Undergraduate education is an education level taken in order to gain one's first tertiary degree (except for an associate's degree). Hence, in many subjects in many educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a bachelor's degree, such as in the United States, where a university entry level is known as undergraduate^[1] while students of higher degrees are known as graduates.^[2] In some other educational systems and subjects, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a master's degree, for example in some science courses in Britain and some medicine courses in Europe.

Programs[link]

Indian system[link]

In India the Graduation system is classified into two Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) Systems. In India it takes three or four years to complete an "undergraduate" degree. The three year undergraduate programs are mostly in the fields of arts, commerce, science etc., and the four year programs are mostly in the fields of technology, engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, agriculture etc. However, for medicine, law and architecture, the period has been five years.^[3]

English, Welsh, and Northern Irish system[link]

Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland may usually enter university from the age of eighteen, often having studied A-levels and thus having had thirteen to fifteen years of schooling. Occasionally students who finish A Level or equivalent qualifications early (after skipping a year in school on the grounds of academic giftedness) may enter below this age but large universities are now setting lower age limits of 16 or 17 after a number of well publicised "child prodigies" were found to be emotionally and mentally unprepared for university life.

Applications for undergraduate courses in UK higher education are made through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS).^[4]

For their first degree, most students read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes three years, however in the sciences and engineering integrated courses covering both undergraduate level and advanced degree level leading to the degree of master,^[5] usually taking four years and including a research project or dissertation are popular. Given the integrated nature of these programs someone who gains a master's degree via an integrated program is not admitted to the degree of bachelor.

Master's degrees conferred after an extended programs are not to be conflated with the degree of Master of Arts conferred at Oxbridge and Dublin, which is not a substantive qualification, but reflects the ancient practice of those three universities of promoting Bachelors of Arts to Masters of Arts (and thus full membership of the University) six or seven years after matriculation.^[6]

Honours degrees and integrated master's degrees are awarded with 1st, upper 2nd, lower 2nd or 3rd class honours. If a student passes the course but fails to do so sufficiently well for third class honours to be awarded he will be awarded with an ordinary degree. Some graduates write "Hons" after their degree postnominals to show that they have an honours degree rather than an ordinary degree however some consider this to be an affectation.

Many universities offer sandwich courses or an extramural year, which offer work placements for a short period of time in a relevant industry before students complete their studies. Taking a sandwich course may make the course last a year longer than it would otherwise.

Apart from a single private university, Buckingham, all universities with the power to award degrees are heavily state financed however they also rely on tuition fees set by the government at a maximum index-linked level, repayable after graduation contingent on attaining a certain level of income, and with the state paying all fees for students from the poorest backgrounds. UK students are generally entitled to student loans for maintenance with repayment contingent on income.^[7] Unlike in other European countries, the British government does not own the universities' assets and university staff are not civil servants. United Kingdom universities are therefore better described as autonomous intellectually independent institutions with public funding, rather than public universities per se. The crown does not control syllabi,with the exception of teacher training. The crown restricts the power to award degree to those with a royal charter, in the case of traditional universities, or authorization from the Secretary of State for Universities, in the case of modern universities. Universities accredited in foreign countries,such as Richmond University are however free to operate.

Scottish system[link]

Students in Scotland usually enter university at the age of seventeen hence courses take an extra year compared to England,Wales and Northern Ireland.

At the older universities the degree of Master of Arts is conferred in the arts subjects after four years while the newer universities instead conferrer the degree of Bachelor of ArtsThe degree of Master of Arts conferred by the Ancient Scottish Universities is equivalent to the degree of Bachelor of Arts at other universities and does not require the level of study necessitated for the other degrees of master awarded by these universities. The degree instead reflects the ancient traditions of these universities.^[8]
In the sciences, students usually read for the degree of bachelor, which usually takes four years however as with the rest of the UK integrated master's degrees are popular in science and engineering, although in Scotland they last for five years. Degree classification is as that of the rest of the UK.

Irish system[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Ireland's Higher Education system is similar to that of the United Kingdom, reflecting the shared origins of undergraduate education for both countries.

Other European systems[link]

In many other, particularly continental European systems, an "undergraduate" degree in the American sense does not exist. Because students are expected to have received a sound general education at the secondary level, in a school such as a gymnasium or lycee, students in Europe enroll in a specific course of studies they wish to pursue upon entry into a University. In the US, students only specialize in a "major" during the last years of college. Specializing in a field of study upon entry into a university means most students graduate after four to five years of study. The fields available include those only taught as graduate degrees in the US, such as law or medicine.

