Learn English Vocabulary: The people you will meet at UNIVERSITY

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.