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  • Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 273.

  • The title of today's lesson is the difference

  • between undergraduate, graduate and alumnus.

  • Okay. Sometimes students will ask,

  • what's the difference between all of these three.

  • And sometimes you even add in,

  • what we call a postgraduate too.

  • Sometimes students will want to know,

  • what's the difference between really all four.

  • So let's take a look at the first note here . An undergraduate

  • is a student who is studying at a college

  • or university and trying to get

  • their first college-level degree.

  • So that means that you're a student

  • who is presently in the first level of college.

  • You are either a freshman, a sophomore,

  • a junior or a senior. You actually haven't

  • graduated yet . You're still attending.

  • That's what makes you an undergraduate.

  • All right. So let's look at the first example here.

  • Bob is a junior in college.

  • He is still just an undergraduate student.

  • Yes. So he hasn't graduated yet. All right.

  • Let's take a look at graduate.

  • A graduate is someone who has finished

  • and gotten all their credits from a high school, college or university.

  • So a graduate means that you did finish the school.

  • Sometimes you might stop there.

  • You could have a high school graduate

  • that never went to university.

  • Or you could have a college graduate that never actually

  • went for a higher learning degree.

  • So again. Let's take a look at the note here.

  • Or the first example here.

  • Sam is only a high school graduate.

  • He never attended college. Yeah.

  • So he got his, he got his degree.

  • He graduated from high school but,

  • he never actually attended college.

  • Okay. Let's continue. If you have already

  • graduated from a university and you are

  • continuing with your education to get a

  • master's degree or a Ph.D. you are a post graduate student.

  • Yeah. So if you decide not to go for a masters

  • or a PhD , we just say you are a graduate.

  • But if you do try, if you start attending a university,

  • for either a masters or PhD,

  • At that present time, you are a postgraduate student.

  • Okay. Let's continue.

  • An alumnus is a student who graduated from

  • a particular University or college. Yes.

  • So we mostly use alumnus when it's

  • understood which individual University

  • you're talking about. Because usually you say,

  • you say you're an alumnus of a

  • particular school or a particular university.

  • So, let's say alumnus is directly from Latin,

  • and the plural is alumni. Yeah.

  • So that's often the way that

  • Latin works. Some words, some nouns

  • that end in a 'US' in Latin and

  • sometimes have an ' I' as a plural. Okay All right.

  • Let's look at a couple of examples,

  • we have for this. He is an alumnus of Harvard University.

  • Yeah so again. Usually when we say alumnus,

  • we will either say the university or it's already understood which university,

  • you are talking about.

  • Then we say alumnus or alumni for the plural

  • This one is again, mostly used for university.

  • I might sometimes even hear it used for high school.

  • It's not likely you're going to hear it

  • for lower grades.

  • I never usually hear anybody say

  • somebody is an alumnus of an elementary

  • school or primary school . You, of course

  • you could say that they graduated from there,

  • but we don't usually use this Latin term.

  • We mostly use it for college and sometimes high school.

  • All right. So let's look at the example here.

  • He is an alumnus of Harvard University,

  • and we did that one already.

  • Now let's look at the second one.

  • They invited all the alumni from the year 1998

  • for their 20th class reunion.

  • All right. So this is in the plural, but of course here

  • when you say this , it's probably understood.

  • which university you're already talking about.

  • Okay. Anyway, I hope it's clear.

  • I hope you got it. hope you can clearly see. the difference

  • between all these terms now. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 273.

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