If there is a separate undergraduate degree, higher degrees (License, Master, Doctor at) can be gained after completing the undergraduate degree. In the traditional German system, there were no undergraduate degrees in some fields, such as engineering: students continued to Master's level education without any administrative breakpoints, and employers would not consider half-finished Master's degrees. In many countries, the English distinction between a bachelor's and master's degree is only now being introduced by the Bologna process. Under the new Bologna reform, universities in Europe are introducing the Bachelor level (BA or BS) degree, often by dividing a 5-year Master-level program into two parts (3-year Bachelor's + 2-year Master's), where students are not obligated to continue with the second Master's-degree part. These new Bachelor's degrees are similar in structure to British Bachelor's degrees.

In the traditional German system, there is a vocational degree (Diploma FH) that is similar in length, and is also considered an academic degree. Though it is designed as a specialist degree, in contrast to the Diplom degree at University, which claims to be more generalist. Germany itself, however, is currently abolishing the legal distinction between Fachhochschule and University. They are both translated as university and they both provide bologna-compliant and equivalent postgraduate degrees.^[9]

At some Swedish universities (such as the Royal Institute of Technology), PhD courses are sometimes referred to as "graduate courses", whereas courses for other students (up to master level) sometimes are referred to as "undergraduate courses".

In the French system, the first degree of tertiary education was reached two years after the baccalauréat. Amongst these degrees the university-delivered DEUG has disappeared, whereas Diplôme universitaire de technologie, Brevet de Technicien Supérieur or classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles still exist. According to the Bologna process, these two-years curriculum will be replaced by the three years licence, yet existing.

United States system[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

In the United States of America undergraduate refers to those who are studying towards a bachelor's degree. The most common method consists of four years of study leading to a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), or sometimes another bachelor's degree such as Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.), Bachelor of Social Work (B.S.W.), Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.), Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs (B.S.P.A), or Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.) Five-Year Professional Architecture programs offer the Bachelor of Architecture Degree (B.Arch.).

Unlike in the British model, degrees in law and medicine are not offered at the undergraduate level and are completed as graduate study after earning a bachelor's degree. Neither field specifies or prefers any undergraduate major, though medicine has set prerequisite courses that must be taken before enrollment.

Some students choose to attend a community college for two years prior to further study at another college or university. In most states, community colleges are operated either by a division of the state university or by local special districts subject to guidance from a state agency. Community colleges award associate degrees of different types, some intended to prepare students to transfer to four-year schools (e.g. Associate of Arts (AA), Associate of Science (AS)), and others intended to provide vocational skills and training for students wishing to enter into or advance in a profession. Those seeking to continue their education may transfer to a four-year college or university (after applying through a similar admissions process as those applying directly to the four-year institution, see articulation). Some community colleges have automatic enrollment agreements with a local four-year college, where the community college provides the first two years of study and the university provides the remaining years of study, sometimes all on one campus. The community college awards the associate's degree, and the university awards the bachelor's and master's degrees. However, some community colleges, such as Brazosport College in Lake Jackson, Texas offer bachelor's degrees along with associate's degrees.

Pakistani system[link]

This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Discussion about the problems with the sole source used may be found on the talk page. (April 2012)

In Pakistan, it generally requires three years to complete a bachelor degree in Arts such as BA, four years in Sciences, Engineering or Business Administration such as BS, BE or BBA and five years for bachelor degrees in Medicine (MBBS), Pharmacy (Pharm D.) and Architecture (B.Arch) after successfully completing 12 years of schooling. In addition to coursework, some degrees necessarily require to complete fulltime apprenticeship after formal studies as in case of the MBBS degree which requires 1 year of Residency making the total length of program 6 years.The modern educational system comprises the following five stages: The primary stage lasting five years, applicable to children from 5- to 9-years-old; a middle stage of three years for children 10- to 12-years-old, covering grades six through eight; a two-year secondary, or "matriculation" stage (grades nine and ten), for children 13- and 14-years-old; a two-year higher secondary, or "intermediate college," leading to an F.A. diploma in arts or F.S. in science; and a fifth stage covering college and university programs leading to baccalaureate, professional, and master's and doctorate degrees. The preprimary or preparatory classes, called kachi (literally, unripe) or nursery, were formally integrated into the education system in 1988. ^[10]

Brazilian system[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Brazil follows the major traits of the continental European system; free public schools are available from kindergarten up to postgraduation, a right established in Brazilian Constitution. Students choose their specific course of studies before joining the university. Admission to university is obtained by means of a competitive entrance exam known as Vestibular (a concept somewhat similar to the Baccalauréat in France). There's a new system, adopted by some universities, that uses the national exam's (ENEM) result as part of the Vestibular grade. Depending on the chosen course, upon graduating the student shall be granted: a bachelor's degree's diploma, which usually takes 4 or, in the case of Law, Veterinary, Geology and Engineering, 5 years to complete; or a professional diploma, which normally require 5 or, in the case of medicine, 6 years to complete.

