American Reacts to AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES | How are they different?? 

My experience in Australian Universities is that they expect that their students to complete not only the class work and attend them but also do a lot of self-led study out of class. I completed engineering, computing, and project management uni courses. It seems, from what she’s saying, is that she is doing an arts degree. She wouldn’t survive science or engineering courses. On the back of a dunny door just below the toilet paper at an engineering company that I worked at, which also employed people with arts degrees, someone had written ‘Arts degrees, please take one’.

In my 4 years of University in Australia I never once had my timetable line up so I could only go 1 or 2 days, usually it was more like 3 to 4 days a week. A full load would be 4 subjects, usually a 2 hour lecture, and a tutorial or workshop per subject over the week. There would also be course readings required, the idea was between face to face time, readings time and course work/assignments work you would spend roughly 10 hours a week per subject. Most university students in Australia also will have a part time job working 20+ hours a week or more.

Totally different from when I was at Uni. I was at Uni four days a week (usually 23-25 hours). I think you need to think about the fact she said that she is currently in her fifth year of a three year degree, so she may have been doing it part-time? Sounds to me that there is a lot more rote learning or memorising involved in US and more critical thinking required in Australia.

Lol the attendance requirements are obviously highly variable depending on what degree you are doing. In my (Australian) science degree I was doing 5 full days a week for the first year, getting a couple of afternoons off in 2nd year, and just marginally more time off in the final year.

My University experience in Australia was definitely not like hers. I studied nursing and had a mandatory attendance rate of 80% or we would fail the subject. I was at uni 5 days per week generally between 8 am up until 9pm some days, depending on my schedule. We had to do huge amounts of reading, present case studies (which are assessable and form part of the grade) each week, and participate in skill development labs. We also had 2 written essays, plus a final exam for the semester. If you failed the exam, you failed the unit, regardless of how well you did on the assessments and weekly tutorials. On top of that we had to also do clinical placement, and still complete assignments due during that period, plus do placement specific assessments. The grading the University I attended went from 1 to 7, with 1 a fail and 7 equivalent to a high distinction or an A. So our GPAs go up to 7. The word counts in assignments is true. We also used turnitin, which is for electronic assignment submission and also checks for plagiarism. We generally had either until 5 pm or midnight on the due date to have the assignment submitted.

As an Australian who has attended a few universities in Australia, this is all too weird 😵‍💫 Nothing is true. Maybe she attended Aus Uni part time?? It would be interesting to know which Aus Uni she attended 😂

She’s talking about an Arts degree which is a reading degree, therefore far fewer face to face hours at uni in Australia. Studying science, law, education, medicine, etc it’s a completely different experience due to expectations. Yes we are graded: High distinction, Distinction, Credit, Pass etc.

US college is sounding like just another four years of high school!

I just tune in to hear you say "Happy Arvo" Takeaways: I did nursing. I had one day at uni that was 12 hours. I had a two hour class at 8am, followed by 2 tutorials an hour each that took me to midday. Then a 4 hour break until my arvo session from 4pm, which consisted of two 2 hour lectures back to back on opposite sides of the campus. One thing that I noticed with our American students, they didn't have the general background in high school to prep them for an Australian university. It seems like American college students are failed on stupid things. Plus, our class bell curve is shifted to reflect the average.

I've studied at three Australian universities in three different states, over 5 degrees. I majored in English and we always had exams, so I have no idea where she studied! The limited amount of time she described in classes in Australia does not reflect my experience nor does the smaller workload. I always had readings etc, from class to class. Perhaps it's a change related to covid. I last studied in 2017 so I can't compare that. We still use A,B, C etc in schools.

Her assessment of the pass rate is dependent upon the course. I did a bachelor of Information Technology at university here in Australia to pass i needed 80% bare minimum. So she is maybe right for a bachelor of Arts (idk) but not for what i did. Every unit i did had a final exam that was worth enough for me to fail the unit if i did not pass well and did not get good marks for the assessment projects. So her experience with Australian University is very subjective because she is doing a relatively easy bachelor. Full time i was attending university 4 to 5 days a week, depending on my unit load for that semester.

I think there's a difference between "busy" work and critical thinking 🤔. The few US students I met were struggling to get credits here, when they were used to distinctions in the US. When it came to grading my PhD the Australian professor was toughest, the UK 🇬🇧 marker was in the middle and the US marker the most favourable. Meant that I only needed to make revisions to the satisfaction of my university, not having a re-mark to graduate.

Surprised by the reference to Jane Eyre. We studied that in yr 9 or 10 at high school. Btw lightning severed the tree which is a metaphor for their relationship.

Gday. It totally depends on the degree. For a science degree I had lectures/tutes every morning and 4x3h pracs in the arvos. Also colleges here are usually referred to as the residential living place, not the educational facility. Ir can also be an independent specialised training place. Cheers

It is interesting to listen and compare! Thanks for nice sharing Ryan! Have a great week!

