You're learning with nine to five English. Business English for the workplace.
Hi Tim here with another nine-to-five english lesson. In today's
lesson we're going to learn how to talk about your education. Your education is
an important part of your background and there are lots of situations where you
might talk about where you went to school and what you studied. A job
interview is an obvious one but you might also talk about your education in
casual conversation. The first thing you might mention is where you went to
school. More specifically people might be interested in which university you
attended. And there are several ways we can tell them about that. Firstly you
might just use that verb "attend" Similarly you could say you "went to" or
"graduated from" a certain University. Another way to talk about your
university is to say that you're an alum of a certain school. Alum is short for
alumnus which is a word that means a person who attended a school. So for
example I might say I'm an alum of Columbia University. Let's try practicing
some of this language. We're going to give you some examples.
After each example try repeating it yourself. Ready? Let's give it a go!
I graduated from Yale in 2008.
For my undergrad I went to the London School of Economics.
I attended a small Technical College in Colorado.
I'm an alum of Washington University.
Ok we've practiced some different ways of talking about our University.
But another important aspect of your education is what you studied. In English
we call your area of study your major. This word can be used in a few different
ways. So for example if you studied biology you could say that your major
was biology but you can also say that you were a biology major so the noun
means both an area of study and a person who studies that area. We can also use
major as a verb such as I majored in biology after you tell someone your
major you might also mention an area of focus for example within business you
might have focused on finance or you might mention your minor which is like
your secondary area of study and just as we say we majored in a subject we can
say we minored in a subject there's another much simpler way to talk about
your major and that's just to say something like I studied biology of
course that's not the only course you took but people understand that was your
major now there's one more way to tell people what you studied and that's by
saying you have a degree in a certain field your degree might be a master's
degree or a bachelor's degree and you can use the short form of these
such as an MA or a BS which means Bachelors of Science and is used for
degrees in technical fields such as engineering or computers let's practice
some of these expressions for talking about your major
once again you can repeat the examples after you hear them I studied
international business with a focus on finance
I majored in French with a minor in political science
I started out as a science major but switched to education
I have a Bachelor of mechanical engineering
so we've learned some different ways of talking about your University and your
major but how did these expressions sound in a real conversation let's
listen to a short dialogue between Tanja and Jose tanya is asking Jose about his
education so did you go to university around here yeah I graduated from Iowa
State University in 2010 oh yeah great school what did you study
I majored in business with a minor in statistics as you just heard Jose says
he graduated from Iowa State University and when asked about what he studied he
says he majored in business he also adds that he had a minor in statistics now
it's your turn to practice will repeat the dialogue but this time will be bout
the second speakers words you will have to say those parts yourself remember
to start by saying that you graduated from Iowa State University then you can
say that you majored in business and minored in statistics so did you go to
university around here
oh yeah great school what did you study
you
all right we've learned some great ways to talk about your education including
what university you attended and what you studied be sure to tune in next time
when we learn how to talk about your career until then so long and happy
learning