Re: Honours systems

Drew,

I believe Michael was referring to the "honours system" used in the
UK and other Commonwealth countries (e.g. Australia) that differs
somewhat from the Latin honors system used by some schools in the US.
Basically, in the UK for example, a course of studies leading to an
undergraduate degree like BSc, BA, BEng or MEng, is divided into
"Parts", each of which may correspond to one or two school years.
Student get a certain number of points for each "part", based mostly on
their grades in comprehensive final exams called "papers" (generally 9
or so per year) and, to a lesser extent, on classwork, lab reports and
projects. Depending then on the ratio between the number of points
assigned to a particular student and the maximum number of points that
can be achieved in his/her course, the student graduates with honours
(respectively at the "first class", "upper second class", "lower second
class", or "third class" levels), receives a simple "pass" (without
honours), or fails to obtain the degree.

Just as an example, the following link

http://www2.ee.ic.ac.uk/electricalengineering/teaching/GH56HonoursScheme.pdf

explains the assessment criteria for the MEng (4-year undergraduate
degree) in Information Systems Engineering (ISE) at the Imperial
College London. For other Electrical Engineering (EE) degrees, see

http://www2.ee.ic.ac.uk/electricalengineering/teaching/EEEAssessment0405Final.pdf

For a complete of list of classes, including third and fourth-year
electives that can be taken for both ISE and MSE degrees, go to

http://www2.ee.ic.ac.uk/electricalengineering/courses/crslistug.asp?c=NIL


Drew wrote:

> Hi Michael:
>
> If you are talking about graduate school, most US colleges do not
> designate cum laude, magna cum laude, or suma cum laude students.
> These are used only for undergraduate students. I didn't look any
> statistics up to bear me out. But I would say that in the average
> graduating undergrad college class in the US, far less thatn 10 to 15%
> graduate suma cum laude. You might be able to find more with Google.
>
> Drew
>
> On 17 Jun 2005 22:01:39 -0700, dayzman@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >I'm from Australia and have a question about the honours systems in
> >Australia and US. It appears that First Class Honours in Australia
> >should be equivalent to Summa cum laude in US. In my degree, we usually
> >have around 10-15% of graduants receiving first class honours. So, is
> >the honour system used in Australia equivalent to the one used in US?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >Michael

.

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