University of North Texas to Open First Vegan Cafeteria

The first vegan cafeteria has opened — but not to make a statement about animal welfare, states Dining Services director, despite praise from PETA.

Next week, the University of North Texas will open the nation’s first strictly vegan cafeteria, writes Allie Grasgreen at USA Today.

But administrators didn’t create the vegan-friendly option to make a statement about animal welfare or sustainability so much as to provide more options for a student body whose tastes are growing increasingly diverse, said Ken Botts, director of special projects for Dining Services.

Despite the coincidental timing, the fried chicken and barbecue specialties at this cafeteria were not created to appease the non-vegan crowd, Botts said.

“It is the other end of the spectrum, but it wasn’t meant as a comfort for those folks who are going to say, ‘Well, I’m not vegan and I want to eat meat,’ ” Botts said. “It’s in alignment with the same thought, that this is a way for us to offer our population variety.”

North Texas is winning praise from animal welfare advocates even if its officials didn’t set out to make a statement of that sort: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is awarding North Texas a “compassionate campus award.”

North Texas is the first mainstream university to offer an all-vegan facility, said Ryan Huling, manager of college campaigns for PETA.

“This is certainly the latest example of a growing trend of schools offering a wide variety of vegan samples,” he said, “responding to overwhelming student demand for meatless meals.”

Huling noted a 2004 survey by the food service provider Aramark finding that a quarter of college students say vegan options on campus are “important to them.”

Most colleges that start up special menus find that vegan foods fare much better than they would have expected, said Huling of PETA.

Botts said that in conducting research for this project, he couldn’t find a single other all-vegan dining hall. Neither has Roger Pigozzi, executive chef for dining services at theUniversity of California at Los Angeles, which was named the most vegan-friendly college in 2010 by PETA.

UCLA doesn’t have a single dining hall devoted to veganism. But each restaurant and cafeteria under the dining services umbrella offers a handful of vegan options at all times.

Now, vegan offerings at UCLA have a 5 to 10 percent “take rate” — that is, that’s their market share of food purchased by the diners.

Even though he’s clearly a proponent of students’ rights to choose vegan food, Pigozzi’s thoughts on opening an all-vegan space may be indicative of why more people haven’t done so. When he first started planning vegan options, he considered a small university venue where he could train his staff on vegan preparation without worrying about cross-contamination.

But, in the end, the staff didn’t think there was enough demand for the supply.

Botts believes he has the demand. Even though North Texas already carries plenty of vegetarian options, Botts could tell there was an appetite for vegan food from the popularity of a number of new hot dish options and from the emphatic support of many students, faculty and staff for the idea.

Of course, students don’t always like to be told what to eat. Last fall at Bowdoin College, during the dining halls’ observation of ‘Meatless Mondays,’ some students protested by throwing impromptu barbecues outside cafeterias. According to PETA, just under 40 colleges observe Meatless Mondays.

But students in Texas will still be able to opt for meat. Regular dining hours start up again on Monday, and Botts doesn’t expect any sort of vegan-Southern comfort throwdown. In fact if all goes well, the vegan hall will even attract some newcomers. With options like pizza, vegetable sushi, a panini bar and a variety of Middle Eastern sauces, there won’t be anything “really foreign and strange,” he said.

- http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/north-texas-university-to-open-first-vegan-cafeteria/#sthash.BMbJHH22.dpuf

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Armenian students prefer European education now

As compared to previous years, fewer Armenian students receive education in US educational institutions, Gayane Grigoryan, Senior Educational Adviser, American Councils for International Education, told Tert.am at the Education USA exhibition. 
The reason is that more Armenians prefer European education now. 

“According to the Institute of International Education, 350 Armenian students studied at US educational institutions in 2011. In previous years, this number was higher, about 400,” Grigoryan said.

Organized by the US Embassy in Armenia, in cooperation with the US Alumni Association of Armenia, the Education USA exhibition is aimed at raising public awareness of the opportunity to get education in the United States.

