Talk:College

Why...

...is the United Kingdom first on the list? Do UK (and US) colleges have some sort of preference? A good, objective article should be arranged in alphabetical order. Since this is the English Wikipedia, the article should be organized, "2.1 English-speaking countries, 2.1.1. Australia, ..., 2.1.n. United Kingdom, 2.1.n+1 United States..." and then "2.2 Non-English-speaking countries, etc.," and so on, obviously without the numbers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.229.214.176 (talk) 01:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a good question. In fact, why should this article be organized to separate English-speaking countries from others? --ElKevbo (talk) 02:45, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorted the countries alphabetically, it may or may not need some typography fixing. Aleksandar Bulovic' (talk) 20:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Architectural review

the photos on this article portay it as more of an architectual review of colleges, rather than an encyclopedic article about colleges...can we not get a more diverse set of images? Jackass110 (talk) 03:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

new photo is now up!--Ericci8996 (talk) 05:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Possible expansion on word usage

What do Americans call secondary education institutions (that we British call College), if they use "college" to refer to tertiary education institutions? 86.133.230.9 (talk) 14:12, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

What we call secondary education is high school. I am not sure if this in fact corresponds to what you Brits call secondary education, but this consists of the 9th thru 12th years of education (not counting kindergarten and/or preschool). Wschart (talk) 05:06, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think what the original poster was asking was regarding the hierarchical structure of Universities. In the US, the words "University" and "College" are synonymous, and refer to the institution itself. In the UK, only the word "University" refers to the institution; the word "college" refers to a smaller institution within the University, which studies a particular subject or field. For example, "college of history," or "college of philosophy."

To answer the question, in the US, we often use the word "Department," i.e., "department of physics," or "department of anthropology." Sometimes we also refer to these secondary institutions as "colleges," which can get confusing, but not often. It's kind of like the words "Cinema" and "Theater." Often, in the US, we use the word "Theater" when we really mean "Cinema."

And yes, we refer to high school (9-12 grade, usually), as "Secondary education," and University/College as "post-secondary education."

Hoped that helped! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.72.190.46 (talk) 22:47, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually here in the US there is a sort of heirarchy: university on top, college being a major division (i.e. College or Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering, etc.) and department being a division within a college devoted to a particular field of study: department of chemistry, department of mathematics, etc. There is some variation of terminology: instead of "college of X" you might have "School of X" for example. In a 2 or 4 year college, i.e. one with no or only a small graduate program, the subdivisions are usually a department. And to confuse things, we have what are in fact universities which, for historical reasons, use "college" as their official name while there are also institutions which are really colleges which call themselves universities for the perceived prestiges. Wschart (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)!

Its also worth noting that University of Chicago is primarily a graduate school, with about 5,000 enrollees in the undergraduate school, and over 9,000 in graduate programs. 98.113.160.29 (talk) 20:54, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

References

Title image

There has been a recent edit war on which should be the image of a college at the start of this article. Please list here images you believe should be added with the reason behind it. There after we may be able to come to an agreement on which should be used. Cossde (talk) 04:32, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Saint Anselm College an American liberal arts college in Manchester, New Hampshire

Excellent Idea Cossde... I believe Saint Anselm College should be the image chosen to represent College. Saint Anselm College's Alumni Hall represents a "typical college" with an old ivy covered building, as this kind of ivy covered facade on an old administration building has been seen in many movies and is what people think of when they hear college. Thus is should stay as main image. Ericci8996 (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

It may come across as elitist to use the image of an American liberal arts college in an article that is much broader in scope. It's a nice photo but there should be other considerations. It might be interesting to try to select a photo that is more representative of where students enroll. In the American context, that would certainly be a large, public institution. (The comedy option, of course, would be a photo of the largest American university: The University of Phoenix.) ElKevbo (talk) 19:43, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's my idea: A collage of very different colleges similar to those used for articles on cities like New York City or Chicago. It would be nice to feature images that represent an ancient university, ivy league school, large state university, small liberal arts college, technical school, and/or community college. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:33, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

All good ideas, yet I like this one because it is the typical image one thinks of (ie popular culture)... also, I think putting one up of a big known ivy leauge school is too obvious of a choice. It is nice to have the variety of a lesser known liberal arts school! but thats just me. Also, big LOL with the University of Phoenix ahhah — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericci8996 (talk • contribs) 21:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I think this issue's been brought up before, maybe at the University page, but I don't remember exactly where. I don't see a lot of disagreement about page issues here. A collage is a compromise, but frankly I think a nice single image is better. It's made much easier if there's a featured image on point. I never went to (or frankly had heard of) Saint Anselm College, but I think that picture is a fair representation, that can be replaced if another that's better comes by. Shadowjams (talk) 07:59, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi everyone, reading the comments here, i've decided to add the image again, as concensus seems to say the image represents college...

