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  • Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you a lot of university

  • language. I'm going to teach you specifically about the people you will see at university.

  • I've used, here, the word "uni", this is very British English. "Uni" means "university".

  • In American English, we would call it "college"; in Canadian English, we would call it "university".

  • Okay? And I don't know about Australian, but I would assume it's probably "uni" also.

  • So, there are many different words we use when we talk about people at the university.

  • I'm going to tell you what we call students, what we call professors, what we call the

  • boss of the professor. Okay? So you will learn a lot of words today.

  • So let's get started. I have here a pyramid. This pyramid represents power at the university.

  • Okay? It represents position at the university, and also, the number of positions at a university.

  • So, if you notice... We'll start at the bottom. I have here "freshman". A freshman is a first-year

  • student. Okay? So, when you get to university, you will be a freshman. It means you are in

  • your first year of university. There are a lot of freshman at university.

  • Then what happens? Second year comes along. When second year happens, you become a "sophomore".

  • This means you are in the second year of your program. We don't say "sophomore". Okay? We

  • don't say "sophomore", no, no, no. "Sophmore", so it's almost like this "o" we spell with,

  • it's silent when we say it. "Sophomore". And you'll notice the "ph" is a "f" sound: "sofmore".

  • So your second year is your sophomore year.

  • Then, some people will continue on in university, and they'll get to their third year. Okay?

  • In your third year, you will be called "a junior". "Junior". Okay? So I want you to

  • say these words: "freshman", "sophomore", "junior".

  • If all goes well, after your third year, you're going to be in your last year or your final

  • year, and you will be-so fourth year-a "senior". So this means you are the top of undergrad.

  • You will be a senior in your fourth year. So all of this, these "freshman", "sophomore",

  • "junior", "senior", this all refers to undergrad students or undergraduate. Okay? So for short,

  • we say "undergrad". In the long, we say "undergraduate students". Okay? So when I was an undergrad,

  • I started as a freshman; then my second year of undergrad, sophomore; third year of undergrad,

  • junior; and finally, in my fourth year, I was a senior. Okay? If you finish and you

  • finish your senior year, you get a bachelor's. Okay? So you get a bachelor's degree. You

  • do four years of university, you get a bachelor's degree.

  • Now, some people, after their fourth year, after they're a senior, they're tired of university,

  • they're so happy they're finished, you know, it's finally over, so they go and they start

  • working, and they forget all about university. Other people want to do more university. They

  • stay in university, and they continue studying. We call these people "master's students".

  • Okay? Usually a master's is a two-year program. It can be a one-year program, but it happens

  • after undergrad. So we call these students "grad students", we can also say "graduate

  • students" or "master's student". Okay? So, again, usually these people are in a program

  • for one or two years, they are grad students, master's students; it means the same thing.

  • From this point, you'll find that some grad students get a job at the university. Okay?

  • So they're still a grad student, but they get a job. The job they get at the university

  • is a "TA" job or a TA position. A "TA" is a person who is a teaching assistant. So,

  • a TA is the same thing as teaching assistant; it's just the short way to say it. A teaching

  • assistant works for a professor. They help the professor teach freshman, sophomore, junior,

  • and seniors. So, the TA is the assistant to the professor, and they help the professor

  • teach these people. Sometimes they mark. Okay? Essays, they might... If you write a test,

  • it might be a TA who marks your test because the professor is too busy.

  • So it's the professor's assistant.

  • Some grad or master's student... Students might get an "RA" position. So this is a job

  • for master's students. It means research assistant. So where here you're working with students;

  • as a research assistant, you might be working in the lab with a professor, you might be

  • helping do research. Okay? So that's what "RA" stands for, research assistant. And so

  • these are the two common jobs at a university for master's students.

  • Then you get, once you finish your master's, some students then go off into the work world

  • and they start working, other students continue in university. Okay? So they've now had their

  • undergrad, they've now done their master's, and so what do they do next? They become a

  • "PhD student". So, PhDs are usually programs that are four to five years; for other people,

  • it might take longer. And if you finish a PhD, you get a doctorate. Okay? So PhD is

  • higher than a grad student or a master's student, and higher than undergrad. PhD students can

  • also be TAs and they can also be RAs.

