Differences between studying in the US and the UK?

This question is for anyone who has studied in both the US and the UK. Are there any noticeable differences between attending uni in the US and the UK (aside from the terminology, of course)?

American universities seem to focus a lot more on discussions and class participation than in the UK.  Anyone who has gone to a UK university and had American students in their class will also know this to be true.   

Also the facilities in US universities tend to be a lot more modern and up to date but then they should be with how much it bloody costs!!

It really depends on the school/course though.

I've been an undergraduate student and a postgraduate student in the UK (at Exeter and Bristol, respectively) and also an international exchange student and a PhD student in the US (University of New Mexico) (although I was only in the US as a PhD student for about 8 months before I decided to leave and move home to the UK).

The main differences I've seen (although some may be specific to my experiences rather than the US in general):

- While class attendance and participation are expected in the US and contribute to your grade, in the UK, they are encouraged but not mandatory (and do not contribute to the grade) - as long as you turn up to the exam at the end and have done all the work, you're basically fine.

- Lower-level classes seem more 'spoon-fed' and easy in the US (multiple-choice finals, anyone?), whereas UK classes get stuck right into the hard stuff - it was a struggle teaching basic environmental science to US freshmen last year... they expected me to explain everything to them and not have to think for themselves. Also, there is also no such thing as 'extra credit' in the UK.

- Longer, more intense semesters where I was in the US - we had 15 weeks of classes, followed by 1 week of finals each semester. In the UK, it was 11 weeks of classes, 1 week of to study for the exams, then 1-2 weeks of exams

- I think UK degree programmes are more structured than US ones - UK undergrads choose their 'major' before they go to university (I decided on mine at age 17 - a year before I finished secondary school) and so they apply to study a particular subject in a particular department with little opportunity to take classes in other subject, whereas in the US, students take a wider range of undergrad classes (and have subject requirements to fill) before specialising in one particular degree subject.

- It's easier in the US to take time off between semesters than in the UK - I think UK universities require you to register for an entire year and most people will graduate within the expected time (3 years for undergrad, usually 1 year for masters), whereas at the US uni I went to, the average student took 7 years to graduate because they would take a semester off here and there etc. My brother considered taking a year off during his UK undergrad degree and was told by his department it was not advisable to take such a long break in his studies as he was halfway through his degree.

- The grade boundaries for exams and papers are different. In the US, you have to get over 90% to get an A, whereas in the UK, you only need 70% (but that 70% is very difficult to get!).

- In the US I think there's a lot more emphasis on hard work than in the UK. Part of the reason I left the US PhD programme was because of the pressure I was under to work practically 24/7 - I couldn't handle 20 hours of teaching, plus 4 classes a week, plus research... I wanted a life too!! My PhD-student friends in the UK don't do any teaching (except the occasional grading - maybe a few hours per semester), don't take any classes and just do research 9-5, leaving evenings and weekends free to have fun .

ksand24: That is SUCH a great post! Thank you so much for taking the time to write all that. It's soooo appreciated! 

Also, from the three Unis I've visited here and/or attended the campuses are less defined.  Some of that is because they are in big cities, but I think it is less of a big deal here. 

Also, from the three Unis I've visited here and/or attended the campuses are less defined.  Some of that is because they are in big cities, but I think it is less of a big deal here. 

I think that does depend on whether they are in the big cities or not - the 4 universities I applied to for undergrad were all self-contained campus universities and not in big cities (perhaps with the exception of the Oxford campus which has the separate colleges and is spread out through the city). My only experience of a non-campus university was when I did my masters at Bristol.

I think it is the same in the US, big city schools tend to be more spread out. 

I disagree with ksand a bit.  I did my undergrad and a graduate MA in the US before coming to the UK for my doctorate.  I'm on the GTA committee for my department and get to adjust (well, create) the application, training, and development of GTAs in my department for both first-year and second-year classes.  We've discussed the differences between the two styles of programs and have come to a few conclusions:
1. Degree programs in the US do not focus initially.  There is a large breadth of coursework which an undergrad goes through (i.e. Math, Science, English, a foreign language, etc) as part of their degree.  This isn't typically the case in a UK degree program.  In fact, it is quite possible to get a degree in a subject matter and never leave the department's courses.  As a result, US students do not gain mastery over a specific subject until later in their academic career, if ever (e.g. the "general studies" majors).
2. UK students are expected to show mastery on some subject very quickly.  However, this also means that in a particular course (say, first year Christianity), one can achieve high marks with very little (such as one who can discuss at length the Reformation era between 1650 and 1700 but could not list the subjects of the first seven ecumenical councils).
3. The workload of the teaching staff in the US is geared towards primarily teaching (roughly 60%), followed by research (30%) and administrative duties (10%).  In the UK, there is a greater emphasis on research (40% at my uni), followed by an even split between teaching and administrative duties (30% each).  As a result, it is much easier in the US to find a staff member who does little or no research (and has little to no publications after tenure).  This would be a horrifying discovery in the UK, especially if a department wants to score well on the RAE.

I'm on the GTA committee for my department and get to adjust (well, create) the application, training, and development of GTAs in my department for both first-year and second-year classes.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is GTA?

Pardon my ignorance, but what is GTA?

