The difference between school or college and uni

Birmingham City University vlogger Maro talks through some of the differences you will find between being at school or college to when you start at uni.

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1. You choose what you want to study

University is your chance to choose a subject that you love and to study it all the time! And we mean all the time – which is why it’s important that you choose wisely. Cut out all the bits of college or sixth form that you’re not keen on and focus on your passion.

2. No more A levels/BTECs!

Once you’ve finished college, you’ll be pleased to know that you don’t have to take another A Level or BTEC again! As you’ll be aware, A Levels are largely exam and coursework-based, whereas BTECs are coursework-focused. However, one of the main differences between university and college is the method of assignment: from writing academic reviews and essays to working in a team and delivering a presentation, there is a wide variety of projects that you can be assessed on, which makes university an interesting and dynamic place to study. This is largely reflected in what degree you choose as some courses may require more practical assessment over others.

3. Your grades

Gone are the days that you’ll be marked from a grade A*-C or Pass, Merit and Distinction in your assessments. At university, the grading system is completely different compared to college or sixth form. You may have heard of a first, a second class or a third class honours, which is how the majority of UK universities grade student assessments.

First Class Honours (1st) – this is the highest grade you can obtain and you will receive this if you achieve 70% or above in your assignments.
Second Class Honours: upper division (2:1) – this is the second highest grade you can attain and you will receive this if you achieve 60–69% in your assignments.
Second Class Honours: lower division (2:2) – if you receive 50-59% in your assignments, you’ll be graded a 2:2.
Third Class Honours – you’ll receive this classification if you’re graded 40–49% in your assignments.

4. Terminology – college vs university

If you’ve studied in the UK from early years right up to college or sixth form, you’ll know that you never call a teacher by their first name. At university, you don’t need to do this as you’re encouraged to call staff by their first names. As well as this, you don’t use the phrase “teacher” at university, instead they’re called an “academic” or a “lecturer”. Our A-Z of university unravels all of the terminology you need to know so you can prepare yourself before coming to university.

5. How you learn

Bored of learning in the same four walls of your classroom in college? You’ll be glad to know that at university your whole learning environment is entirely different as you’ll be taking lectures and seminars; what are those, you ask? Well, a lecture is essentially a one-hour lesson delivered by an academic in a large hall with all of your other peers who are on the same course. You will arrive and take notes with either your laptop/notepad and digest all of the information, making it easier when it comes around to preparing for your assignments.

A seminar is a more in-depth discussion which usually comes after your lecture; it gives you and your peers a chance to ask your academic anything you didn’t understand, have group discussions and work on tasks set by your academic so you can get to grips with the topic that was delivered earlier on in your lecture.

6. Independent study

Unlike at college or sixth form, your lecturers won’t be calling home if you don’t show up, or issuing detentions if you don’t complete your work; you’re solely responsible for your own learning and progress at university. The dynamic you have with your lecturer will be new: they’ll treat you like an adult and expect you to act like one by showing up and participating.

At university, timetables allow for a set number of contact hours and you’ll be expected to use the rest of your time wisely through independent study, but you might also want to fill your time with a part-time job, family responsibilities and seeing your new uni friends. This is where you’ll need to organise your days and know how to manage your time and be productive.

At university, you won’t be entirely on your own. Your lecturers will want you to succeed and do well in your assignments, they will go to great lengths to support you and see you achieve. You can utilise their office hours, which allow students to see their lecturer or personal tutor on a one-to-one basis, to discuss any concerns or questions about their work; this is a key part of students’ development at university.

7. Facilities

Universities are often big places and here at BCU we have two multimillion-pound campuses, featuring our libraries hosting 125 million resources, our simulated hospital wards, and our four TV studios, including one of the largest fixed green screens in the UK. You won’t be short of resources here at BCU!

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[00:00:03] Speaker 1 Hey guys, today I'm going to be talking about the differences between school slash college and university. I'm just going to be talking about how I personally found the transition from college and doing A-levels to starting university. In university you have a lot of free time and you have freedom to manage your workload so essentially you're in charge of your own time. So advice number one is please guys start your assignments from the day you receive it. Start it from the beginning because that's definitely something I wish I had done because it would have saved me in lots of stress. So college is definitely more structured and in my opinion was kind of monotonous you know in terms of the days and the times you come in, the teachers that were on your neck etc. But although the lecture and seminar times are the same in university, you definitely have a lot of free time to complete your assignments, which I definitely love. Use your free time wisely. It's recommended that you use this time, obviously, to complete your assignments, but also I would suggest, you know, socialise, join societies, get a part-time job if you like. It's so important to create a balance that works for you. Number two is the workload, now the workload varies depending on which course you're doing. I remember sixth form was a lot of content and in my opinion it was just so stressful academically you had to revise a lot theory. So I did three A levels, I did drama and theatre studies, media studies and RS. In university I definitely feel that there's less pressure, it's not as intense for my course at least because number one I'm going from studying three A-levels to one subject. And number two, my course now is all coursework, which I definitely prefer. Yes you may be studying one subject now in university but there are three modules per semester and if you're like me and you do a coursework based subject there's going to be a lot of research and work to do outside of your lectures and that includes like looking at academic literature you know complete and practical activities so there's literally a lot of things to do. My advice number four would be keep on top of your work. Everybody procrastinates and you're not gonna be motivated every day, but allow discipline to push you instead. You know, set schedules, make plans, but don't over plan, like me. And routines which will hopefully give you that push when you don't feel motivated. In university there's access to much more in terms of facilities, so of course in the Curzon building there's the 24 hour library and there's so many resources in there, there's places where you can study, you can borrow laptops, you could print and also in a Parkside building there are professional TV studios which help prepare you for working in the industry, there are hires and loans where you could borrow equipment and on campus there are campus shops, cafes, cash machines, there is so much, definitely please utilise all the facilities. In terms of friendships, literally university is such a social space you can meet people anywhere. Parties, clubs, accommodation, grocery shopping, just anywhere and in college you tend to form friendships you know in your class or in the college as a whole whereas in university you can literally meet people in the laundry room for example. In university you also experience new people, so locals, commuters, international students, etc. but university is definitely different because you can pick your own friends and you're not kind of forced in the classroom type of environment, you can literally choose whoever you want to be friends with. So in university the lecture sizes are way bigger than the classes back in college and university students are of different ages, countries, walks of life which you probably wouldn't have met in the college environment. So you now have seminars, so in the seminars, it gives you a time to discuss with your seminar group about the lecture and prepare you for completing assignments and stuff like that. So in terms of my course, university is much more practical than college. I feel like you have creative freedom, you can go out and film stuff. I feel you don't just feel like a student, like you'll actually be prepared for working in the industry, but there's also some support available in terms tutorials, careers plus, seminars, et cetera. The last thing is independence. So you're now living away from home in university, you're in charge of everything, you have to do everything by yourself, you know, you'll have to figure out which foods to buy and cook, what time to wake up and go to bed, you now have to consider your finances which I didn't actually do back in sixth form when I was living with my family, so yeah the transition in terms of independence is really huge, like you really start to feel like an adult you're kind of getting a taster into the adult world. In terms of academia... You're definitely spoon-fed in college, but in university, nobody's gonna chase you down. So like, if you like, don't do your work, nobody's gonna chase you down, whereas in college they'll call home, you know, you can have interventions and stuff like that, but you're literally so independent. But thank you so much for watching, hopefully you enjoyed. Bye!