Higher Education Vocabulary: Part 1
Here’s a mini vocab lesson to help you keep things straight.
COLLEGE VS UNIVERSITY
“College” refers to Smaller institutions that typically offer undergraduate degrees only (associate, two-year degrees, and bachelor’s degrees). When someone talks about a college within a university, they’re talking about a collection of degrees that are grouped together to form a “college,” or a subset, of a university. For example, the “College of Music” at the University of Colorado or the “College of Engineering” at the University of Illinois.
Universities are larger institutions that typically offer both undergraduate degrees and graduate programs. Universities are made up of colleges that categorize the different programs and majors offered at the university. For example, the University of Wisconsin has three colleges at the Madison campus.
WHY YOU CARE:
It’s important to know where your major is housed. For example, if you’re applying to an Chemical Engineering program/major, the program might be housed in the College of Engineering but it also might be housed under the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This will have implications for scholarships, admissions selectivity, and programs available to you.
For example, while looking up scholarships to apply to if you’re program is housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, you would need to look at those scholarship opportunities rather than the ones offered through the College of Engineering. Furthermore, you may find that your major is housed in Engineering at university A, BUT it’s housed in Arts and Sciences at university B. So, it’s something you will need to note for each university while you’re doing your institution research.
MAJOR VS MINOR
A major is a specific area of study where a student will focus their coursework following a degree program planned out by the college. For example, you may be applying to major in Music Education, which is housed in the College of Music.
A minor is a specific, additional area of study that a student might pursue BUT this will occupy a smaller amount of their overall classes (credit hours). For example, you may be pursuing a degree in Speech Communication (housed in the College of Liberal Arts) while also earning a minor in Spanish.
To go further, for example, when you look at the way you break down the proportions of classes in your degree, you will see about 30 credit hours of general education classes, about 60 credit hours of classes in Speech Communication, and about 30 credit hours of classes in Spanish.
WHY YOU CARE:
Usually, you declare a minor once you’re a student. So while you might know that you want to do a specific minor when you’re applying, you typically won’t declare it until you’re attending classes. BUT you should confirm that the university you’re applying to does allow the major/minor combination that you’re interested in before applying. Usually the answer is “yes” but not always. For example, music education may not have enough unplanned/elective space in the degree for a student to earn a minor and still graduate in 4-5 years.
CREDIT HOUR (“CREDITS”)
Credit hours generally indicate how much work/time a student can expect for a class. Typically, a 3-credit-hour class will meet for one hour three times a week or 90 minutes 2 times a week VS a 1-credit class meeting for one hour once a week.
WHY YOU CARE:
In most cases, an undergraduate degree is 120 credits- 30 credits/year, 15 credits/semester. Note that 12 credits/semester is the minimum to be considered a full-time student, not the minimum to graduate in 8 semesters/4 years).
When you’re looking at majors and major/minor combinations, make sure to ask for a degree plan so you can see what portion of your credits will be in your area of study vs general education vs electives. The degree proportions won’t be the same everywhere you go and this might make you move a first choice school lower on your list or a lower ranked school higher. Be intentional here. Additionally, if you see that a degree requires more than 120 credits, you should ask about time to graduation. Is it more than 4 years? Also, you may see that the minor you’re interested in requires more credits than the electives listed in the degree plan. If that’s the case, talk to your department about what it looks like to combine your two interests. They may even have an alternative plan that you didn’t know about!
That’s all for now folks. I’ll come back with more vocabulary lessons later, but this should help you stay on the right track in the meantime.
Veronica
