The American Undergraduate Degrees and how they are different from the Indian Bachelor’s Degree
In India, a student usually enters a college or university after Plus Two, enrolling into a specific degree with a major, selected at the time of applying to the school. In the three or four years of the bachelor’s degree program, the student takes a predetermined series of courses in a predetermined order. In other words, the student’s college coursework and route to graduation is charted out very clearly at the time of entering the program. At the end of three or four years, the student gets a B.A., B.Sc., B.E., B.Tech., or B.Arch degree.
The American undergraduate program on the other hand is
extremely flexible, and can be completed in three to seven years (or more),
with the student taking as many courses as they can afford to pay for, in the
areas that interest them. Students do not have to declare a major until they
have completed two years of college, or some level of basic coursework. The
average American undergraduate degree program takes four years, and the student
completes around 120 credits of study in subjects that include General
Education, Core Requirements, and Free Electives.
Interestingly, a lot of American students do not complete
all of their undergraduate coursework at the same institution. They do the
courses in multiple institutions. The choice of these institutions is
determined by factors like cost, proximity to home town, choice of courses
offered, and the ease of getting into the institution. The varieties of
institutions that offer college level courses are community colleges, four-year
colleges, private and public universities. Community colleges are two year
public institutions that offer Associate Degrees. Four year colleges give the
two year Associate and the four year Bachelor’s Degrees. Universities can offer
the Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral programs and degrees.
This movement from institution to institution is possible
because of a concept called “College Credit Transfer”. Any student who applies
to a US university will see the following options listed in the choice of
programs – First Year student, Transfer Student. This is because a lot of
students find it more convenient to study closer to home at a Community College
or a 4-year College, and then transfer for the final two years to a four-year
College or to a university.
(See this section on Wikipedia for a concise
description of how college transfers work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_transfer).
Two year degrees come in a variety of flavors: Associate of
Arts, Associate of Science, Associate of Applied Sciences, and very specific
two year degrees that train for a specific career or vocation. The two-year
Associate of Arts degree is awarded after two years and sixty credits of course
work. The course work can be targeted towards a specific major such as
sociology or economics, or it can be in General Studies. The course work can be
transferred to another institution for a higher level degree, if that
institution accepts the level of the coursework.
So while getting an Associate degree, a student who aims for
higher education should be smart enough to target the requirements of the next
level of study while choosing the coursework for the Associate degree. The
structure of the Associate degree starts with the next degree, the Bachelor’s
degree, and the major that the student is interested in. This will help the
student work backwards and structure the Associate degree to fulfill the
requirements of the bachelor’s degree. Knowing which university the student
wants to go to makes this process easier, as the student can then tailor the
associate degree according to the university’s requirements.