South African system[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The South African system usually has a three-year undergraduate Bachelor’s degree, with one or two majors. (There are exceptions, such as the medical qualification (MBChB), which is six years.) A fourth year, known as an Honours year, is considered a post-graduate degree. It is usually course-driven, although may include a project or thesis.

Nigerian system[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

In Nigeria, undergraduate degrees (excluding Medicine, Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Engineering, Law and Architecture) are four-year-based courses. Medicine (MBBS) and Architecture normally take six years to complete studies while Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Law and Engineering courses take five years to complete studies.

Hong Kong system[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

In Hong Kong, the English system is followed. Students sit for the Certificate of Education examinations at around sixteen years of age, and the Advanced-level, or A-level examinations at around eighteen, then follow by three years of undergraduate education, except for a few specific fields, such as medicine, nursing and law. This is due to be changed, with five-year secondary education and two-year matriculation combined and shortened to six years, and undergraduate education lengthened to four years. Students may be able to receive general education in their first years in universities, more akin to the North American system. The first batch of students under the new system will enter universities in 2012.

See also[link]

Look up undergrad in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Academic degree
• Bachelor's degree
• Bologna process
• Doctorate
• Higher education
• Master Degree
• Master's degree in Europe
• Mature student
• Officer Candidate School
• Postgraduate education
• Post-secondary education
• Reserve Officers' Training Corps
• Undergraduate degree
• University and college admissions
• UniversityJunction.com

Notes[link]

1. ^ University of California, Los Angeles—an example of a typical university entry level in the USA—"Division of Undergraduate Education".
2. ^ Harvard University Different learning levels in a university in the USA
3. ^ http://csecduac.in/viewtopic.php?t=1325
4. ^ http://www.ucas.com/about_us/whoweare
5. ^ point 45 of The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland [1]
6. ^ The note after point 46 in The framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland [2]
7. ^ www.studentfinancedirect.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=53,1262207&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL
8. ^ FAQ 11 of Annex 1 of The national qualifications framework for higher education qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - July 2000
9. ^ Ländergemeinsame Strukturvorgaben - Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz vom 10.10.2003 i.d.F. vom 15.06.2007
10. ^ http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1143/Pakistan-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html

Derek Curtis Bok (born March 22, 1930) is an American lawyer and educator and the former president of Harvard University. He is the son of the prominent Pennsylvania jurist Curtis Bok and Margaret Plummer Bok;^[1] the grandson of Mary Louise Curtis Bok Zimbalist, founder of the Curtis Institute of Music; and the great-grandson of Cyrus H. K. Curtis, founder of the Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post and the Ladies' Home Journal, the latter edited by his grandfather, Edward W. Bok.

Life and career[link]

Bok was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and graduated from Stanford University (B.A., 1951), Harvard Law School (J.D., 1954), and George Washington University (A.M., 1958). He taught law at Harvard beginning in 1958 and served as dean of the law school there (1968–1971) and then as the University's 25th president (1971–1991). Bok currently serves as the faculty chair at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard and continues to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Bok was the recipient of the 2001 Grawemeyer Award in education.

After fifteen years away from the Harvard presidency, Bok led the University on an interim basis from Lawrence Summers's resignation on July 1, 2006, until the beginning of the tenure of Drew Gilpin Faust on July 1, 2007.

