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.