Translation from US English please,

[David Hughes]

Hi,

I recently read about someone who was described as a "junior history major" and wondered what on earth it meant. Using Google it comes up with the word "cool" attached so I guess it's some kind of young student but just what?

An explanation might be more useful than a translation, perhaps.

Thanks, David

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear David,

Major: One who studies a subject at university, as the principal subject

Junior: The first year at an American university (I think, unless that's Freshman, in which case Junior is probably second year)

History: Open to dispute, especially to the politically committed, or those who deny the importance of politics. Formerly "History of the past, written by the winners".

Cheers,

R

 

[rhl-oregon]

Points for 1 & 3, Roger.

As for "junior," the Chain of Being in a 4 year undergraduate degree goes: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. One usually has to declare the major field of study by the 3rd/ junior year in order to be admitted to the otherwise restricted upper-division lectures/seminars required by that department or program for graduation

History department faculty, these days, tend to be more critical in their teaching and research about the 'winners' in past struggles for land, resources, etc. And in US universities, they tend to be (and produce) the clearest and least jargon-afflicted writers.

Hope that helps, David.

 

[David Hughes]

Thank you both. I'm a little wiser but it raises more questions for me. Anyway, I'll go away and ask a friend who studies such things, as in draws up league tables and standards for university courses. I've a feeling it will end up like that study intended to stop the USSR sectioning people for disagreeing with their political masters.

Second worry, principle subject? In history does that mean area of study or what?

Regards, David

 

[Roger Hicks]

Points for 1 & 3, Roger.

As for "junior," the Chain of Being in a 4 year undergraduate degree goes: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. One usually has to declare the major field of study by the 3rd/ junior year in order to be admitted to the otherwise restricted upper-division lectures/seminars required by that department or program for graduation

History department faculty, these days, tend to be more critical in their teaching and research about the 'winners' in past struggles for land, resources, etc. And in US universities, they tend to be (and produce) the clearest and least jargon-afflicted writers.

Hope that helps, David.

Dear Robert,

Ah, sorry, Frances was in the darkroom.

As for "major field of study", of course in the UK it is assumed that you can already read and write when you leave school (Frances found that this was not necessarily the case after leaving school in NY state and moving to California). It is also assumed that an undergraduate of normal intelligence and application can get a degree in 3 years. I didn't, but then again, of my 3 terms in my first first [sic] year, one was only 3 weeks long. I had other, more important, things to attend to. Or, indeed, to which to attend.

Addendum: Frances's middle name is Eugenia. Or Yevgenia. Or Evgeny...

Cheers,

R.l

 

[rhl-oregon]

David, a long term trend in US research universities is 'area studies' replacing the centrality of departments, and also taking on the function once identified with 'principal subjects'. This applies both to students and to faculty researchers. Film Studies may be part of an English Dept, or a of a Theater/Cinema Arts Dept, or be an interdisciplinary program whose teaching faculty are drawn from various conventional departments.

A Department of History may include specialists/concentrations in Medieval studies, East Asian studies, Caribbean studies, etc. The department serves as a tenure home for faculty with appropriate terminal degrees; offers an undergraduate major (BA) plus general lower division courses required by the university for all undergrads; offers graduate degrees (MA, PhD). The History faculty may have joint appointments in other programs (Environmental Studies, Ethnic Studies, Women's Studies, Latin American Studies come to mind at the University of Oregon, where I work) that offer bachelor and/or masters degrees but not the doctorate.

Many departments now widely accepted (Anthropology, Economics, e.g.) did not exist in the 19th c; go back several hundred years in Europe and you have the Quadrivium, the four principal permissible subjects. After our lifetime, higher education will evolve other standard disciplinary standards for naming subjects and credentials. 'Area studies' points toward the next probable stage, but change will be slow, largely because educators rely on widely accepted, transferable standards in credentialing.

*********

Roger: for my own fun, and to entertain postal workers, I often spell my return address (city, state) as Evgeny Onegin. Owing to my chickenscratch handwriting (and universal acceptance of zip codes), hardly anyone notices. But perhaps it will entertain Frances. Funnier though is that Eugene (Oregon) is the first not the last name of its 'founding' ferryman/postmaster/mayor, Eugene Skinner. The runner-up name for our tie dyed Birkenstocked community was Charnelton, but luckily some wag with a degree in history or classics or linguistics pointed out that only a city of the dead would call itself Charnel Town. (Yet Charnel was also a first name, of the 'second citizen' surnamed Mulligan. This place has always been a little weird.)

 

[David Hughes]

HI,

Thanks Robert and Roger, a bit more of the jig-saw has sorted itself out. At my age I saw it as doing the background stuff at school and then specialising at university. I'm afraid the next bit will be in English, English, so you'd do O level maths, English and so on, then "A" level applied maths, pure maths and physics and then (say) maths or physics at university. I can remember being told at 18 that the worst was over and you can relax at university as you've done most of it...

My friends in that field say you can do a bit of this and a bit of that and get credits so that when you've enough you get a degree, rather like collecting box tops, they said; provided you got them in an approved range of subjects and enough at each level. I'm now wondering if they were joking about getting French with knitting as a degree...

And what they said about some university degrees compared with a 1950's "A" level doesn't bear repeating on a forum youngsters might read.

Thanks again. David

PS I see they are now expecting/talking about (at UK universities) an extra year to get the background stuff sorted out, reading and writing I guess.

 

[Roger Hicks]

HI,

Thanks Robert and Roger, a bit more of the jig-saw has sorted itself out. At my age I saw it as doing the background stuff at school and then specialising at university. I'm afraid the next bit will be in English, English, so you'd do O level maths, English and so on, then "A" level applied maths, pure maths and physics and then (say) maths or physics at university. I can remember being told at 18 that the worst was over and you can relax at university as you've done most of it...

My friends in that field say you can do a bit of this and a bit of that and get credits so that when you've enough you get a degree, rather like collecting box tops, they said; provided you got them in an approved range of subjects and enough at each level. I'm now wondering if they were joking about getting French with knitting as a degree...

And what they said about some university degrees compared with a 1950's "A" level doesn't bear repeating on a forum youngsters might read.

Thanks again. David

PS I see they are now expecting/talking about (at UK universities) an extra year to get the background stuff sorted out, reading and writing I guess.

Dear David,

To make life more interesting, there are some required courses. For example, my late mother-in-law was one credit short of a degree: if she'd got a credit in Political Science she'd have amassed the full set of box-tops and would have had her B.A.

But she refused, on the grounds that there is no such thing as Political Science.

I always got on very well with her.

Cheers,

R.

 

[__--]

...To make life more interesting, there are some required courses. For example, my late mother-in-law was one credit short of a degree: if she'd got a credit in Political Science she'd have amassed the full set of box-tops and would have had her B.A.

But she refused, on the grounds that there is no such thing as Political Science.

I always got on very well with her...

Figures.

—Mitch/Bangkok
Looking for Baudelaire [WIP]

 

[David Hughes]

Hmmmm, "It is also assumed that an undergraduate of normal intelligence and application can get a degree in 3 years... "

I guess I'm getting old but as I see it only the top 3% or so of the population should have degrees and then it would mean something. These days to misquote from "Alice in Wonderland" everyone must win and have prizes.

Regards, David