For attendance it depends on the bachelor - STEM fields require a lot of actual attendance, while bachelor of commerce and art often have online courses. Depending on the uni you can also schedule your classes and make your own timetable to fit everything into a couple days. Australian uni encourages self-study and they treat you as an adult. Classes may be only 3-4 contact hours, but they generally expect a minimum of 10-15 hours study per subject per week.

This entire video is bollocks. Firstly, she's speaking for all universities, when they're all different. She's speaking for all courses, which are sooooo different. If she got away with attending lectures/tutorials once or twice a week she must have been doing an Arts degree.

No idea what she was studying in Australia but class contact hours was 25 hours. The online requirement and readings required to be prepared for contact hours was about the same plus assignment time. I think what she is telling you is misleading

I've done parts of both a science degree and humanities/arts degree at Uni and they are very different! Humanities/arts have a lot less contact hours as she's describing here, but science you have labs and more lectures etc for each topic. A big plus though was almost all of the lectures for both were also recorded and put online so technically you didn't have to attend in person, the only attendance recorded were for the tutorials, labs, workshops etc. Definitely made it easier to shift your schedule around and get majority of lectures on one or two days so you didn't have to go in as much :)

Here in my state in Australia a college is a joint primary and secondary private school.

She’s describing basically doing the absolute minimum necessary to skate through. You’d never pass, if you actually did it for all your classes. At my uni 50% was called a “Conceded Pass” and you were only allowed a couple of those in your entire course, if you expect to graduate. You’re expected to put in the same number of hours, outside class as you do in it, some classes have lectures, tutorials and prac as well, so it mounts up. At Australian Unis all the weekly lectures are done in one session. Lectures, you can on catch up from home, if necessary, but tutorials are mandatory. Also, you’re expected to have done the ALL reading before the lecture and not after. Some Unis do have exams, even in the social sciences. I had one for every unit in undergrad. Open book exam sound easy but it’s only helpful if you’ve actually done the reading. Also 2,500 word assignments is only in first year by 3rd year and post grad you’ll be handing in 4000-5000 words without breaking a sweat, plus doing weekly in class presentations and group assignments.

Year 5 doing a 3 year degree … that explains why she says she is finding it hard to do so much in a week in the States. We don’t know whether she had to redo something or whether she is a part time student in Australia because she is working also, but I doubt she failed at anything because she personally achieved 70-90% on her units. I worked with a young woman who had wanted to study Law but didn’t have a high enough High School pass score to get a University place (you have to have a nearly perfect score to get into Law and Medicine because of the limited places) so she had done her nursing degree and then used the credits to enable her to study Law. She was working full time and doing her Law degree … incredibly hard worker and determined to achieve her Law degree but it was a long road for her.

Admittedly I attended Uni in the 90s and I understand some things have changed, but I attended classes and tutorials every day. Had plenty of essays and exams each semester including for English. Plus I had to read all the assigned books. I was horrified to discover they now do exams on weekends and in the evenings which just seems to be a bit much.

Great video, really informative to hear about differences.

I think the difference is that our Universities want students to think for themselves(with independent research) instead of learning things “by wrote” or from a textbook. We have that in our senior high school education and are then given the opportunity to fly in terms of our own interpretation, analysis and critical thinking.

Definitely depends on the degree or uni you're at in Aus or attending in the US. I have pretty much completely the opposite to this gal. Aus uni - Griffith Uni US uni - Illinois State Uni I definitely agree contact hours/class expectations in the US are much more depending and super inflexible. In Aus I am also usually only at uni 2-3 days a week (mostly 2 days) but I never had classes mandated. So you could show up to absolutely zero classes as long as you passed your assessments. Whereas my US uni had a 'two classes missed' maximum. Also found the classes in the US were so short and had multiple so you had to be available everyday which was a huge pain for me. Also found the US classes to be HUGELY easier and way easier to pass hence why I think their pass rate was 70%. I got questions in a third year class that I was getting in first year classes in Aus, also got half points + points for making jokes? It was wild. In Aus I averaged about 85% in the US I averaged about 98%. Often got 100% papers because they would have so many smaller assessments that were a few pages long and didn't really have any substance. Also agree about the paper thing, and that was 4 years ago so the fact that it still happens - weird.