  • Now, once a PhD student finishes their thesis and they finish their dissertation, they have

  • finished school, they can become a "post doc". So, I didn't write this here, but one step

  • up, post doc. So that's just about here.

  • PhD students, as well as post docs can become "instructors" and they can become "lecturers".

  • These words pretty much mean the same thing. An instructor or a lecturer is a person who

  • teaches undergrads. Okay? So they teach a class. So, for example, if you take a psychology

  • class, your instructor is the person who teaches you about psychology. It's the same with lecturer.

  • Your... The lecturer is the person who teaches you about a subject. Some instructors are

  • "professors"; other instructors aren't. Some instructors are only PhD students. So depending

  • on if you have an instructor who is a professor or a PhD student, you might talk to them a

  • little bit differently, and we'll come back to that in a moment.

  • Okay, so you've finished your PhD, you're now doing a post doc, you're an instructor,

  • you're teaching these undergrads; you're teaching freshman, sophomore, juniors, and seniors,

  • and you work at the university for a while. What happens next? If the university really

  • likes you, you can become a "professor". You can become somebody who works at the university,

  • and who's tenured. Okay? This means that you're going to work at the university as a professor.

  • As a professor, you work with a group of other professors. We call the group of professors

  • the "faculty". So, a faculty means many professors. So you have a faculty of arts, a faculty of

  • dentistry, a faculty of sciences. So "faculty" is a group of professors who teach a certain subject.

  • Okay, so professors are a little bit higher than instructors and lecturers because they

  • are full-time members at the university. And so, because they have their PhD and because

  • they've gotten this position, we have to address them in a certain way. Some professors like

  • to be called "Professor". So you might have Professor Donaldson, or Professor... Professor

  • Smith. So we say the word "Professor" with their last name. It's almost like Mr. or Mrs.

  • So, for example: Professor White. Other professors are a little bit more easygoing, and they

  • don't mind, like, things being a little bit more informal, so you... Some of your professors

  • might let you call them by their first name. So: "Hey, Emma", "Hi, Doug". Okay? It depends

  • on your prof; some of them will want the first name, some of them will want you to call them

  • Professor. Again, it depends on the person.

  • Now, on the same level, we have some people working at the university. We have the "advisor"

  • and we have "registrars". These are people that are supposed to help undergrads, and

  • also grad students with their studies. So they're there to help you. They work for the

  • university. The registrar is the person you go to when you want to get into a class. So

  • imagine I want to take Psychology 100. I will go to my registrar, and I will say: "I'd like

  • to be in the class Psychology 100", and then the registrar will put me in the class, or

  • say: "No, I'm sorry, you can't be in this class." So the registrar is the person who

  • puts you in the class. You'll also have somebody who's an advisor. Advisors, what do they do?

  • They give you advice on things. Okay? So they might give you advice on school, on study

  • habits, on maybe you're taking too many classes. An advisor might tell you: "You shouldn't

  • take so many classes. Take less classes." So these are the roles of an advisor.

  • Finally, at the very top of our hierarchy here, we have somebody called the "Dean".

  • The dean is almost like the principal of a department or of the university. Okay? So

  • if you think about elementary school, the principal would be the dean. And there are

  • more roles; this is actually like a simplified version. You also have a president, and it

  • gets really confusing, but for now, a key word here is "dean". So the "dean" is usually

  • somebody who was a professor who now has more of an administrative role. And so they almost

  • control the university. They tell the professors what to do, they tell the faculty what to

  • do, they tell the advisors and the registrar... They're in charge of this structure. Okay?

  • So these are all very common words we use when we talk about university, and the people in it.

  • I hope you come check us out on our website at www.engvid.com.

  • There, you can do a quiz to see, and make sure you understand these words and how to use them.

  • I hope you found today's lesson useful, and I hope you start using some of these words, you know,

  • even saying what you are. Okay? If you think about your life, are you a freshman? Are you

  • a grad student? Do you TA? Are you an instructor?

  • Okay? So think about this in your own life experiences.

  • Until next time, I hope you've enjoyed everything, and take care.

Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to teach you a lot of university

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