Grigoryan pointed out the importance of education exchange projects.

Twenty-two US universities, as well as Yerevan State Linguistic University, are participating in the exhibition.

Talking to journalists, US Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern pointed out the advantages of receiving education in the US, particularly opportunities to master English.

With respect to Armenia’s education system, Ambassador Heffern said he met with many lecturers and noted their high professional level. Armenia has talented students and good universities, he said.

Almast Tonoyan, a lecturer at Yerevan State Linguistic University, noted that the university is displaying the books and manuals authored by the university staff.

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DOCTORAL EDUCATION IN THE USA

CIRGE has analyzed the history, structure, and its implication on doctoral education in the USA. Being the country that produces the largest number of PhDs in the world,  CIRGE has examined in depth the structure and outcomes of Doctorate Education.

• Flores, E. & Nerad M. (2012). Peer in Doctoral Education: Unrecognized Learning partners. New Directions for Higher Education. No 157, Spring 201, pp.73- 83.  Download: Peers in Doctoral Education

• Nerad, M. 2009.  Graduate Education and its Changes in the U.S. In Daigakuin Kyoiku no Genjo Kadai [Graduate Education, and Future], pp. 291-305. Hiroshima: Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Japan.  Download: Graduate Education and its Changes in the U.S.

• Nerad, M. (2008). Doctoral Education in the United States of America. In M. Nerad  Toward a Global Phd?: Forces and Forms in Doctoral Education Worldwide, University of Washington Press, Seattle,  pp.2078-300.  Download: Doctoral Education in the United States

• Nerad, M. (2007). Doctoral Education in the USA. In S. Powell and H. Green Eds., The Doctorate Worldwide, Berkshire, England: Open University Press.  Download: Doctoral Education in the USA

• Wulff, D. & Nerad M. 2006. Using an Alignment Model as a Framework in the Assessment of Doctoral Programs. In P. L. Maki &   N. Borkowski Eds., Assessing Learning at the Doctoral Level, pp. 83- 108. Sterling, Virginia: Stylus.  Download: Using alignment model…

•  Nerad, M. (2004).  PhD in the US: Criticisms, Facts and Remedies. Higher Education Policy, V.17, pp.183-199.  Download: PhD in the US: Criticisms, Facts and Remedies

• Nerad, M. (2004). Promovieren in den USA. (The US PhD) Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst [DAAD] Hersg., Die Internationale Hochschule, Band 3:  Bielefeld, Germany. Download: Promovieren in the USA (English Version)

• Nerad, M. & Cerny, J. (1999). Widening the Circle: Another Look at Women Graduate Students, The Council of Graduate Schools Communicator, vol. XXXII, no. 6, pp. 1-7. Washington, D.C. Download: Widening the Circle

• Nerad, M., June, R., & Miller, D. (1997). The Cyclical Problems of Graduate Education: Institutional Responses in the 1990s, In M. Nerad, R. June, & D. Miller, Graduate Education in the United States, pp. vii-xiv, New York: Garland Press. Download: The Cyclical Problems of Graduate Education

• Nerad, M. (1995). University of California, Berkeley: Beyond Traditional Modes of Mentoring, in A Conversation about Mentoring: Trends and Models, The Council of Graduate Schools, Washington. D.C.

• Nerad, M. (1992). Using Time, Money, and Human Resources Effectively and Efficiently in the Case of Women Graduate Students. Paper prepared for the conference proceedings of Science and Engineering Programs: On Target for Women? Sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences/ National Research Council/ Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel. Download: Using Time…

• Nerad, M. & Stewart, C.L. (1991). Assessing Doctoral Student Experience: Gender and Departmental Culture, Higher Education Abstracts, Graduate School, winter 1991, Claremont.

• Nerad, M. (1991). Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree.  In response to the California State Senate (SRC 66). Report to the Office of the President. Oakland, CA.