Bok's wife, the sociologist and philosopher Sissela Bok, née Myrdal (daughter of the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal and the politician and diplomat Alva Myrdal, both Nobel laureates), is also affiliated with Harvard, where she received her doctorate in 1970. His daughter, Hilary Bok, is a philosophy professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Works[link]

• The Politics of Happiness: What Government can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being. Princeton University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-4008-3219-4. 
• Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More, 2005 / ISBN 0-691-13618-1
• Universities in the Marketplace, 2003
• The Trouble with Government, 2001, Harvard University Press
• The Shape of the River, 1998 (with William G. Bowen)
• The State of the Nation, 1997, Harvard University Press
• Universities and the Future of America, 1990
• Higher Learning, 1986, Harvard University Press
• Beyond the Ivory Tower, 1984, Harvard University Press
• Living with Nuclear Weapons, In collaboration with Albert Carnesale, Paul Doty, Stanley Hoffmann, Samuel P. Huntington, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Scott D. Sagan, 1983, Harvard University Press
• Labor and the American Community, 1970

References[link]

External links[link]

• Harvard Graduate School of Education
• Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Profile
• Association of American Colleges and Universities | National Leadership Council for Liberal Education
• Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning
• Derek Bok on Charlie Rose

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Derek Bok

Derek Bok in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.

Bernard Cornwell OBE (born 23 February 1944) is a British author of historical novels. He is best known for his novels about Napoleonic Wars rifleman Richard Sharpe which were adapted into a series of Sharpe television films.

Biography[link]

Cornwell was born in London in 1944. His father was a Canadian airman, and his mother was British, a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force. He was adopted and brought up in Thundersley, Essex by the Wiggins family, who were members of the Peculiar People, a strict sect who were pacifists, banned frivolity of all kinds and even medicine. After he left them, he changed his name to his mother's maiden name, Cornwell.

Cornwell was sent away to Monkton Combe School. He attended the University of London, and after graduating, worked as a teacher. He attempted to enlist in the British armed services at least three times, but was rejected on the grounds of myopia.

He then joined the BBC's Nationwide and was promoted to become head of current affairs at BBC Northern Ireland. He then joined Thames Television as editor of Thames News.^[1] He relocated to the United States in 1979 after marrying an American. Unable to get a green card, he started writing novels, as this did not require a work permit. He later became a U.S. citizen.^[2] He currently resides on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

As a child, Cornwell loved the novels of C. S. Forester, chronicling the adventures of fictional British naval officer Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars, and was surprised to find that there were no such novels following Lord Wellington's campaign on land. Motivated by the need to support himself in the U.S. through writing, Cornwell decided to write such a series. He named his chief protagonist Richard Sharpe, a rifleman involved in most of the major battles of the Peninsular War. Cornwell took the name from rugby player Richard Sharp.^[3][4]

Cornwell wanted to start the series with the Siege of Badajoz but decided instead to start with a couple of "warm-up" novels. These were Sharpe's Eagle and Sharpe's Gold, both published in 1981.^[5] Sharpe's Eagle was picked up by a publisher, and Cornwell got a three-book deal. He went on to tell the story of Badajoz in his third Sharpe novel Sharpe's Company published in 1982.

Cornwell and wife Judy co-wrote a series of novels, published under the pseudonym "Susannah Kells". These were A Crowning Mercy, published in 1983, Fallen Angels in 1984, and Coat of Arms (aka The Aristocrats) in 1986. (Cornwell's strict Protestant upbringing informed the background of A Crowning Mercy, which took place during the English Civil War.) He also published Redcoat, an American Revolutionary War novel set in Philadelphia during its 1777 occupation by the British, in 1987.

After publishing 8 books in his ongoing Sharpe series, Cornwell was approached by a production company interested in adapting them for television. The producers asked him to write a prequel to give them a starting point to the series. They also requested that the story feature a large role for Spanish characters to secure co-funding from Spain. The result was Sharpe’s Rifles, published in 1987 and a series of Sharpe television films starring Sean Bean.^[6]

A series of contemporary thrillers with sailing as a background and common themes followed: Wildtrack published in 1988, Sea Lord (aka Killer's Wake) in 1989, Crackdown in 1990, Stormchild in 1991, and a political thriller called Scoundrel in 1992.

In June 2006, Cornwell was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's 80th Birthday Honours List.^[7]

Azincourt was released in the UK in October 2008. The protagonist is an archer who participates in the Battle of Agincourt, a devastating defeat suffered by the French during the Hundred Years War. In 2009, he released The Burning Land, another of the five Saxon Stories centered on the protagonist Uhtred of Bebbanburg.^[8]

Another of Cornwell's standalone novels, The Fort, was published on 30 September 2010. It relates to the events of the Penobscot Expedition of 1779 during the American Revolutionary War. Set in the summer of 1779, it follows a British force of fewer than a thousand Scottish infantry backed by three sloops-of-war, which were sent to what is now Castine in the State of Maine. The War of Independence was in its third year and the Scots were the only British troops between Canada and New York. Their orders were to make a garrison that could serve as a safe haven and a naval base. The State of Massachusetts was determined to expel the British and sent a fleet of forty vessels and some one thousand infantrymen to 'captivate, kill or destroy' the invaders.

