College Culture (America vs. Britain)

It also seems that there's more of a drinking culture involved here,

I hate when people compare Oxford to all US universities. It's stupid.

I am American, did 6 months study abroad at Oxford, and am now doing a masters at LSE. I think UK undergrad is a lot more about drinking, but not in a structured way. Drinking is the focus of everything. I remember being in Oxford at clubs and bops and wanting to dance, meanwhile everyone else was falling down. At LSE there is Crush every Friday, huge party where the undergrads get trashed.

Anyway, I think UK undergrad could be fun, but it's not as fun as the US. I was in a sorority and went to big sports events, they don't have anything like that in the UK. But I don't think UK students work harder, they don't have GPAs so they can slack off until exams and still do well.

The way that America was descibred to me, which has largely been true was "lots more, easier work".

But the standard for getting a 1st in UK undergraduate exams is much higher than the standard for getting an A on a US undergrad course. A US A is like a British 2.1. for undergraduates at least. Lots of Harvard academics say there is massive grade inflation there. More regular and consistent work at a lower level is hardly more academically impressive. At Oxford very few people get a 1st at the end of their degree. My Professor at LSE says she spends ages cleaning up the mess of the US system when people do their junior year abroad - she said a lot of Americans from good US colleges cannot after 2 years in the US system write a decent essay.

A British student can get a PhD in 6 years if they do not do a masters (which is unnecessary especially for an Oxbridge student with a 1st who can conceive of a research topic) - 7 if they do a masters. It takes an American arts student at Harvard 5 years on average just to do the AM-PhD. That is 9 years of study, and can easily be 10. 6-7 vs. 9-10. That is a huge difference. Maybe as my American professor at Oxford suggested to me American PhD's are more thorough. But is being more extensive to this degree being smarter? I really doubt it. And we should remember that you can get a top job in London with just a good 1st degree, a masters is unusual and anything beyond that is confined to people who want to become academics.

News flash: LSE General Course (aka junior year abroad) is notorious for being the place where not-so-smart kids from the US go to boost their CVs. It's not the best and the brightest in that program by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm an American BA degree candidate at KCL, and although I don't have US undergraduate experience, I was educated for 12 years in the US system, and most of my American friends are in the US higher education system now.

I think that the UK undergrad students are somewhat more focused, but that fits in with electing to read for a particular degree and not having to mess around with the general ed requirements. In London, at least, many kids in the first year are more "adult", even if they live in halls, as IMO, dorm life in the USA is emphatically not independent living- it's like living in a rather expensive youth hotel where everything is laid on for you. You are expected, in London, to shift for yourself after 40 short weeks in halls. There is a big drinking culture in the UK, which I personally don't find particularly appealing, but it's definitely an omnipresent social glue.

In the UK, there are comparatively fewer social events, notably sports, although there are good clubs and societies in the UoL system. I think that, overall, UK university culture is more about the academic work. Kids can and do play around a lot in the first year, but it gets tougher as you progress in the degree. Typically, the weighting of a three year degree is: year 1: 1, year 2: 3, year 3: 5.

I agree with Pendragon- getting a 2.1 is basically equivalent to an undergraduate A grade.

Very interesting topic, zackinbaltimore- do you by any chance go to JHU?

My Oxford college had a huge number of JYA's; they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed either. I suppose the smart ones must be hiding in the states?

No way. Sorry. I have relatives that went to King's and I've seen their undergraduate work. A 2:1 at King's would have been much easier to get than an A at Stanford. Unless you are comparing KCL to a more equivalent university...Boston College maybe?

Instead of narrowing down the points in my post to my personal experience of a few brands, I was trying to make more general comments about higher education culture in the UK and in the USA. You don't have to apologize to me for suggesting that KCL doesn't rank as highly as your own institutions. I don't feel defensive about it and I'm happy with my course. In large part any degree, no matter where it is offered, is what you make of it, and that's as it should be. You do seem rather concerned, in this thread, and in others to which you have contributed, to emphasize the superiority of your own particular institutions almost in the expectation that your readers will fall into an awed silence. However, the topic is more about general UK- US university culture, unless I've misread it. I opened my post with an introduction about my experience in order to demonstrate that I have some knowledge of the topic and I'm not just shooting the breeze.

I didn't do JYA in Oxford, I did the Stanford program, which is competitive and you only apply against other Stanford students. I did meet a lot of dumb JYA kids in Oxford too, same thing. Unfortunately the best US universities don't have exchange students, otherwise it would be great for UK students to compare. UCLA is fine but I mean Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, etc.

The program that all Americans do at Oxford is Oxford-lite. I did Summer School at Harvard and I am sure that was also Harvard-lite. But there is no way you are going to convince an Oxbridge graduate that our undergraduate degrees arent more intellectually demanding than the extended liberal arts American college 1st degrees.