• Nerad, M. (1990). Doctoral Education at the University of California and Issues of Time-to-Degree: Their Impact on Minorities and Women. Part I: Factors Affecting Completion of Doctoral Degrees at the University of California. A Report prepared in Response to Senate Concurrent Resolution 66 (Hart, 1989), Oakland: University of California, Office of the President.

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Computer Education for Teachers

Know Your USA is featured in the new book: Computer Education for Teachers: Integrating Technology into Classroom Teaching by V. Sharp;"An example of an addictive drill-and-practice program is Know Your USA".We are delighted that Know Your USA was featured in such a great publication for teachers.

Book Description (from Amazon)
Teachers who want an up-to-date, readable, and concise introduction to computers continue to turn to Computer Education for Teachers. The new edition places more emphasis on multimedia and the Internet, covering topics such as digital photography, iPods in the classroom, the Internet, and distance learning. A robust Web site also accompanies this streamlined book. It contains video tutorials on topics such as creating a digital portfolio and making a Podcast. These tutorials are from 1 to 3 minutes in duration and are step-by-step projects. Teachers who are unfamiliar with the use of the computer in the classroom will find this to be the perfect resource.

About the Author (from Amazon)
Vicki F. Sharp is a professor at California State University with experience teaching in elementary school. She received her Ph.D. in Quantitative Research from St. Louis University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington University. She teaches math/science methods courses and computer courses and supervises student teachers. She has authored or co-authored over twenty-five books including Statistics for the Social Sciences (Little Brown), HyperStudio in an Hour and PowerPoint in an Hour(ISTE), Make it with Office and Make it with Inspiration (Visions Technology in Education). She serves as a computer consultant and trainer for software publishers and school districts in Southern California. She speaks at computer conventions such as Computer User Educators (CUE) and The National Education Computing Conference (NECC).

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Doctorate of Education in USA

Doctorate of Education in USA

In the United States, the Ed.D. tends to be granted by the school of education of universities and is a terminal degree in education. Majors within the Ed.D. may include: counseling, curriculum and instruction/curriculum and teaching, educational administration, education policy, educational psychology, educational technology, higher education, human resource development, language/linguistics or leadership. The Ed.D. is recognized for appointment as a professor or lecturer in a university. It may also be recognized as preparation for administrative positions in education and human development field, such as superintendent of schools, human resource director, or principal.

Comparisons of the Ed.D to the Ph.D. in education[edit]

As mentioned above, there is controversy around the Ed.D. in the United States with regard to how it compares to the Ph.D in education. In theory, the two degrees are expected to constitute overlapping but distinct categories, where the Ed.D. is a degree that prepares educational practitioners who can solve educational problems using existing knowledge, and the Ph.D. in education is the more theoretical of the two as a traditional social science research degree that prepares students for careers as scholars and academics, often from a particular disciplinary perspective (e.g., sociology of education  In reality, however, distinctions between the two degree programs are generally minimal in both curriculum and dissertation requirements  One study on dissertations submitted between 1950 and 1990 indicated that there were no differences between the two degrees regarding basic versus applied research or the significance of the findings. Nonetheless, that same study indicated that "PhD dissertations contained more multivariate statistics, had wider generalizability, and were more prevalent in certain areas of concentration," whereas "EdD dissertations contained more survey research and were most prevalent in educational administration research 

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED) states that "the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession  To wit, although the CPED describes the Ed.D. as a professional doctorate, it also states that it prepares students for the generation of new knowledge, and this is corroborated by the fact that both the Ph.D. and Ed.D. degrees are considered research doctoral degrees on the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is a survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, sponsored by six federal agencies, and solicited, under the National Science Foundation Act, from graduating doctoral students at all accredited institutions 

