From: librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik)
Subject: Re: What is a 2.1 equivalent to ?
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 21:42:29 GMT

cockburn@edieng.enet.dec.com (Craig Cockburn) writes:


>In article <1992Sep11.214526.3637@unixg.ubc.ca>, banarji@unixg.ubc.ca (Ajai Banarji) writes...
>>	In many advertisements for jobs in the UK, they ask for a degree
>>with 2.1 or better. What would this correspond to in an US degree? Let
>>me guess-perhaps a GPA of 3.0 ?

>I've never heard of GPA. I guess it stands for gross points average
>or something similar. This measurement isn't used in the UK. If you
>do well in a course, then you'll get a merit, and most people put this
>info on their CVs. 

>If you pass your degree, you get a classification which is either
>1, 2:1, 2:2 or 3. 

There's a fundamental difference between the American and the British
systems which most Americans don't spot -- and when they do, they're
horrified that anyone could run a university that way.

In the States, degrees aren't ranked at all.  Everyone who graduates
from a university is exactly equal.  There are "grade point averages" (GPAs).
You take probably forty to fifty "classes" - self-contained one-term
courses (not courses in the British sense, but something like "French 1").
In each class you are graded based on continual assessment and an
exam at the end of the term; that grade is accumulated with the rest of
your grades to form the GPA.  But -- and this is a key point -- the GPA
is _not_ part of your resume (C.V.).  If you get special honors -- often,
the top 3% of a graduating year are designated "summa cum laude" or
something like that -- then that goes on your resume.  GPA is only made
available to graduate schools (post-graduate courses), and even then it is
not considered as heavily as the standardized "Graduate Record Exam", or
even (the most important by far) recommendation letters from instructors.

University in America is not seen as a time of specialization, but as a time
for broadening out, for liberal education.  Unless you are in Engineering,
it's likely that 1/3 to 1/2 of your classes will have nothing to do with your
actual major (your "course" in British terms).  Specialization begins at
the upper end of university and the graduate-school level.

Grades are also very different in the States.  Here, an "A" means you did
everything right.  You needn't write a brilliant essay or do an exceptional
project to get an A, it simply means you understood everything the teacher
was trying to teach you.  An intelligent student would have no problem getting
an A in any low-level first-year introductory course; thus, perfect or
near-perfect grade-point-averages at American universities are not rare.

This whole attitude is even more pronounced at the "high school" level in
the States.  In Britain there's the whole O-level/sixth-form/A-level system;
in America, everyone pretty much gets the same education until the age of
18.  At 18, those who want to go on to college (university), probably about
35% of that group, take SAT's -- "Scholastic Aptitude Tests" -- which measure
your _potential_ for being a good university student.  It's not assumed that
you know _anything_ about your field when you enter college; only that you can
do math and write acceptably.  Almost anyone who wants to go to university or
college can get into one somewhere.

Americans, when confronted with the British system of rating degrees, tend
to recoil in shock.  Instead of having your degree as a reward for accumulated
good work, your whole life is controlled by your performance on _one set of
examinations_, covering maybe a couple of weeks of your time at university.
Yank students distrust exams in general, and not a year goes by that someone
doesn't suggest, in a college newspaper opinions column, that all exams be
done away with, because they're not "fair."  Of course, British students in
America usually consider the system here to be an incredible amount of work,
since "cramming" (swotting) is pretty useless, and you are expected to do
homework problems every night and take short "quizzes" every couple of weeks.

As for which system is better -- well, it may be a difference in personal
temperament, but I found that in America, the intelligent first-year students
think learning stuff is "fun" and "interesting" and will often talk with
great enthusiasm about books they've read and things they've learned in
classes.  After four years of high school, in which one's intelligence is
_not challenged at all_, leaving lots of time for learning whatever you want
on your own, bright freshmen are suddenly allowed to go to classes in all sorts
of interesting subjects.  In Britain, students look on university as rather
like work: you do what you must every day, but after it's over you go out
to the pub with your friends and relax from it all.

- David Librik
librik@cory.Berkeley.edu

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