Learn English Vocabulary: The people you will meet at UNIVERSITY

Basic English vocabulary class – What is the difference between a "freshman" and a "sophomore"? What exactly is a "dean"? In this lesson, I will teach you words to describe different people you will encounter in college and university. These words are very important to know if you plan to go to university or if you are taking the IELTS or TOEFL. You will learn vocabulary like "junior", "senior", "TA", "RA", "grad", "undergrad", "prof", and many more. After watching the video, come take my quiz to see how much you learned from the lesson at http://www.engvid.com/english-vocabulary-people-at-university/

TRANSCRIPT

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.