Colleges and universities in the United States that offer doctorates in education choose to offer only the Doctor of Education,[citation needed] only the Doctor of Philosophy in education (e.g., Stanford University), or both (e.g., UCLA, University of Missouri, and University of Pennsylvania). The distinction between the Ph.D. and the Ed.D in this last group can take different forms. At the University of Illinois, for example, the Ph.D. in education dissertation requires an original contribution to academic knowledge, whereas the Ed.D. dissertation "is intended to demonstrate the candidate's ability to relate academic knowledge to the problems of professional practice."[18][19] At Teachers College, Columbia University the Ph.D. is designed for students who wish specifically to pursue an academic career, whereas the Ed.D. is designed for broader aims including educational administration and policy work.  In St. Louis University's Educational Studies program, the Ed.D. requires "successful completion of a culminating project dealing with a problem in educational practice" and the Ph.D. requires a dissertation and an "oral defense of the dissertation proposal and [of] the final dissertation  Finally, some schools frame the Ed.D. specifically in terms of applied research, such as New York University, The University of Texas at Austin, and the University of California, Berkeley.  

Criticisms[edit]

Lee S. Shulman, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, stated that the lack of distinction between the Ed.D and the Ph.D has meant the Ed.D. has come to be seen as little more than "Ph.D.-lite," and the Ph.D. in education has likewise suffered  Moreover, it has resulted in "the danger that we achieve rigorous preparation neither for practice nor for research  Arthur Levine, former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, said that the Ed.D. degree is granted to both scholars and administrators and as such makes the degree ambiguously defined, that the programs in educational leadership specifically suffered from low standards, and that "There is absolutely no reason why a school leader needs a doctorate 

Suggestions for reform[edit]

Some scholars in the United States have suggested future reforms for both the Ed.D. and Ph.D. in education by calling for a new doctorate for the professional practice of education, which would be for principals, superintendents, policy coordinators, curriculum specialists, teacher educators, program evaluators, etc.; and the distinction between the Ph.D. in education and the Ed.D. would be analogous to the distinction between the Ph.D. in biomedicine and the M.D This new degree might be called the Professional Practice Doctorate (P.P.D.), or it might retain the old name of Ed.D. but be severed from old associations 

Arthur Levine argued that the current Ed.D. should be re-tooled into a new professional master's degree, parallel in many ways to the MBA.

David Imig described reforms to the Ed.D. as including more collaborative work involving the analysis of data collected by others. Rather than generating their own data and hypothesis-testing, as Ph.D. students would, a group of Ed.D. students would analyze a specific pool of data from a number of different angles, each writing an individual dissertation on a specific aspect of the data which, when pooled together with the other dissertations, would combine to offer a comprehensive solution to a real-world problem

The Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate is currently working with over 50 institutions to collaboratively redesign the Ed.D. and "to make it a stronger and more relevant degree for the advanced preparation of school practitioners and clinical faculty, academic leaders and professional staff for the nation’s schools and colleges and the learning organizations that support them

Reforms have already been implemented at some institutions. For example, in 2013 the Harvard University Graduate School of Education enrolled the final Ed.D. cohort The school now offers the Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) and Ph.D. in Education

Doctorate of Education in United Kingdom

Doctorate of Education in United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the Ed.D. has equal parity status with the Ph.D. It is a research degree that requires students to make an original contribution of knowledge to the field. The Ed.D. thesis may be shorter than that of the Ph.D. because the doctoral student will have done other research work as part of their coursework, whereas Ph.D. students only write a doctoral thesis without coursework. The Ed.D. thesis differs from a Ph.D. thesis only in length and scope but not in quality. As with Ph.D. candidates all Ed.D. candidates undergo a viva voce examination.

The Ed.D. is generally presented as an opportunity to prepare for academic, administrative or specialised positions in education, placing the graduates for promotion and leadership responsibilities, or high-level professional positions in a range of locations in the broad Education industry. Both the Ed.D. and Ph.D. are recognised for the purposes of appointment as a lecturer or professor in universities.

One study comparing the Ed.D. to the Ph.D. found that admissions requirements formally equaled or exceeded those for Ph.D. admission Research by Scott, Lunt, Browne and Thorne (2002) has found that the difference between an Ed.D. and a Ph.D. can be somewhat overstated as students of both tend to follow similar courses of study and to research similar topics.

