The English Report (3)

(:title The English Report (3):)

— THE ENGLISH REPORT THREE —
— SPECIAL EDUCATION EDITION —

Ladies, gents,

Welcome to another edition of the English report, stalled for a few weeks due to unexpected workload. But it’s back, it’s brilliant, and it’s got a thesis sentence this time:

Higher (and high school) education in England is rigorous.

Yes indeedy. During the four years of our lame, busted undergraduate educations, mighty English university students accomplish in three years what we couldn’t do in six. How do they do this you may ask?

• The English specialize in high school

You may have heard of the A-level, which is England’s rough equivalent to the SAT. The SAT, however, tests so-called general reasoning ability, whereas A-levels test knowledge. They choose what A-level tests to study for at 16.

Not 22, or 25 or 26.

A lot can be gathered about your average Tommy on the street by asking him which A-levels he took. Most take three A-levels, but some take more. Typical engineering undergrads will have taken, say, “Math, physics, English.” Typical history undergrads, “English, history, biology.”

Typical philosophy undergrads reply, “Oh, you know. Whatever.” Good to know that some things don’t change.

• The English get more specialized in college

Your A-levels limit what courses you can follow at “uni,” which is what everyone calls college here. There is some switching allowed once you’re admitted, but you usually have to figure things out by the third year of uni.

• The TRIPOS is what you do

TRIPOS means TRY POS, as far as I can tell, and it stands for the three years of

1. Papers 2. Lectures 3. Classes

 and

4. Supervisions

that you take. It usually is divided into Part I, Part IB and Part II, or sometimes Part I, Part II and Part IIB, but sometimes Part I, Part IIA, Part III and there’s also the old Part IA, Part IIA, Part IIB which can throw you if you’re not looking.

1. “Papers” are the generic term for the subject you’re taking because you have to write one paper a week for each paper you take. You usually take four papers a term. And terms are eight weeks.

Biologists, engineers, historians, everyone here is writing four papers a week times eight weeks, making thirty-two papers by the time these hunchbacks leave the library in December. Biologists write about the parts of a microscope, historians write about why the Turks can’t actually explain Constantinople’s new name, and philosophers write about free will.

2. “Lectures” are *not* when a set of students sign up for a spot in a room where they are expected to be every day the lecture is offered.

Lectures are scheduled events in which a certain person will speak out loud to whoever happens to be in a certain room at a certain time. Not even the same person or the same room sometimes. Naturally you don’t have to attend any of them, though they are often designed to aid with whatever paper you’re writing.

3. and 4. “Classes” are when you go in and practice what you’ve learned. Usually these are taught by a hapless grad student who writes equations on the board and solves them with as little explanation as possible. “Supervisions” are like classes for humanities majors, except in supervisions you meet 1 to 1 or 2 to 1 with a hapless grad student and talk about your work, drink tea, and complain about the workload.

• As you can probably guess, by the time they get to grad school, they are the academic equivalent of the Terminator

‘Nuff said.

• But what about their feelings??!!?!11

Due to the ensuing emotional collapse brought about by their youth, English students can only have fun if having fun involves self-destruction, and since most everyone here was a student at one point, the English as a whole have this problem.

This is a worry since English pubs by law, north south east and west, issue last call at 11:00 p.m. and shut at 11:20 p.m.

Do not walk the streets at 11:20 p.m., because (no joke) rival gangs of hooligans emerge from their rival bars with empty wine bottles in their hands, break them on whoever’s car is nearby, and threaten eachother with the shards while their hos cheer on. They carry chains and prowl the streets of the city looking for other hooligans, whom I guess they either assimilate or eliminate. You can call the police but the gangs disperse as quickly as they form, only to reform again tomorrow.

And all this hardship might lead to nothing, since my professors say they sometimes prefer foreign students because of our broad lib arts education. This cause apparently we “think independently” and are “capable of forming our own solutions to the problem.”

Awesome. I knew all those nights at Cool Beans were good for something.

Send love, C.O. G---, as Cambridge insists on calling me and I’m rather beginning to like.