Re: OT: US university course numbering (was Re: "to be" and not to be in the world's languages)

Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:

>On 01/04/06, Tristan Alexander McLeay <tristan@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Hm, that's another one that I think differs. Americans seem to use
>>"school" to refer to university, whereas in the context of
>>universities it usually refers to something more specific than a
>>department (i.e. you'll have the Faculty, then the Department, then a
>>School, tho not all Departments are divided into Schools (like the
>>Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering at La Trobe),
>>and some Departments consist of only one School (like the
>>Department/School of Psychology).
>>
>>
>
>Actually, I got that backwards: Faculty/School/Department. The School
>of Engineering, Mathematical Sciences, of which the Department of
>CS&CE is a part never mentions itself in my presence, versus the
>unsubdivided School of Psychology, which is why I was confused.
>
>
In the UK, school can refer to one of two entities:

A college, that is, a semi-independent subunit of a university.  So, for
example, the School of Oriental and African Studies, which is part of
the University of London (though the colleges of the UoL are almost
totally independent anyway), and contains its own faculties and
departments.  (so, for example, you have the Department of South Asian
Studies in the Faculty of Languages and Cultures).  And secondly, the
meaning you gave, so, in Sheffield, for example, the School of East
Asian Studies is a subunit of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

The word 'course' is used to refer to a whole degree programme.  The
classes you take would be 'modules' or 'units'.  A 'major' refers to the
subject which composes the largest part of your degree, if you're doing
a two-subject degree (Eg. SOAS offers a BA Linguistics with Georgian -
Linguistics is the major, Georgian the minor).  If your degree only has
one subject, you wouldn't use the term.