Thanks!--Ericci8996 (talk) 05:31, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you please explain how you reach the conclusion that there is a "concensus [sic]" ? --ElKevbo (talk) 06:34, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes please do. Cossde (talk) 11:33, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

This conversation seems obsessed with architecture, even though the different structures in which they are housed are merely ancillary to the institutions' main activities. Why not use an image of students taking in a lecture instead? I suggest File:Hogarth lecture 1736.jpg. --Dynaflow babble 08:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Hey it's nice to see that this discussion has really made some head way... 4 months later and still no suitable image... silly. Ericci8996 (talk) 04:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). ElKevbo (talk) 05:06, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion ElKevbo, I think I understand that the point of Wikipedia is communal editing and please do not worry your pretty little head, because I am far from concerned about making honest mistakes - I've created several pages and have had all of them promoted to both GA and FA statuses... Regardless, it's nice to see that 7 months have passed and the picture of Kings College reappears as the title image, even after Shadowjams and myself support the image of Saint Anselm College - I have not seen one support claim for the current image, yet it reappears, without discussion. Your entire input has consisted of a stupid suggestion that we should use an image of the "University of Phoenix" as a joke - how immature. Glad to see the "democracy" aspect of Wikipedia really worked here (NOT) Ericci8996 (talk) 14:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

"Definitions" of college moved

I've moved the definitions of college to the dab college (disambiguation). A lot of this stuff belonged in "Education in X" or "Higher level education in X." This article should be about 2-4 year colleges according to the generally accepted use of the word in English, which is tertiary education. Yes, there were some English exceptions like Eton College. That got dabbed too. Not common.

That "college" means "mountaintop" in Swahili, should really go somewhere else. We don't really need nor want non-education definitions here that don't match the general English description. And putting oddball English exceptions in here is not helpful either IMO.

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Student7 (talk) 14:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

@Itsmejudith. Thanks for your edits. If it were me, I think I would remove everything that did not relate to post-secondary education.

Alternately, we could (now) move this, after editing to "college (education)". This seems a bit drastic but would force future contributors to place their material in the proper article. Making this one the catchall for everything with "college" in it was a bit much.

Had to go somewhere at the time, I guess. But long past time to clean it up. Student7 (talk) 19:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

US terminology

In the US, "college" often refers to community colleges or career colleges. This distinguishes from the more prestigious "university". AmericanLeMans (talk) 02:06, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Mobile Issues for Wording

In paragraph three of the United States section, it says "an example of a traditional liberal arts college is pictured to the right, Saint Anselm College." However, on mobile devices (Or at least my iPhone), the colleges are at the top and thus is not "To the right." Not super important, just thought I would point it out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.8.206.6 (talk) 20:30, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Good catch. I removed the text entirely; there's no need to call out the image in the text. ElKevbo (talk) 20:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Colleges in Ireland - contradiction

At the start of the Ireland section, it currently says:

In Ireland the term "college" is usually limited to an institution of tertiary education.

However, at the end of that section, it currently says:

There are many secondary education institutions that use the word college. Many secondary schools, formerly known as technical colleges, were renamed as community colleges. These are secondary institutions in contrast to the American community college.

This apparent slight contradiction should should be resolved by clarifying the actual pervasive usage of the term "college" in Ireland. 31.18.253.188 (talk) 06:28, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Tried to resolve by placing the paragraphs together so it didn't look like we were trying to hide anything. Deleted ref to American CC, which is not germane here. non-WP:TOPIC. Hope that helps. Student7 (talk) 14:21, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Recent Edits

There have been some recent edit by PeterEastern, that have left me confused on this page. Both the "restructuring" and rearranging on the main page, and the moving around of dialogue on the talk page leave this page, in my opinion, suspect. The main page does not flow logically anymore, in my opinion. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VanishedUser sdu9aya9fs785 (talk • contribs) 04:34, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Apologies about that, I have been doing a pretty broad sweep across Education articles over the past couple of weeks in a attempt to ensue that they bind together into a more coherent whole. I guess my edits to this article good have been seem to be a bit rough and unexpected. Thanks for asking the question. I will respond to each of your points separately:

• Edits to talk: In order to understand the discussion about the lead image, which I was interested in, I cleaned up the indentation and have now moved the thumbnail image from inline text. That is all. Looking at the wiki history I now reaslise that is appears that I have may have reformed and reodered content in some weird way, but this must be the diff algorithm getting muddled. Do check before and after to confirm this. My only changes were to add ':' '::' etc to the start of each contribution so that the flow of conversation can be clearly seen. PeterEastern (talk) 07:58, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
• Edits to the main article:

1. Firstly, I have put county lists under a heading of 'Country by country' with a 'see also|category:Education country by country}}. I have done this to many education article over the past few days, and I think it helps ensure that general content doesn't get lost in the 'by country' content. It also provides a clear place to link to the more general 'by country' content for all the places that are not in the list.
2. Moved the non 'country' content ahead of the country content to ensure that it does not get lost, a problem which gets bigger as country list gets longer.
3. I merged the 'Secondary schools' and 'Other schools' sections into a single heading of 'Usage' which is now the opening section after the lead

I hope that explanation helps. If you are then the 'Usage' section probably needs a bit more added, summarising all the different uses of the term college, from technical college to collegiate universities.

-- PeterEastern (talk) 07:58, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I have added some brief content about higher education to the Usage section. PeterEastern (talk) 08:15, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Australian Colleges

At the beginning of the Australian section it refers to the use of the term College by private secondary schools is used to distinguish from state schools. In Victoria, my home state, state secondary schools use the term college in the majority. Please follow this link for further information: [1]

Zest au (talk) 00:26, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

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Netherlands

The statement "In the Netherlands, "college" is equivalent to HBO (Higher professional education)." is not true. "College", in the Dutch language, refers to any kind of secondary education of a higher form (preparing for university or HBO), mostly used in names, though, or it refers to a specific kind of (Catholic) boarding school. Furthermore it can designate "class"/"course"in the context of university: "Ik moet nu naar college" = "I have to attend class, now." All the other uses are referrals to the Anglosaxon uses of "college" (either a university college "English" style, or and American "college"). Joekiedoe (talk) 14:17, 28 May 2024 (UTC)