In 1991 the Doctor of Education programme at the University of Bristol began and was the first taught doctorate outside of North America. The Ed.D. is delivered through a balance of taught units including research methods, theory, argumentation and evaluation skills as well as a major research thesis that must make an original contribution to knowledge. As with other doctoral candidates, participants of the Ed.D. are encouraged to publish articles and books based on their research. An excellence in doctoral level research is the main aim of the Bristol Ed.D.

Similarly, at Durham University, the process of earning the Ed.D. consists of 6 courses (quantitative and qualitative research methods, thesis proposal, and four elective concentrations) that require 5,000 word research papers at the doctoral level and a doctoral thesis of 60,000 words that must also make an original contribution to knowledge.[9] The Ed.D. dissertation must reach the same level and be judged by the same criteria as the Ph.D. thesis. As such, the Ed.D. and Ph.D. degrees have exact parity of degree status

At the Institute of Education in London, the Ed.D. "is for experienced professionals from education and related fields who would like to extend their professional understanding and develop skills in research, evaluation and high-level reflection on practice" and the Ph.D. "is intended to enable [students] to produce [their] own thesis and to develop a range of research and other more generic skills

The University of Cambridge's Faculty of Education provides a useful comparison between the Ph.D. and Ed.D. programmes for their particular university. 

An ESRC-funded report found that there appeared to be little impact of the development of professional knowledge on employment culture for Ed.D. participants, though there was "frequently considerable impact for the individuals themselves," and many of the Ed.D. students were

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10 Real-Life Open Education Success Stories

It’s been more than a decade since MIT shook the education world to its core by announcing it would publish most of its course materials to the Internet for free usage by anyone and everyone in the world. Today there is almost no limit to what a person with an Internet connection can learn. Although hard data is scarce because the environment is still developing, there are many personal stories surfacing of people whose lives have been changed for the better thanks to open education.

1. Mark Halberstadt, USA:

   
   What began as the brainchild of one educator has become a worldwide phenomenon, providing more than 150 million free educational lessons to date to people like Mark Halberstadt. Having earned a music degree in 2007, Halberstadt later decided he wanted to become an electrical engineer. The problem was he had “never gotten above a B+ in math.” So over the course of three years, he used the materials posted on the Khan Academy website to learn trigonometry, calculus, and basic math principles he needed to brush up on. After his first year at Temple in 2010, he had a 4.0 GPA, which he credits entirely to the unique and instructive format of Khan Academy.

2. Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges, Haiti:

   
   Entrepreneurs Jean-Ronel Noel and Alex Georges “wanted to create a small revolution in the way of conducting business in Haiti.” Their idea was to outfit the country with solar-powered streetlights. When they discovered a need for some training in electrical engineering, Noel turned to MIT’s OCW website. The knowledge he gained there helped them launch their small business and ultimately bring light to streets in all 10 provinces of Haiti, some of which had never before been artificially lit. In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake, the business is back to work, providing much-needed employment to 18 technicians and light to thousands of citizens.

3. Jonne, Finland:

   
   Finland high school senior Jonne says that he loves math from the bottom of his “cold, Finnish, Arctic heart,” but he was never good at exams. Using Khan Academy math and physics videos, he has been able to supplement and sometimes even substitute material given to him in class by his teacher who is “sometimes not that good.” The result was grades good enough to get him into the Harvard Class of 2016. During the summer, he plans to study through the algebra, pre-cal, and calculus courses on the Khan site to prepare for his freshman year.

4. Delft University of Technology OCW Initiative, Netherlands:

   
   The World Health Organization hopes to cut the percentage of the world’s citizens without sustainable access to clean water in half by 2015. To contribute to this goal, the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands stepped up around 2010 and began publishing its water management course materials for free on the Web. Since that time, universities in South Africa, Pretoria, Curacao, Singapore, Indonesia, and other developing countries have accessed the material and enhanced them for utilization in their respective geographic areas. The result is a collective resource of the world’s top water management knowledge that has the potential to improve millions of lives around the world.