Novel series[link]

The Sharpe stories[link]

Cornwell's best known books feature the adventures of Richard Sharpe, a British soldier during the Napoleonic Wars.

The first 11 books of the Sharpe series (beginning in chronological order with Sharpe's Rifles and ending with Sharpe's Waterloo, published in the US as Waterloo) detail Sharpe's adventures in various Peninsular War campaigns over the course of 6–7 years. Subsequently, Cornwell wrote a prequel quintet – Sharpe's Tiger, Sharpe's Triumph, Sharpe's Fortress, Sharpe's Trafalgar and Sharpe's Prey – depicting Sharpe's adventures under Wellington's command in India, including his hard-won promotion to the officer corps, his return to Britain and his arrival in the 95th Rifles, and a sequel, Sharpe's Devil, set six years after the end of the wars.

He also wrote Sharpe's Battle, a novel "inserted" into his previous continuity, taking place during the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro. It has been alleged (falsely, without any provenance whatsoever) that Cornwell was initially dubious about the casting of Sean Bean for the television adaptations, but if this is true the doubts did not last as he was subsequently so delighted that he dedicated Sharpe's Battle to him, and has admitted that he subtly changed the writing of the character to align with Bean's portrayal.^[9] Since 2003, he has written further "missing adventures" set during the "classic" Peninsular War era.

The following is the correct 'historical' order, although they are all stand alone stories:

The Starbuck Chronicles[link]

A tetralogy set during the American Civil War. The title character, Nathaniel Starbuck, is a Northerner who has decided to fight for the South in a Virginian regiment, the Faulconer Legion. The last novel to date in the series has been The Bloody Ground, taking place during the Antietam Campaign. Cornwell has said that he plans to write more Starbuck novels, but has not done so yet. On his website Cornwell has recently stated that he is 'thinking' about Starbuck again.

The Warlord Chronicles[link]

A trilogy depicting Cornwell's historical re-creation of Arthurian Britain. The series posits that Post-Roman Britain was a difficult time for the native Britons, being threatened by invasion from the Anglo-Saxons in the East and raids from the Irish in the West. At the same time, they suffered internal power struggles between their petty kingdoms and friction between the old Druidic religion and newly-arrived Christianity.

The Grail Quest novels[link]

A trilogy that deals with a mid-14th century search for the Holy Grail during the Hundred Years' War. An English archer, Thomas of Hookton, becomes drawn into the quest by the actions of a mercenary soldier called "The Harlequin," who murders Thomas's family in his own obsessive search for the Grail. Cornwell was planning at one point to write more books about the main character Thomas of Hookton and said that shortly after finishing Heretic he had "... started another Thomas of Hookton book, then stopped it – mainly because I felt that his story ended in Heretic and I was just trying to get too much from him. Which doesn't mean I won't pick the idea up again sometime in the future." ^[10]

The Saxon Stories[link]

Cornwell's latest series focuses on the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, England during the 9th-century reign of Alfred the Great, his fierce opposition to the Danes and his determination to unite England as one country. According to Cornwell's replies on his website bulletin board, the series will not be a trilogy like his medieval works, but will have 3 or 4 more sequels: "I'm not sure how many there will be – perhaps seven? maybe eight?"^[11]

The Thrillers[link]

Cornwell's thriller series are modern mysteries, all with sailing themes. He is a traditional sailor and enjoys sailing his Cornish Crabber by the name of "Royalist." His thorough knowledge of sailing and popular skills with writing combine in great novels for the nautically obsessed. According to Cornwell's website, there may be no additions to the series: "I enjoyed writing the thrillers, but suspect I am happier writing historical novels. I'm always delighted when people want more of the sailing books, but I'm not planning on writing any more, at least not now - but who knows? perhaps when I retire."^[12]

Other Standalone Novels[link]

Bibliography[link]

See also[link]

Novels portal

• Sharpe (TV Series)
• Faulconer County

References[link]

External links[link]

• Author's official site
• Bernard Cornwell interview on BookBanter
• Christopher Seufert interviews Bernard Cornwell
• Interview, chapter excerpts and Cornwell essay Stonehenge (Official publisher web page)
• "Line of Battle" interviews Bernard Cornwell
• Audio interview with Bernard Cornwell at National Review Online