I really enjoyed hearing your opinions

Addressing a couple of things that came up: 1) Even when I was at uni in 2000-2004 there were people that could get away with 1-2 days of face-to-face. The difference that is probably lost is that you have a lot more choice in tutorials to select when you have those times, rather than mandatory class times. I'm a scientist and while I had usually a minimum of 20 hours face time, there were (up until 3rd year when the classes are smaller) usually between 2 and 4 choices of lab times. The lecturers would also bunch their lectures to give them time to do their own research on specific days. They also didn't (usually) schedule stuff for Friday mornings because Bar Night was Thursday nights. 2) Pass marks are different between universities, schools, and even lecturers. Also what you have to do in order to get marks can be adjusted to make direct comparison a little harder. For example one lecturer had 6 assignments (one for each core topic) and to get a Distinction you had to get that or higher in every assignment, getting a single credit (even if by 1 mark) meant the highest you could get was a Credit (and no, I'm still not bitter about that 20 years later. Not. At. All.) 3) The amount of assessments can vary wildly. Some units I had 2 exams and a single assignment/essay whereas for others it was a lab report each week. And even the format of those could vary. For one final year subject the reports were really just supposed to be answers to the questions posed, but when the lecturer changed (due to a heart attack suffered by the usual lecturer) the lab reports suddenly had to be full-on reports because one student complained that that's what they had done and they got a lower mark than the rest of us that "didn't put in as much effort". Overall the experience can be different across the spectrum. There's a lot of leeway that Australian universities have in setting their standards and how they execute their programs, and so they can set themselves up for different student experiences. Some are also a lot more akin to the Junior Colleges in the US in how they deliver programs. At the end of the day, it should be about how do you ensure someone has the skills, knowledge, and practical training for the field they are entering, rather than following a regimented program of learning.

I love your reactions dude, I look forward to them. Seeing as you have this Aussie thing going on all the time (yes, I am an Aussie) you should try reacting to some of the talented musicians we have. Your channel will grow through the roof if you started doing that!

My uni had a 7 point scale. High Distinction, Distinction, Credit, High Pass, Low Pass, High Fail, Low Fail..... however you were only allowed to get 2 low passes (so 2 subjects rated overall as a low pass) throughout the entire 4 years and then they were counted after that as High Fails.

The thing about only two days at Uni, when I went through Uni, I was there only two and a half days a week but they were longer days, I managed to choose classes that were one after another for most of the days with a break somewhere in between, sometimes there from 8am-6pm, but then i had rest of the week to do assessment and work

Both colleges and universities can issue bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. However, in Australia, there is a big difference between colleges and universities. There are 43 universities in Australia that award bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.

(Edit: Just realized, that I forgot to mention I’m an Australian, who studied in Australia.) I think it must be course specific, because my experience at Uni was very different to her’s. It was actually a lot more similar to Ryan’s. I did engineering and it was minimum 40hrs a week. I got assessments every week from each of my classes. What was interesting is that for most of my classes you could pass with only a 50% however there were a few classes where they rose the criteria and made it so you could only pass with a 60% or more. Every class I ever had except for maybe two, had exams. As an engineering student you can’t escape them.

When I went to an Australian university in the 90s it was very much about being an independent learner. Yes you didn't have many set hours, often a lecture and tutorial or prac for each subject each week, but you were expected to put in a significant amount of study or library time on top of that. On average for every hour spent in class, students were expected to spend approximately 2-3 hours studying. In some subjects, it would be significantly more. Attendance wasn't taken for lectures but tutorial attendance and participation was part of your grade in some subjects. There were often only 1 or 2 assessments per subject per term, an exam or assignment or both. As my own child is nearing uni age, it seems it's still about being an independent learner, which some students really struggle with. You get out, only what you put in. You have to be self motivated. The exams for English...I don't know about uni, but in high school, with external exams now for senior, they have to write their essay under exam conditions. So if they're studying Shakespeare, they will be given 3 essay questions to prepare, but only 2 will be offered as options during the exam. They have one sheet, with a set word limit (very limited) where they pre write their quotes from the text, which is all they will have available to them during the exam. This is handed in a few days before the exam, and if they fail to, they have no quotes available to them. Edit: In QLD (at least at my kid's school) the senior English exam is a completely blind essay written on the Shakespearean play being studied, Macbeth in yr 11 and Hamlet in yr 12. No quote sheets and the question is only seen during the exam. That was the yr 10 exam above.

Studying an "Arts" degree explains it all.

Yes, of course we get A's, B's etc... "straight A's" or "Big Fat F's" XD and all that jazz but it's a high school thing! Not generally used in university terminology. Also, the fact that she's doing an Arts Degree says it all really! So there's your answer for her lack of contact hours/days of the week she was required to attend. That is not the case for other degrees! lol, why do you think people make jokes about Bachelor of Arts/Arts Degrees being easy!?

I studied Engineering in the ‘90s and we had about 40 contact hours. That’s 40 hours of lectures and tutorials. Plus all of the work you are expected to do at home. She’s right about the assignments though. We had one major assignment plus an exam each semester which counted for the lion’s share of your marks. I can’t remember if we required to get a higher mark than “pass” for any particular subject. A, B, C grading is a primary (elementary) school thing here. At high school it is percentages. Good reaction video. Keep it up!

