Student
From Freepedia
- For other uses, see Student (disambiguation).
Etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb "stŭdērĕ", which means "to direct one's zeal at"; hence a student is one who directs zeal at a subject. Also known as a disciple in the sense of a religious area of study, and/or in the sense of a "discipline" of learning. In widest use, student is used to mean a school or class attendee. In many countries, the word student is however reserved for higher education or university students; persons attending classes in primary or secondary schools being called pupils.
Currently, many children and teenagers are subject to compulsory education: by law they are required to attend some form of school. Laws vary from country to country, but most students are allowed to abandon their education when they reach the legal age of consent.
Researchers, educators, and education administrators around the world are increasingly heeding student voice, a common reference to the experiences, opinions, ideas, and actions of children and youth in schools. This practice provides authenticity and efficacy for school improvement efforts.
November 17 is the International Students' Day, which commemorates those students killed at the beginning of World War II who called for peace; specifically, the date was chosen as a memory to Jan Opletal, and events following his death.
Years
In the USA, where undergraduate degree courses commonly last four years, the following terms are generally used, sometimes also adopted in other countries :
- A freshman (or frosh) is a first-year student in college or university, or, chiefly in the United States, in high school. (This word came from England, replaced there since by the term "fresher", but is now used far more frequently in U.S. English.) A growing number of people prefer the term "freshmore" as a gender-neutral alternative.
- A sophomore is a second-year student. Etymologically, the word means 'wise fool'; consequently sophomoric means "pretentious, bombastic, inflated in style or manner; immature, crude, superficial" (according to the Oxford English Dictionary). Coming from the Greek sophos, meaning "wise", and moros meaning "foolish".
- A junior is a student in the third year of high school or college.
- A senior is a student in the fourth and (usually) last year at a high school, college, or university. A student taking more than four years to graduate from college is sometimes referred to as a super senior.
The term middler is used to describe a third-year student of a school (generally college) which offers five years of study. In this situation, the fourth and fifth years would be referred to as "junior" and "senior" years, respectively.
The United States military academies do not use these terms. In order from first year to fourth year, students in these institutions are officially referred to as fourth-class, third-class, second-class, and first-class cadets or midshipmen.
Freshman and sophomore are sometimes used figuratively, mainly in US English usage, to refer for example to a first or second effort ("the singer's freshman album"), or to a politician's first or second term in office ("sophomore senator") or an athlete's first or second year on a professional sports team. Junior and senior aren't used in this figurative way to refer to third and fourth years or efforts, because of those words' broader meanings of 'younger' and 'older'. (A junior senator is therefore not one who is in his or her third term of office, but rather merely one who has not been in the Senate as long as the other senator from his or her state.)
At universities in the United Kingdom the term fresher is used to describe new students. Unlike the American term freshman it sometimes only applies in the first few months of a student's first year; the North American equivalent would be frosh (in singular and plural).
Although freshman has not been as touched by political correctness as other words (such as chairman), some have begun calling first-year students freshpersons, and some colleges prefer the British "freshers."