I'll hazard a guess that it's Graduate Teaching Assistant?

I'll hazard a guess that it's Graduate Teaching Assistant?

Ah, kk. Thanks!

I'll hazard a guess that it's Graduate Teaching Assistant?

Yup.  Sorry about that!

I did undergrad in the US, Master's in the UK.

Grading is more fair in the UK, I think. Any score you get for anything has gone through at least two markers. The markers usually more or less agree - if they don't they have to get together and come to an agreement. For dissertations there are two internal markers and one external one (from another university, or a professional in the field). This system is great - it prevents the problem many have experienced in the US of getting wildly inconsistent/unpredictable marks or getting low marks on papers because the prof doesn't like you, doesn't agree with your views, etc.

Grading is more fair in the UK, I think.

Not always. 

I did my BA in the US and my Masters in the UK as well. I don't think I can give you any real insight as my personal experience with my school was, shall we say, very far from ideal. I think that was just my particular school, though.

There is a more relaxed attitude between students and teachers. I would NEVER have called my lecturers in undergrad by their first names, for instance, or gone on a social ocassion that included the teacher, but that's perfectly normal here. It took a while for me to get used to, but I think it's nice now. It seems more egalitarian.

On the downside, prepare for things to require lots of extraneous paperwork and steps. I don't know why every time I've tried to do something at a UK university (I've gone to two and work at another) requires so many steps! For example, a student I support wanted me to have permission to check out library books on her behalf. At my US university, I would have just gotten a signed letter and shown it when I checked books out. Here she would have to fill out a long form every single time she wanted me to get her a book. Things that you'd think would be straightforward usually end up being not so!

There is a more relaxed attitude between students and teachers. I would NEVER have called my lecturers in undergrad by their first names, for instance, or gone on a social ocassion that included the teacher, but that's perfectly normal here. It took a while for me to get used to, but I think it's nice now. It seems more egalitarian.

I've found this to be the opposite, at least at undergraduate level. Here in the UK, I wouldn't have dared to call one of my lecturers by their first name... it took me 3 years to address my tutor/project supervisor by his first name, and I spent several hours a week working with him! But then again, I was in the Physics department and everything was pretty formal there. When I went to the US on study abroad, I was told to expect the professors to be much more relaxed and not to be surprised if they were on a first-name basis with their students and invited them out for a beer or to their house for dinner . This never happened to me in the UK, until I started my postgrad degree, when our course tutor would join us at the pub or invite us round to his house for a BBQ - but then, said course tutor had just spent 5 years teaching in the US and had perhaps picked up some of the traditions of his US university  .

On the downside, prepare for things to require lots of extraneous paperwork and steps. I don't know why every time I've tried to do something at a UK university (I've gone to two and work at another) requires so many steps! For example, a student I support wanted me to have permission to check out library books on her behalf. At my US university, I would have just gotten a signed letter and shown it when I checked books out. Here she would have to fill out a long form every single time she wanted me to get her a book. Things that you'd think would be straightforward usually end up being not so!

I also haven't particularly noticed this either, but then I didn't really need to do anything that would have required paperwork in the UK, apart from sorting out my study abroad exchange paperwork, but that was pretty straightforward.

I did find the 'class registration' system much more complicated in the US though - in the UK, all I had to do was log into the computer system for a few minutes at the beginning of the year, and that was it - I was all registered and ready to go . But in the US you have to register for each individual class and if you don't have certain pre-requisites on your transcript, you have to go to about 3 different offices to get them to let you register; then you have faff around with green/yellow/pink cards if you want to take a class that is full or is at a different level (i.e. a graduate class when you're an undergrad student, or an undergrad class for graduate credit). Not to mention this business with holds on your account if you haven't paid your accommodation/tuition fees or whatever... very stressful!

I had problems when I was in the US last year because I was required to take a 100-level undergrad Chemistry course (due to it not being on my undergrad transcript because I gave up Chemistry after GCSE... even though the 100-level Chem class was about GCSE standard and I had covered all the content almost 10 years earlier), but the system would not let me register. Why? Because I didn't have the required 100-level Math pre-requisite... even though I have an A-level in Maths, a degree in Physics and I was also registering for a graduate-level Math class at the same time - but this info wasn't in the US university system, so I wasn't allowed to register for the class! By the time I got the hold taken off and was able to register, the class was almost full, so I had to get a yellow card signed to get in... except that by then, the prof was no longer accepting yellow cards so I wasn't allowed to take it at all  ! If I had just been able to register first-time without going through all the red-tape I would have had no problem getting into the class before it filled up and would have been able to take it then instead of waiting 8 months to take it in the next semester.

One other difference that I just remembered:

In the US, when professors tell you that they have office hours, they actually expect you to go to them ! In the UK, there's a vague mention that if you have a question or a problem, you can either ask your tutor or the professor themselves, but I don't think many people actually bother (at least not at undergrad level) . I once had one of my professors in the US ask to see me after class because she was worried that I hadn't come to any of her office hours - and basically told me she expected to see me there and that it was bad form that I hadn't turned up (I was the only one who hadn't)  . I assumed that since I didn't have any problems with the work that I didn't need to go to office hours (I was still in the UK frame-of-mind in terms of thinking that no one actually went to them), but apparently it was expected of me .