A note on Pass at 50% versus Pass at 70%. If both exams are well structured, the same proportion of participants should exceed the pass mark. The difference is that with the 70% exam it is more difficult to distinguish the exceptional students from the less adept. In short, I would expect an exam with a 70% pass mark to be easier than one with a 50% pass mark.

When I was studying a BA, another student who was studying a double degree BA and Teaching said to me - “oh, my teaching degree is so much more difficult than my BA which is super easy”. My response was - “so you get straight As in your BA then”. She replied “well no, I don’t”. I then replied “well I get straight As, I have 3 Deans Honours Awards, an International Honours Award and was invited to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship- and trust me, it wasn’t easy”. Also - I work in the Uni sector, my kids are studying engineering and teaching at the moment. All of our experiences are very different to what she is saying. And yes, my degree was graded As through to Fs.

Sounds like she was in a low-effort Arts Degree. It’s really not representative of most university experiences in Australia. My wife is currently studying law and the workload is intensive with weekly assessments, plus major assignments and exams. There are hundreds of pages of weekly readings that are quizzed in class. When I went to university in the 1990’s (studying town planning) 20-30 contact hours was expected and you could be on campus most days including days from 8AM to 9pm. Her course sounds like a doddle.

That's right, we don't call university college

Even in our TAFE system (what you probably call a trades college) the pass rates are 75% minimum with a full load being done day or night across 5 days. The only time that got changed was in the final semester when Pass, Credit and Distinction came into use for Uni transfer.

Are there any australians who live close who can give Ryan a face-to-face tutorial on the correct pronunciation of "arvo", cos it's starting to get to me!

It probably depends on the course, type of degree you are going for. My daughter is doing animal studies at TAFE -TAFE is a college not a university. She attends once per week but has assignments once per fortnight (some are short others are longer) They are given a satisfactory or unsatisfactory on them and nothing in-between. If you gain an unsatisfactory you can redo and resubmit. She needs 100% to gain that satisfactory and if you gain two non-satisfactorily in a row you fail that section and would need to redo them another year. For example nutrition or health &safety. So far she hasn't failed any but she has had to resubmit a couple and as you can imagine this is quite stressful when one assignment can make or fail an entire area.

Sounds like she is doing an arts degree (Medieval, American Lit, Creative writing, Victorian studies, and Mythology, Can anyone tell me the career this is setting you up for?) which can have a lower direct interaction requirement. I'm sure you talk to someone doing an engineering, Science, Medicine or Computer Science degree and they will tell you I believe a full time load is 20 - 30 hours correct me if I am wrong

I spent a lot of time when dealing with American exchange students preparing letters to explain where 63%, for instance, fell on the distribution of marks for the class (about the same percentile as about 80% US) - and that the mark depends on how hard or open-ended the questions are and how mean the marker (or the rubric)

I attended uni most days however my limited understanding is that some uni classes are mostly online now due to COVID (Australian university). As far as workload, depends on the degree & specific classes. I certainly experienced a decent workload. Interesting that it didn’t cover the cost of university. In Australia, as a citizen, we are not required to pay upfront fees and the fees are paid back over time at a reasonable rate. I know that there have been recent changes and the cost of uni is going up but I am very aware of how lucky we are here in Australia.

University is not just about attending classes. You're supposed to do a lot of study and research outside of University attendance and completing assignments is all part of it. Saying you only need 50% is meaningless. A 50% score in a hard exam might be equal to an 80% score in an easy one. Same for assignments. Also, are the results scaled etc? This person isn't making any sense.

She is definitely doing her courses in Australia, whatever they may be, part time. Definitely an arts degree. My first degree was a hybrid, first two years full time, final year part time (took me 4 years) for a total of 6. First two years, two full days on campus followed by two full days doing teaching rounds at my assigned technical school. Day 5 was taken up by study, class prep, assignments, etc. It was pretty full on. Note too, that first two years didn’t include any method area training, I already had qualifications in the subject for which I was being prepared to teach. The final year covered advanced topics in my method area which took 3-6 hours of lecture attendance at whatever times I could squeeze it in, usually evenings. Did my two post grad degrees fully part time, one to two evenings a week. Commenced uni in 1981, final graduation in 1993. I’d like to know which uni she attended, sounds pretty cruisy compared to my experience.

I'm a bit older than the woman in this piece, and have done 2 different Arts degrees. For both I usually managed to pack it all into 4 days most semesters. Pass/fail was at 60% for most subjects, determined by several larger pieces of work (and you couldn't switch courses without at least a 70% average passing average)

I love how you told us how you got away with page count. 😂

Hey Ryan, Happy arvo sounds cute But! “how ya goin’ this arvo?” Makes more sense 🙂 Love your vids

Cost is 1/3 the price or less & under grad courses are 3 years only & NOT 4 years. I am part of a USA University for my Ph.D studies. 24 subjects for undergrads & 12 subjects for Masters or MBA. We now have the online courses / subjects that can speed up your graduation rate. I studied 5 nights a week at night to get my undergrads & then MBA at night for 2 years back in the olden days before the internet existed.

