First Year Student versus Freshman

[christiangirl]

In undergrad, we were Freshmen. In grad school, we were first-year students.

[LAblondeGPhi]

(this was true when I attended a couple of years ago) At UCLA, undergrad students generally use the terms "First year" , "second year", etc. to eliminate the annoying caveat "...with sophomore/junior/senior standing" whenever you're asked what year in school you are.

As a first year/freshman, everyone starts out by saying "I'm a freshman with sophomore standing", because everyone is so darn proud of those AP units.

I have no idea if the school officially uses those terms.

[aephi alum]

An undergrad is a freshman, a sophomore, a junior, a senior, or a super-senior. Being a super-senior is not uncommon, and not a stigma - it usually means you're double majoring, you're pursuing a combined bachelor's/master's in a five-year program, or you switched majors after your sophomore year and had to take the core classes for your new major after spending your soph year taking core classes for your original major.

A graduate student is a <insert ordinal number>-year grad student.

[tld221]

what's REALLY annoying is schools who use "lower/upper" designations. its really annoying. i don't know if it's a CUNY thing but Brooklyn College uses it and it drives me crazy. if you tell me youre a senior but arent graduating for 3 semesters... then congrats, buddy. youre a junior! have a seat.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

My university used freshman/ sophomore, but medical school and residency used first year/second year, etc. The weird thing is that their is no way to be in between years as a medical school student or resident. You don't have hours or credits.

Originally Posted by 33girl

I think the reason med school/law school use first year etc is because the program itself is pretty rigidly scheduled and full of prerequisites.

Most law schools refer to students as 1Ls, 2Ls and 3Ls, not first/second/third years. You might refer to your first year of law school (as opposed to your 1L year), but during your first year, you are a 1L.

That said, I think there still may be a few schools out there that use the older terms (dating from when law schools usually awarded LL.B. degrees, which is technically a bachelor's degree, rather than J.D. degrees) -- Juniors, Middlers and Seniors.

[Munchkin03]

We used "first-year," and then the usual sophomore, junior, and senior titles. Because my school didn't really accept AP credit (just for placement in classes), and only looked at IB credit after the sophomore year, there weren't people running around saying how they had sophomore standing as first-years. I only know a handful of people who actually took the IB credit (a year of credit was offered).

I really liked college. Or, at least my college.

[AOII Angel]

I had lots of AP and other credits and sure wish I hadn't used them! If I'd have taken the classes instead of used the credits, I'd have had that many A's to add to my GPA!

[agzg]

Some people tried to run around saying "I'm a junior in years but a sophomore in credits because I changed my major" or "I'm a freshman with sophomore standing." but for the most part, people were freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, etc.. I started as a second semester freshman (in credits) but I did not call myself a sophomore my second semester there.

Of course, I still registered with the sophomores, because it went by number of credits. As a student in the Honors program, I also got to register early. I never worried about not getting the classes I wanted.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by agzg

Of course, I still registered with the sophomores, because it went by number of credits. As a student in the Honors program, I also got to register early. I never worried about not getting the classes I wanted.

Is this really a problem? Do people not get into classes they want? How does that impact required classes for graduation?

In college, the only class I didn't get into was a grad-level class that was capped at like 8 people so they really weren't letting undergrads in. My graduate program was small enough that everyone got the classes they wanted.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Is this really a problem? Do people not get into classes they want? How does that impact required classes for graduation?

In college, the only class I didn't get into was a grad-level class that was capped at like 8 people so they really weren't letting undergrads in. My graduate program was small enough that everyone got the classes they wanted.

YES.

When I was an undergrad, they gave graduating senior preference, followed by "regular" seniors, then juniors, etc. If a class filled up, you either took it at a shitty time or in a different semester.

I knew the dean of the college of business, though, so I was able to get myself into the full classes anyway.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Is this really a problem? Do people not get into classes they want? How does that impact required classes for graduation?

Yes. I had priority registration in undergrad so I didn't worry about it, but it happened to alot of my friends. Never had it happen in grad school though.

I know that if there was a particular class that alot of students got waitlisted for (like more than 30+ students), the faculty in the particular dept. would try to get another section open for those students (esp. if the class is one that alot of students needed to graduate). If they didn't do that, you were simply out of luck and had to wait until the next time it was offered.

These classes were typically upper-level courses in the more popular majors (I know they had this problem frequently in the fashion, education and journalism depts), where the course was capped at 20-25 students and there were only like 3 sections.

[agzg]

It didn't happen to me but to a lot of my friends. It started happening to me in grad school, but professors didn't have much of a problem signing students into their already full classes, especially because they knew there were a lot of us who liked to shop around during add/drop period and it would all even out in the end.

I was under the understanding that it was a fairly common problem.

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by agzg

It didn't happen to me but to a lot of my friends. It started happening to me in grad school, but professors didn't have much of a problem signing students into their already full classes, especially because they knew there were a lot of us who liked to shop around during add/drop period and it would all even out in the end.

I was under the understanding that it was a fairly common problem.

As was I.

It was the same way for me in undergrad, except everyone registered according to the number of credits they had. For example, those with 100 credits could schedule on Dec 2, those with 95 credits on Dec 4, and so on.

And yes, it happened to me a couple of times. But I would usually talk to the professor, and they would sign me into the class. And I never heard of anyone not being able to graduate on time because they didn't get a class they needed in their final semester or anything like that.