Differences between “college”,”school”,” department”…

Question

Department of biochemistry Medical college  Law school Can I change one of those for the other ????why????

YoungCalifornian · Accepted Answer

A department is part of a larger whole.  In this case, the Department of Biochemistry could be part of the medical school.  'Department' need not only refer to schools however.  A college is a specific type of school, meaning that the word 'college' can usually be replaced by 'school', but 'school' cannot always be replaced by 'college'.  Assuming you know what 'school' means, I'll continue with 'college'.  A college is a school of higher learning in which the students are attempting to earn some sort of degree.  After elementary (AKA grammar) school, junior high (AKA middle school or intermediate school), and high school, many people choose to attend college for specialized job training.  Usually colleges are not independant, but part of a university.  For instance, I attend the University of Southern California.  I am working towards an English degree, which means that I am part of the university's College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.  This is but one of the many schools at the university.

Julielai · Answer

I think faculty is the British English equivalent of college (as in College of Liberal Arts). Can anyone confirm this?

Sumspeople · Answer

Thank you . I can fully understand your views , the university refers to a combination of several colleges(such as medical college, law college ,),while college just represents more professional school,right?,another question, suppose that a medical college can be divided into several parts ,such as preventive medicine , clinical medicine , eye medicine , biochemistry medicine …………how should I call them , department of preventive medicine?but I mean that you major in a certain part ,not the teachers .i am still confusing………

Abbie1948 · Answer

Hmm. This can be tricky. Are you speaking of English or American universities?

University - a college or collection of colleges at which people study for a degree:

Strictly speaking a college is any place for specialized education after the age of 16 where people study or train to get knowledge and/or skills. But in the context of a university it is one of the separate and named parts into which some universities are divided. e.g. Oxford and Cambridge Universities have several "colleges". To make this more complicated, not all the students in any one college study the same subject (sorry).

A faculty is a group of departments in a college which specialize in a particular subject or group of subjects, or it may refer to the people who teach a particular subject.

In England, we would say for example, "I am at Cauis College, Cambridge, reading medicine." (I'm afraid that's another English peculiarity - at the older Universities they like to say "reading" whereas everyone else is content to say "studying"!)

We would refer to the Medical School, rather than the medical college, and it's absolutely fine to refer to the various deparments as departments.

Complicated, I'm afraid.

Bvpraveen · Answer

When should 'school' be used instead of 'college'?

Eg. We call B-schools instead of B-colleges.

Abbie1948 · Answer

Praveen - "Eg. We call B-schools instead of B-colleges. "

I don't understand what you mean by this.

This definition of college is from Websters:

1 : a body of clergy living together and supported by a foundation
2 : a building used for an educational or religious purpose
3 a : a self-governing constituent body of a university offering living quarters and instruction but not granting degrees b : a preparatory or high school c : an independent institution of higher learning offering a course of general studies leading to a bachelor's degree d : a part of a university offering a specialized group of courses e : an institution offering instruction usually in a professional, vocational, or technical field

Re: "school":

Mediaeval universities were divided into 4 "schools", and in Br. E. we we have simply retained this use of the word.

Differences between “college”,”school”,” department”…

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