I agree with Jo. My two children went through Uni , both did final exams and would attend classes more than 2-3 days a week. Second if you see a D grade on your results here that usually stands for distinction and would mean a grade of 75-80 percent

I’ve done three degrees at different universities in Australia, one bachelor and two masters. In the courses I’ve done, the core subjects requires grades of 70%, some as high as 80% to progress. Elective subjects require a pass. Elective subjects reduce as you move into specialty areas.

A 13 week semester in Australia usually consists of four units, each requiring about 10 hours per week of study, readings, tutorial exercises, including a lecture and a tutorial, plus working on one of usually three assignments due during the semester, and sometimes an exam, depending on the complexity of the assignments. That will get you a pass, but if you want Distinctions or High Distinctions, then more effort needs to be put in.

Also at my school, we used the A-F system until year 10 (or 10th grade), where you have classes all day back to back. But for year 11 and 12, they used the High Distinction, Distinction, Credit and Pass system, probably to match up with universities so to prepare you. You only had 5-6 subjects for those final years so had a lot more free periods to study, but would still be in everyday. But at university, not many people live on campus, so its great to just come 2-3 times a week. There is a saying in Australia “P’s get degrees” but it’s probably not the case for some courses.

UK system similar to Australian (no surprise there), but self managed study, research and written work is more intense. Lectures and tutorials are to guide you as to how you may decide to approach the topic. What I am getting to is that our systems are based on independent learning and showing independence of thought in one’s approach to the subject.

I do uni, I only go into the uni 2 days a week but I attend online classes on 2 other days. I made sure to put all my in person classes on few days as possible since I have to catch the train for an hour and a half to get there. Although those 2 days I get up and go at 5am and get home at 8pm.

Bro you should do a video about the youth sub culture of the Australian eshay. Would love to see your opinions of them.

I did a 3 year Bachelor of Communications degree - I did 4 1-hour tutorials, 4 2 hour lectures, so while I COULD have shoved that into 1-2 days a week it was almost impossible if I wanted to absorb the material. There is a lot of emphasis here on self-study so once you get out of that lecture it's time to revise your work. Then it was time to prepare for the tutorial. Generally I tried to shove both into the same day so I could dedicate a whole day to a subject then move on the next day but that still means 4 days a week. I also did a media studies class in my first year that didn't start until 6pm. It sounds like she did it part-time, which is valid and a lot of people do it especially for some of the Arts degrees, but this does not generally apply.

High school here (depending on the school) some start at 8:30, 8:45 or 8:50am and finishes at either 3 or 3:30 pm, we don't have hrs between classes we get recess and lunch, from memory recess is 20mins and lunch is 50mins. Kids are at school for 6 hrs a day

In Australia, you could literally show up to 2 classes a week and watch the recordings from your bed. Stem has more classes and longer labs but still you only have to attend compulsory things like tests

I guess everyone’s experience is different. My brother studied in Australia and was struggling to get a credit and found the course really hard. Then he went over to Washington DC and studied and he said he found it much easier and was getting great results.

Ahh I miss Uni. One or two classes a day, sometimes fitting most in one-three days and ‘self study’ (video games) the rest of the week. Good times.

Hey Ryan, you gotta start doing Zoom reacts and recording them at least once a week, so that we have you on one side of the screen and an Aussie guest (rotating, not the same person each time - pick a random fan each time), so that we can see both reactions and when you have questions you can stop the video and they can answer them - then the rest of Australia can have fun with both your reactions AND whether we think that one Aussie was correct 😜Cos every time you watch an Aussie describe something about Australia as "always true" or "everywhere" I'm like... um, nope!!! 😂

Hi Ryan: Canada here. From the comments, I suspect this person, may be a bit of an outlier in her description of Australian Universities. I have attended both Canadian and American universities and they are pretty similar. My undergraduate experience was similar to your description of your time at university. However, my time in my graduate program was actually quite similar to this young woman’s experience as far as class schedule time was concerned. Of course, there was a tremendous amount of work preparing for those classes. The thinking is that by the time one is in a graduate program you do not need a lot of direction and supervision but need time to do your own research. The terms college and university is a bit muddied in the United States. College seems to refer to any post secondary learning period. I am not sure about Australia, but in Canada, college refers to any non university post secondary institution offering complete programs in various trades and skills that are not part of the university offerings. Universities tend to be institutions that focus mainly on learnings that are often classed as academic pursuits, universities being the domain of academia. The most prominent programs focus on the pure sciences, social sciences, communication skills and professions such as medical, legal and education. The institutions in the United States that are called universities are basically universities and would not be called colleges in Canada. PS: We have our share of stupid in Canada too!!( But fortunately we also have universal health care.)

