural studies & home economics, business education), schooling mandatory up to this age group.

Two additional years of college prep at the Junior College level, free for recent High School grads, on a tuition basis for older students or predicated on tuition, scholarship or military service for students at this or a higher level in educational system.

I was curious to ask whether subjects like Geography and History and Languages are not taught? or did you gloss over them? The list you have given is very heavily practically-based - which is in great contrast to that of the UK system.

...Geography, History and Languages...

All the above are taught from grades 1 - 12, with increasing depth with increasing age. (I did more or less gloss over them.) I vividly remember a geography exercise from 4th grade. One was to model a relief map of a state of the USA and write the State chamber of commerce for information on that state. I'd completed the contour map and written for information, moved to a new school district before the exercise was due, then had to start over with a different selection for a state, since another student in my class in the new school had already completed their work on the same state I'd initially selected.

Grammar is extremely analytical, especially in the junior high schools (grades 7 & 8), with a lot of emphasis on sentence diagramming and structure, the analytical emphasis declining afterward.