[lordnacho]

> The fact that it’s a 4-year slog is one of the factors that make university degree holders earn premium in the labor marketplace

Aren't you on holiday for a lot of those 4 years?

I went to uni for 4 years, and it was 3 terms of 8 weeks each, per year. In other words, 96 weeks.

Throw in the occasional rest week and it should really fit in two years.

[telchar]

What part of the world is that? In the US it's typical to have 2 16-18 week semesters per year, usually with a job or internship for 10-12 weeks in the summer.

[nostrademons]

One of my college classmates (at a very expensive U.S. liberal arts college) used to quip "The more you pay, the less you stay." We had two 13-14 week semesters per year (1-week break in each, Thanksgiving in the fall and mid-semester break in the Spring), with a 6-week optional January term between and 14 weeks for summer. Sticker price was $45K when I went there and is now $70k.

[learc83]

Minor quible, the most common system in the US has 15 week semesters for fall and spring.

[juiyout]

Univ. of Washington had 3 quarters per year. Don’t know about now.

[lordnacho]

Oxford and Cambridge. Probably a few other old unis in the UK.

[telchar]

That squares with what I have heard before about UK university degrees being shorter than US degrees. What do you do with the rest of the year?

[lordnacho]

Internships. Or work, or study. Up to you. You have an informal exam when you get back and if you annoy the profs enough they'll kick you out for failing it. But that's pretty rare.

[laurencerowe]

Time spent per year is roughly equivalent. UK degrees are shorter than US degrees because we spend only three years at university for a bachelors degree. Depth is similar but there's less breadth - we only study our major, so as a CS student all my classes were taught by the CS department apart from a handful of math classes.