"In the university" or "At the university"

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Hi,
I get confused about “In the university” and “At the university”. Do they impart the same meaning?
Pls help me clarify this :slight_smile:
Thanks.

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2

We usually use at for university.

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Note that there is no article ‘the’. You would say: She is studying at university.

Alan

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It depends. If youre talking about the place as in where someone is right now, at the university. If you’re talking about being in the process of studying for a degree, in the UK the phrase is usually either at university or in university (without the). In the US/Canada this term is ‘in college’.

There are some differences in naming between the UK and the US which can be confusing. What is often called college in the UK is called high school in the US, while college is the general noun for university study in North America. In the US the terms college and university for institutions of higher learning have different meanings.

Colleges are usually smaller (less than 5000 students), do not offer doctoral degrees, and are divided into faculties, and sometimes further into schools.

Universities are usually larger (10,000 - 50,000 students), offer doctoral degrees, focus on research, and are comprised of more than one college.

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Yeah, in British English, there’re some severe rules that we must follow. If we go to somewhere to do something but not its general purposes, then we must use the. For ex, i go to school to study but i go to the school to talk to the head master. In American English, the is used in both.

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No it’s the same for American English too. With hospital we always use the.

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the same what? I meant THE is used in american english without any differences in meaning between the 2 cases.

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As a native American English speaker, I never heard ‘university’ without the article during the first 40-50 years of my life. I didn’t start hearing it without the article until the Internet came along. Even though I’ve been hearing/reading it for several years now, ‘I went to uni’ or ‘at university’ still sounds strange to me.

As for the convo about the usage of school vs college vs university:

In the US, school is the most general term.
College is a subset of school.
University is a subset of college.
So a university is a college. A college is a school.

School can mean virtually ANY place of formal education at any level. The word school can be used for any level from kindergarten through post graduate doctoral programs.

College is almost any educational institution after high school. People will generally start college at age 18. College can offer 1-2 year degrees and certificates. It can also offer 4 year degrees and graduate degrees ( more than 4 years ).

Universities do not normally offer 1-2 year degrees. They offer bachelor degrees, masters degrees, doctorate degrees and post doctorate education. Universities usually do at least some research.

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In American English, we usually don’t say “university” in this context; instead, we’d use “college.” Like other commenters have pointed out, you don’t need “the” here.

  1. Anna is in college = Anna is currently enrolled and taking classes at a college or university
  2. Anna is at college = Anna is physically on a college campus OR Anna is away from her home and is physically on or near her college’s campus (in the sense of #1)
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