5. Juan Eduardo Leal Lara, Mexico:

   
   After his father instilled in him a love of engineering at the tender age of 8, Juan Eduardo Leal Lara found himself surfing the Internet for help with his college courses. After finding MIT OpenCourseWare, he kept coming back to study the materials posted there to enhance what he was learning in class at Tecnologico de Monterrey. Ultimately, first-year students at Lara’s university have also benefited from the open education material. Lara helped start a program for students to create projects and practice what they’ve learned, and he based all the material on MIT OCW knowledge.

6. Robin Neal and Darren Kuropatwa, USA:

   
   In 2006, Canadian calculus teacher Darren Kuropatwa posted on his blog about having students build a wiki solution manual together. He found that the collaborative nature of wikis appealed to girls, while the element of a race to solve certain problems interested the boys. At a conference three years later, English teacher Robin Neal of Beaver Country Day School in Brookline, MA ran into Kuropatwa and explained to him that Kuropatwa’s informative blog post had inspired him to create his own wiki to educate his students on the poetry of Keats.

7. Tim Lauer, USA:

   
   Open education success stories are not always grand in scope, or even from recent years, for that matter. In this video, elementary school teacher Tim Lauer of Portland shares a story from 1995 about a young student stung on the foot by a bee. After viewing the bee under a microscope, the students put the pictures on their class webpage. One of the emails they received was from a doctor in the state of Arizonawho was a bee expert. He told the class what they had was actually a yellow jacket wasp, not a bee. His email reignited the kids’ desire to know more about bees and wasps, so Mr. Lauer led them through a two-week study on the subject.

8. Kunle Adejumo, Nigeria:

   
   At the time Kunle Adejumo was attending Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, the computer lab did not even have Internet access. What computers it did have were so in demand by the school’s 35,000 students, they could only be secured for 20 minutes a week by students signing up for them. Luckily, Adejumo was able to reach MIT’s OpenCourseWare site from his home computer. Because a metallurgical class he was taking had no notes, he found some review questions online from an MIT course and had his teacher answer them, helping him better understand the material.

9. Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun, USA:

   
   In 2011, a course taught by Norvig and Thrun called “Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” was made freely available. More than 160,000 students in 40 languages took advantage of the course, with 23,000 graduating in 190 countries. Many of them left feedback describing how much the course helped them. Lynda says she joined with her daughter to build the daughter’s resume, and ended up studying for hours each week and loving the material. Home-schooled student Jack learned he could handle a collegiate-level course by taking the class. Pedro says he now wants to have a career in the AI field after he graduates as a result of the free class.

10. Sam, USA:

    
    The beauty of open education is that the instruction moves as slow as the student desires, or in the case of Sam the second-grader, as fast. His father says that Sam is exceptionally bright and was testing at junior high levels, but all his school could do was offer to move him up to third grade. Even a charter school was ill-equipped to handle his needs. Sam’s dad tried teaching him at nights, but it wasn’t a long-term solution. Now that they’ve found Khan Academy, Sam can challenge himself “” soon he’ll finish the calculus class.

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Think Education USA - Discover Your Potential

An increasing number of Canadian students are exploring opportunities to further their education in the United States. In fact, approximately 29,000 Canadian students enrolled in U.S. post-secondary institutions during 2007-2008, making Canadians the fifth largest group of international students attending post-secondary schools in the United States.

Traditionally, a concern for Canadians interested in studying in the United States was cost. Today, many U.S. States extend their domestic tuition fee to Canadian students in an effort to eliminate the international student tuition barrier experienced by many international students. Furthermore, the availability of athletic and academic scholarships, as well as financial aid, has made study for Canadian students in the United States more attractive and viable than ever before. An unknown fact for Canadian students is the availability of Canadian provincial funding when enrolling at a U.S. postsecondary program.

Canadian students can qualify for provincial funding if attending a U.S. postsecondary school, as long as the U.S. school appears as a designated school for the purposes of student loans under the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP) master list. To confirm your eligibility for student financial assistance visit www.canlearn.ca.

