I studied, I have studied and I was studied

I am going to introduce myself in the interview for a few days later. But I am really confusing between the usage of certain words. Which of the following sentences are corrected to use?

  1. I studied in college xxx
  2. I have studied in college xxx
  3. I was studied in college xxx

Can somebody here help me???

“I studied in college xxx”
is correct answer as the sentence only denotes a past action.

So, can you give several situations that can be used to put the words “I have studied” and “I was studied”?

Technically, they are all correct. 1 and 2 are very similar. 3 turns the meaning on its head.

  1. I studied in college (in the year 2000)
  2. I have studied in college
  3. I was studied in college (I was the subject of a study)

So, use 1 if you wish to specify when you studied, use 2 if the time isn’t relevant, and don’t use 3 for obvious reasons.

I still don’t understand the usage of “I was” for the sentence number 3. So, we can’t use “I was studied” in term of introducing ourself to people?

This is a passive voice vs. active voice thing.
I hit the boy (I am the actor).
I was hit by the boy (The boy is the actor).

You can get yourself acquainted with it by visiting this link:
english-test.net/lessons/3/index.html

@salmonella

You may have heard a form like “I was studied…” from some British speakers. There are a few dialects in the UK which exchange the present participle for the past participle in the durational. If that’s what you’ve seen, then “I was studied…” is actually intended to be “I was studying…” The correct form is the latter.

The standard usage of “I was studied…” would be the passive voice as described above which means that someone else was actually studying you (not very likely).

Also, what you’d say depends on how you use the word college. College in the UK is what most of the world calls High School. Whereas when people in the Americas use college it generally revers to university. Officially within the system used in the Americas a University is made up of more than one college and a college can be made up of schools. But, for the most part "I’m in college, or I studied history in college, etc refers to university in general in the same ways that people outside the Americas say in/at university.

If you are telling what subject you focussed on, then you’d use the form: I studied (subject) in college. or In college I studied (subject).

This is news to me I’ve never heard the incorrect form of this particular verb used in the UK.
Sadly ‘I was stood’ seems to be becoming commonplace though.

To my (UK) mind:
college (further education) for people generally aged 16 plus.
college (higher education) for people generally aged 18 plus.

Not exactly comparable to High School.

If you look at the curriculum it’s equivalent to high school. It would start with what would be the equivalent of our 10th grade and culminate with the equivalent of our 12th grade (which are actually the 11th and 13th since they added a grade (kindergarten) decades ago but never changed the numbering scheme). Regardless of what they’re called, they’re both university preparatory programs with university study following on.

It gets even more confusing if you start comparing higher ed degrees with the British Bachelor’s falling between the American Associate’s and Bachelor’s and the British Honours (depending on the university) being about the same as most American Bachelor’s.

In our system it generally goes elementary ed (k-8), secondary ed (9-12), then higher ed is associates: 2 years (or around 60-70 credits), bachelors 4-5 years (120-160 credits depending on field of study), master’s 2-3 years (generally about 60 credits with no more than half being taught courses and the rest research), doctorate: 2-10 years (many with no taught courses at all, but some with a year of taught courses and the rest being research).

It used to get really annoying when I was working in Europe because I’d often find myself going up against someone from the UK for the same job with our CV’s both saying “BA” but theirs meaning 3 years of fairly general education and only some specialization and mine meaning 5 years of which 3-4 was wholly specialized in my field.

I have to say I understand the academic merits of the American system because we do generally come out of university better equipped within our field of study, BUT there is certainly something to be said about entering the job market when you’re 20-21 (UK) versus 23-25 (US). Even worse, many companies now here are requiring a minimum of a master’s degree for ENTRY level (like $24k a year) positions! Ridic!

Mr.Salemonella ,

It had better see (you should read ) some books ; like Raymond Murphy’s most
common books - part one (elementary level only ) , later 2 and 3 step by step .
or TOEFL’s suggestion book like Cliff’s/Barron’s etc. Most easy one is Cliff’s for understanding tense or see beside your any good grammar book.

Hardly ever have you solved this problem through internet ! Finally , see the oxford advanced dictionary ( or Webster)for seeing the numerous explanations. If all are complicated for you ,just see by your native language grammar books to English how it explained the indicated tense again and again.

I’ll snip the rest of the flag-waving. It’s certainly not my experience that a UK Bachelor’s programme is equivalent to a US High School education - unless a large majority of the Americans I know flunked High School!

Wait, I’ve never said a UK Bachelor’s is equivalent to a US HS degree! I’d said that the school level referred to as college in the UK is equivalent to that same level called High School in the US/Canada/etc.

The UK Bachelor’s falls between the US Associates and US Bachelor’s but they’re all higher degrees above high school.

And no flag-waving, only an observation from someone who’s studied and taught in several countries’ university systems.

I guess it depends on where in the UK. It’s certainly not the case here.

hmmm…what do you study in college then? LIke what was your curriculum like?

I did my Bachelors degree in college and my Masters degree in University.

Pls.let there be an end of all sorts of misunderstandings from every corner ; of course if arise ! Peace .

In addition my previous talking at this thread , those who are still confused whether the writing structure of him is correct or not should follow another good book of English Language pattern writing by A.S. Hornby
(the writer of The Oxford Advanced Dictionary ) where you will see 69 patterns are only for ‘verb’ usage whatever you write , 4 for nouns and so on(also see books of Wren and Martin)

It is certain if you only like to swim in the ocean of English language grammar usage .

Minhajquazi, may i know if i can find that book that you told above in online?

Are you still confused then, Salmonella?
Tort gave very clear answers in posts #4 and #6.

By the way, I believe you would have to buy those books, they aren’t available free online.

Luckyly, I already found that book in pdf format :smiley:

In that case, I’m glad I was wrong (assuming it was free).