I haven't studied in the US, but as an aussie studying at Uni, I was expected to study 10+ hours per subject with usually 3-4 subjects per term. We had three terms at my uni. We had 1-1.5hours per subject for online tutorial as I was living remote and able to study online. I also had a residential school once a term that could run from 1-2weeks. The best thing is that our uni is pretty cheap as we have a HECS system but also our uni has a cap on how much they can charge. I ended up completing two science degrees with a $43,000 debt. In my second degree, medical sciences, we had a student that travelled from England as it was still far cheaper for her to complete at the international rate plus her travel down here than for her to complete the degree in the UK. Plus it is internationally recognised, and being mostly online, which made it far easier to complete while also working. My degrees did have around 300 hours of unpaid on the job experience. We had to achieve more than 50% to graduate. Our grading were Fail, Pass, Credit, Distinction and High Distinction rather than a, b, c, d. We do have colleges, but they're usually private schools and cost a LOT of money to study. I'm unsure if you can complete a degree in our colleges. Lastly, I love your work and it's currently 2:30am and I am still awake watching this clip 😄👍

I've had uni two or three days a week full time but those days were packed like 9am-9pm sometimes but if you have to work it's more ideal no one wants a 2-3hr break between classes. We do have to do more homework as she describes these days due to the new blended learning style especially if you're online however its not graded and not mandatory and I have had chapter quizzes plenty of times. However, I guess it depends on what you study I did health sciences but I rarely went to class unless its a lab/prac you don't have to go and you don't have to give an excuse unless there's a quiz that day or something. Nahhh we get don't get straight As we get straight Ds🤣 (equivalent of a B but yeah). Also we not only have word counts we often have formatting requirements so no messing with the font size/margins/line spacing for us. This has been my experience at an inner city and a regional uni over the course of 10 years studying nursing, nutrition, dietetics, and health promotion.

My experience of New Zealand university (BSc courses) is a little different. For my first year, each course (Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics) had 4 hours per week lecture time. In addition there was a three hour practical per week for the sciences, plus tutorials. So while I had breaks in the day it added up to roughly the same class time as high school. In subsequent year addition practical sessions were added as you advanced further into your major areas (in my case Physics). It was expected that self-directed study was a higher component of your time that would have been expected at High School, where much of the out of class work was in the form of set assignments. I enjoyed the greater flexibility of University, knowing that I could 'catch up' later that night if I wanted to do something else in the afternoon.

I think it depends on the course, because I studied communications and I had 2-3 days at uni, and that was before lectures were online more because of covid. If you didn’t make your timetable quick enough and the classes booked out, then you might get stuck with 4 days a week. I had 4 subjects, each generally had 3 assignments each. The first would be very simple due like week 3-4, the second due weeks 6-8 that was a bit longer and then the final one due weeks 10-12 that was worth the most and was usually very long and involved. Some would might have quizzes on the readings that collectively equal one assignment and some would have writing tasks in class that again might add up to worth a 30% assessment. But the experience will be different depending on what you are studying, the combination of courses you have and the university itself. But I am so glad I had so few contact hours, because it meant I could work part time and do internships towards the end of my degree. I wouldn’t want to be on campus and have something on (especially if it was only 15 minutes!) every single day. Because then you have to stick around just for a few things, when I would rather have 2 full days so I can spend the rest of the week doing assignments and other things.

I completed a bachelor of arts at a college in Australia in 2010. I had classes every week day in a full-time course. Pass was I think 60-70, credit 71-85, distinction 86-95, 95+ high distinction. When I was there, they were working on getting approved for university status. All I know about that is they were preparing to apply when in my first year and they had not got there by the time I left 4 years later. Passing wasn't difficult if you went to most classes and did most assignments. I got a credit for a talk I did on a book I still haven't read. Thank you cliffnotes.

Like I did in the early 1990s, she is doing a literature degree . . a Bachelor of Arts. It sounds alot like my Medieval & Renaissance literature and Communication, Arts degree (plus I did some French, Japanese, psychology, and Australian literature). It also sounds like little has changed. Most of my subjects were assessed by 2 or 3 essays, and often with tutorial attendance AND participation being worth 5%. Few subjects in literature etc had exams. The large essays were great preparation for those of us who were working toward Masters and Doctoral studies. The low contact hours gave us the TIME to do the Required and the Recommended reading (maybe) - there was always ALOT !! Frankly, it forced us to learn HOW to manage our time and be responsible and accountable for the amount of effort we put in. To me it felt great to no longer be treated like a child and have my mode of learning forced upon me ('spoon feeding' was how my lecturers referred to the High School education method). Some people really blossom using the Australian University type of format because their learning style was SO incompatible with that highly 'controlled' Primary and High School format. When I went to Uni, it was the first time I truly felt like I was being treated as an adult - with all the freedom and accountability that that entails. I could also do some of my subjects at night, when most of the part-time students attended their lectures and tutorials. That gave me more flexibility in my timetable for work or sleep or number of days I physically attended Uni, because it was a 45min drive each way (plus 25mins finding a park! - until I started riding my motorbike to Uni . . THEN parking was right IN the Great Court (centre area) of the buildings my classes were in. Yay!

