VOA慢速英语20060921a

（单词翻译）

EDUCATION REPORT - Choosing Between a College or a UniversityBy Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Thursday, September 21, 2006

This is the VOA Special English Education Report.

What is the difference between a college and a university? This is the subject of part three in our series for students who want to attend a college or university in the United States.


Mount¹ Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts

Colleges and universities have many things in common. Both provide a greater understanding of the world and its past. Both provide education in the arts and sciences. And both can help prepare young people to earn a living.

Students who complete their undergraduate² studies either at a four-year college or a university receive a bachelor's degree. One difference is that many colleges do not offer graduate studies.

Universities are generally bigger, offer more programs and do more research.

Modern universities developed from those of the Middle Ages in Europe. The word university came from the Latin³ universitas. This described a group of people organized for a common purpose.

The word college came from a Latin word with a similar meaning, collegium. In England, colleges were formed to provide students with places to live. Usually each group was studying the same thing. So college came to mean an area of study.

But a college can also be a part of a university. The first American universities divided their studies into a number of areas and called each one a college. This is still true.

Programs in higher learning⁴ may also be called schools. The University of Arizona in Tucson, for example, has eighteen colleges and ten schools. They include the colleges of pharmacy⁵, education, engineering⁶ and law. They also include the schools of architecture, dance and public administration⁷.

College is also used as a general term for higher education. A news report might talk about college students even if they include students at universities. Or someone might ask, Where do you go to college?

Today, most American colleges offer an area of study called liberal⁸ arts. These are subjects first developed and taught in ancient Greece. They include language, philosophy and mathematics. The purpose was to train a person's mind instead of teaching⁹ job skills.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. Our Foreign Student Series continues next week with a report about online education. You can find our reports at www.unsv.com. And international students can learn more about higher education in the United States at educationusa.state.gov. I'm Steve Ember.