Dear fellow students
You're handing in an "essay". "Paper" is what you (hopefully) have been writing it on.

And for the record, there's still a distinct difference between "college" and "university". One of these is a place where you can go on the piss, throw up in a corner, and NOT get expelled. Unfortunately for many of you this confusion of terms goes beyond the semantic.

You can't "wiki", "google" or "facebook"(gods help us...) a piece of information, you can either "look it up" or "research" it. The websites are merely the places where you go to do so. As a comparison, one does not "library" a book, or "pub" a pint.

Using "fiddle" instead of "violin" has connotations that musicians may not appreciate. Especially if you're trying to conduct an orchestra. String players are dangerous in packs...

...as are brass players if you happen to make too many "horny" jokes.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 20:12, 16 replies)

There's also a distinct difference between polytechnic and university
Renaming polytechnics to universities in a scam to misappropriate funds (universities deserve more of the public purse, and quite rightly so) doesn't change the fundamental difference between them: clever people go to universities, thick people go to polytechnics. Polytechnics are the YTS of the academic world.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 20:33, closed)

Unfortunately
Due to the misguided vision of our great politicians, universities are now being populated by people of lower intelligence than was previously the case.

Not worthless people, by any means. Just those whose talents would better have been exploited by learning a trade, for example, than doing a degree in media studies.

I'm all for everyone getting the best possible education, but the fact remains that only a small proportion of the population are sufficiently intelligent, in an academic way, to attain a worthwhile university degree. Those same people may well make absolutely useless plumbers, for example.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 21:30, closed)

I wouldn't consider someone who goes to a FE College or a Poly and gets a HND or a Foundation Degree as thick

( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Wed 14 Apr 2010, 23:26, closed)

Certainly not
Often such people are working and studying part time, which usually requires much more effort than studying and getting pissed every night. Being better at/preferring practical skills to sitting in a classroom doesn't equate to being thick.
( Greenbat, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 23:44, closed)

Thanks for using the qualifier "usually"
I was ready to pounce on this post before I noticed that. :P

My brother has a practical/placement diploma in animal care and worked hard for it. I don't really think it's better/worse, just a different way of learning. He would detest research as much as I would loathe shoving a thermometer up a kangaroo's bum. But I guess I'm weird like that. ;)
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 10:33, closed)

My teacher friend would, and does so frequently.
He also describes them as workshy, idle dossers who are taking up valuable space in his HND and Foundation Degree classrooms solely to avoid going out and getting proper jobs.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 1:10, closed)

What about King's College?

(thefuckestuppest cheapened this, on, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 21:35, closed)

Having researched their website...
It seems that although they call themselves a college, they advertise themselves as a "university". I surmise that they are aware of the difference between a name and an academic institution.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 22:31, closed)

King's College London is a constituent college of the University of London.
However they retain their own degree awarding powers for students who prefer 'King's College London' on their degree certificates than 'University of London'.

It is I believe, in Britain at least, perfectly acceptable to state that you are going to college when you are receiving a university education. This is partly due to the fact that the term college (as referring to pre-university education) is only used to describe a few independent FE institutions, and also that many universities are comprised of constituent colleges such as in London, Oxford, Durham and Cambridge.
( TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 23:25, closed)

Just looked it up... and yeah, I was wrong. :-)
So sorry, but speaking from my own experience of my own uni- the college is the house you belong to/place where you live/common room etc, whereas the university is the place where you study.
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 23:37, closed)

If you went to a collegiate university...
...then there's not really a distinction between college and university, semanctically.

i.e. I generally refer to University as "College", because when I was at Uni, I was at College.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 22:06, closed)

I'm at Oxford
I'm going back to college next week, to study at uni
( Tedium Alduce me to interlow myself., Wed 14 Apr 2010, 22:51, closed)

It's odd, because it's both...
Maybe it's an odd system where I am (where the colleges are the social/housing divisions and the uni is the educational authority.)
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 23:38, closed)

Yeah, I guess that creates more of a division between the two...
...I went to Oxford, so lived in college, had most tutorials in college, drank in college, etc.... it very much felt like being at college was more tangible than being at university - university was a bit of an abstract. Me and everyone I know from college instinctively refer to it as college as a result. So we're not being deliberately annoying, honest!

BTW, agree with you on the 'paper' thing - I think it must be an Americanism.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 0:01, closed)

Other Americanism... (we're so weird!)
What we call College, other Universities (internationally) tend to call Faculties or Schools. So within the University, there is a College of Medicine, College of Law, College of Social Science, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, College of Business, etc etc.

There's also just plain 'college' - which usually tend to be small, private, 4-year-degree liberal arts institutions. Usually only grant up to a Baccalaureate-level degree, Masters quite rare. PhD degrees at most colleges are relatively unheard of - you pretty much MUST go to Uni for that.

Let's not forget our dear friend 'junior college' a.k.a. 'community college' - funded by local taxpayers, provide the first 2 years worth of post-secondary education. Many students go here first after graduating high school - much cheaper than either college or uni.

Sorry I wrote so much - I've been working in the US university system for quite a long time and I've never really had a chance to get on a soapbox about it.
(ohnonotagain It's worse than you thought. I'm Canadian., Thu 15 Apr 2010, 6:13, closed)

I was raised to think that "college" referred primarily to what you call "junior college"
As in, a place where people do their A-levels. But then there was also the community college, where you could enrol on/pay to take a course regardless of your entry qualifications. (So, for example, where I learned to touch type aged seven.)

And I call faculties departments. :-)

TBH, it wouldn't be an educational facility if they didn't thoroughly piss off other educational facilities in some way. This wholesale confusion seems to work. ;)
(Sivvus trolley collision in the fruit aisle led to a jam, Thu 15 Apr 2010, 10:30, closed)