The rule of thumb is contact hours x 2-3 for the amount of work, depending on the course. She is doing an Arts (Humanities) course. For my Science degree, I was at uni 34-36 hours a week (including labs). And was expected to do an equal.amout of study at home. High school had more contact hours and very little free time.

I studied undergraduate medicine at an australian university, and it is definitely more than 2 days a week. In general 4-5 days/week, but some days might be lighter than others. We have multiple lectures, tutorial groups, practicals/labs, anatomy classes, etc... Some people does combined degree with medicine, it must be crazy busy, I don't know how they do it.

As an Australian I've grown up with American TV shows and I've always gotten this vibe that America is a land of professional students. Like a lot of Aussies probably don't do college and university after school, and do courses later in life. The vibe I get from your shows and culture is that it's more important where you go rather than what you study, and it's frowned upon if you don't go to a college after highschool. Getting the marks, passes, grades.. whatever it is.. seems more important than actually understanding the information. A lot of what I was taught tended to be encouraging self-led study, and Its a skill that I have continued to use my entire life. At least that's how I perceive it

I've done an electrical trade at colleges which was done in blocks of 7 weeks each year. I skipped a year and did two years of college in 10 weeks. Attendance was 5 full days per week of theory and labs plus of course the rest of the year I learned on the job. I've also been at university for an Engineering degree which was every day face-to-face contact and labs, and the Arts degree (albeit an odd one) also had classes most days.

I did a double major in history and English at an Aussie uni. At least 80% of my English courses had exams. The exams mostly required 3 short essays on 3 different texts and centred on major themes not insignificant details.

I don't know what she's talking about. I had classes every day when I was at uni in Australia

College can mean different things. So I went too Rostervor College. Which I think starts at grade 4 and goes too year 13. Yes they added a year in SA if you need more points too get into University. After that you can go to technical college to do anything from a certificate to a diploma. Such as a trade certificate or a business\teaching diploma.

I studied online, so never had to set foot in the University :D But saying that I'm not sure what she was studying, but I worked my arse off. Every day there was things to do, readings, videos, assignments, lecturers online, responding to questions, forums etc.

Page count isn’t the only thing that can be manipulated. Because assignments are handed in online it is possible to add to the word count if you get to the end of your writing and don’t have enough by changing the font to white and adding a lot of nonsense words, they don’t show up on the page but they do show up in the word count.

I don't know what sort of degree she was working on but in my BVA (admittedly, earned in the early 90s) I had classes 5 days a week. 2 full 8 hour days of my major Sculpture on Monday and Tuesday, 4 hours drawing on Wednesdays, 4 hours of Art History on Thursdays, and 2 extra complementary classes each 2 hours a week (Sociology, Psych, Literature etc). Add to that assignments etc and full time courses during vacations for more specific skills etc, from visiting lecturers. It seems I did more time taking BA classes in my Visual Arts degree than she did in her whole Arts degree.

By the way, I have never seen a Macdonald sign named Maccers, it is just a slang Australians use. We do it with names as well such as John would be called Johno and you would be called Ryno.

I left high school at the age of sixteen (1976) at the beginning of year 12 the final year of high school in Australia. I got a job as an apprentice auto electrician. To become a qualified tradesman you go through a four year apprenticeship, the general rule is you do three years at TAFE (technical and further education) one day a week then the last year is full time at work. Because I started work after the beginning of TAFE year. I had to start my first year of TAFE in the second year of my apprenticeship. I was at TAFE and the lecturer came in and announced he had an urgent appointment and the days topic was on generators (yes I'm that old). So he pointed at me and announced that I would be running the class, for that morning period. I got through it with quite a few heckles from the crowd. I managed to pass TAFE with a credit grade and bought my first business at the age of Twenty, just before I actually got my tradesman's certificate.