The environment and culture – both on and off campus – in the United States can offer Canadian students a highly diverse, rich and memorable educational experience. Colleges and universities in the northern states can provide familiar climate conditions and easy access to home for those that want it, whereas institutions in the southern states can offer warmer climates and more independence from parents if that is the desire. Whether a student is looking for artistic and cultural centers, the fast-paced life of a major city or something in between, the United States has something for everyone.

The campus experience at a U.S. college or university offers students access to up-to-date technology, small or large classes, and housing on or near campus with fellow students. The teaching style is similar to that offered in Canada with quizzes, midterms, essays, assignments, labs, exams, seminars, and tutorials used as evaluation methods. There are plenty of opportunities for students to interact with professors, both in and out of the classroom, because the variety and number of academic institutions in the United States often allows for a smaller student-to-teacher ratio. Students are encouraged to participate in classroom discussions and challenge their fellow students’ as well as their professors’ arguments. This student-faculty openness is particularly beneficial, and many professors act as mentors to their students. Designated faculty advisors and international student advisors are also common, and provide additional guidance.

The transition from Canada to the United States for college or university is relatively painless with no language barriers to overcome, modern campuses and surrounding cities, and relatively modest travel costs. Similar customs and values minimize culture shock and potential feelings of uncertainty while still allowing for exploration and discovery in the differences that do exist between Americans and Canadians. Local customs, foods, celebrations and a wide variety of regional differences provide opportunities to expand a student’s knowledge of the United States.

The U.S. and Canadian education systems share similar structures …

As a high school student applying for undergraduate programs, a student will likely need to complete the SATs, ACTs, and school-specific application forms. Fortunately, an increasing number of schools accept the Common Application, which makes it easier to apply to multiple U.S. schools. The Common Application Form is similar to the provincial application centers in Canada; but schools across the country use it to facilitate the application process.

For a graduate program, the GRE, GMAT, MCAT, or LSAT exam may need to be completed and supplemental information such as personal activities, educational plan, essays, and letters of recommendation may be necessary. As daunting as this may sound, it is entirely manageable for a student who is well organized and communicates with the institutions that he or she will be considering for admission.

The academic environment in the United States offers many options: In addition to colleges and universities, either state or privately run, there are two-year colleges, community colleges, professional schools, technical institutes, and religiously-affiliated schools. In the United States, the terms "college" and "university" are largely synonymous and interchangeable, and a school's merit comes from its programs rather than its official title. Generally, the only substantive difference between a college and a university is that universities offer graduate programs while colleges do not, although there are many exceptions to this pattern.

A common option in the United States is a "2 + 2" course of study. This allows students to save money while still earning a degree from a well-known institution. Many students choose this course by spending their first two years at a two-year college or a community college and then transferring to a larger public or private institution for their final undergraduate years.

Typically, during the first two years as an undergraduate in the United States, a student takes a variety of courses from different disciplines and the student specifies a major to make up the bulk of the later portion of his or her studies, although there is still leeway for electives. At the graduate level (Masters and Doctorates), the programs are similar between Canada and the United States; however, in Canada the majority of Ph.D. programs require a Master’s prior to admittance while in the United States there are more Ph.D. programs that accept students directly from the undergraduate level.

A common question asked by Canadians considering studying abroad is the recognition of their degrees once they return to Canada. As part of the evaluation process of potential schools, students should contact theCanadian Information Centre for International Credentials (www.cicic.ca) and request information on the status and acceptability of the program, institution, and credentials.

Organizations such as College Board, Education USA, NAFSA, StudyUSA and Think Education USA can be of assistance to students planning their education at an US institution. For more information on U.S. education and assistance in finding out more about the variety of options available in the United States, contact Education Specialist, Luz Betancur of the U.S. Commercial Service in Ottawa at 613.688.5216.

Contributed by:

Luz E. Betancur, National Coordinator, Education & Training Initiatives 
US Commercial Service – US Embassy OttawaLuz.betancur@mail.doc.gov 

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