Her Australian Uni experience sounds exactly like mine, as a Bachelor of Arts student. I’ve studied at multiple uni including unimelb (#1 Aus ranked uni) and my experience lines up with hers. Full time student is 4 units, each unit is generally: 1 hour tutorial & 2 hour lecture or 2 hour seminar When timetables are announced you quickly put on as many as you can in one day and that means you normally have 2 days at uni. If I have a lecture only on another day I’d never go because you can do it online. Also with attendance if you miss more than 25% of classes with is normally 3 classes you’ll lose 20% of your grade. Tho, I was terrible in one year of actually attending classes was travelling interstate a lot. I’ve gotten HDs (over 80%) in units where I went to 1 tute. Like she says it’s super easy to talk your way out of. Most of my friends thought I was wild how I did uni but I got better grades. I feel Aussie unis put the emphasis on individual learning and the professors are guides more than anything. Again, this only fits with a BA. Practical units need more contact hours and have harsher guidelines. Especially since exams have gotten less common in BA, the summer/end of year holidays are nearly 4 months! I’ve lived with many international students and many say we have a lot more slack and independent but the work itself and grading isn’t easier. Currently living with a Dutch student and she is doing a Masters in International Relations. She has 3 days at uni and generally those days are 3 hours long each, I think one of her days is long

So far my daughter had had to miss 2 classes due to Covid and flooding. Both situations completely out of her control. Luckily with the flooding class was canceled since only 5 managed to get to the actual class room. If there is any teacher who would punish students for such things they need to be retrained or even fired. She would have missed a third class but she caught Covid over break so she only missed 1. Unfortunately the teacher had given a big assignment over this break which she was able to get an extension on due to the Covid -but who gives assignments to students going on break? Assignments are all online. None are done on paper since highschool.

In Australia “college” often refers to the University specific accomodation- so I guess “dorms” would be the American equivalent!?- we do have some educational places called “colleges”, but Universities and Colleges are not the same thing.

It was interesting watching this as my aunty moved to the U.S and works as a lecturer at an uni over there. She said that the essays that her students write there are much worse than the ones in Australia and that some don't even know how to write an essay properly. But I haven't gone to uni yet or to another country other than my own for that matter so I don't really know.

A college in Australia is a much broader concept and can be a secondary or tertiary level education institution or sometimes just a residential organisations attached to a university. In some cases it can be a professional organisation for graduates.

I majored in English literature at uni. We had a mix of exams and essays, except in Honours year when it was just the thesis and one or two big essays. Clearly things have changed at Aussie universities since the 80s!

That right there is an Arts degree. At the Aussie uni I attend every unit has an expected workload of 12 hours per week including contact hours. It is common for Arts units to only have 2-3 contact hours per week but their workload outside of that still adds up to the 12 hours (that's 48 hours full-time, with only 8-12 of them spent in class), hence the massive assignments worth 50% of their grade. I have only studied Science and IT which are both structured very differently with an average of 4-5 contact hours per unit/per week and less hefty assignments that are typically worth between 10-30%. As far as exams go I know with my current major in IT the unit coordinator has spent the last couple of years removing the exams from all of the units as it is a pretty poor way of assessing what the student has learned in the unit

The advantage with online submission is that the students have to run the assignment through a plagiarism program prior to submission. Also, the majority of Australian universities offer only two semesters per year whereas one, Bond University, squashes in three semesters per year which is what I believe is the situation for the majority of US Colleges.

Universities in Australia are more flexible for the working person as in they have in person study, online or a combination of both, and classes are put online afterwards so if your working you can go back and watch it in your free time. They say to spend 10 hours per week per unit studied. Also payment for studying if you can't pay upfront you can choose to have a HECS debt which basically is a debt that is paid of over time once you reach a certain income threshold but you still need to pay for your textbooks which aren't cheap. I don't know what she is talking about but at Charles Darwin University we do have course work to do at home prior to the class. We do have assessments/essays and exams.

I did a science based uni degree in NSW. I was on campus 4 days, I did 4 subjects a semester, and each subject has at lest 3, 5000 to 7500 word essays, and a final exam.

Australian Uni is 4 units ( full time ) per semester. Each with a Lec and a Tutorial. Tutorial class times are usually 2 - 3 hrs with many Lecs online, especially since Covid. At enrollment time when you pick your classes timetable, you can work it so you could only have to turn up for 2 days but it would be 2 full days. I haven't been that lucky yet. 3 days always seems to be the best i've been able to reduce it to. TAFE which is our government run technical college only goes as high as Diplomas. Your in class 4-5 week full time but typically a Diploma course is only 1-2 years, it use to be 3 years decades ago.

Been there for 3 weeks. Obviously an expert.

Depending on what you're studying the required hours would vary greatly. To get my Degree was five days a week, there were really only a few hours difference between my first and fourth years. My Masters was a year, two half days and online courses. In Australia, a college is a private/independent highschool, its also given to technical further education institutions.

Man that sounds horrible waiting for hours between classes. I always tried to get into the tute that came right after the lecture. I hated waiting around. I just wanted to get home asap.

You should do a reaction to the song Straya to the tune Hey Ya.