What is materials science and engineering?
Three US university departments explain the field behind batteries and artificial skin. Its engineers test materials, pick them, and work out why parts fail.
tag archive
#universities.
Every story tagged #universities.
Two examiners judge a UK PhD in one viva
A UK PhD viva is an oral exam held after the thesis is submitted, where two examiners question the candidate before recommending a result.
Comparing universities properly takes more than a league table
A league table averages a whole institution. The course you want, its entry threshold and your own circumstances decide more than that average does.
Enem: the exam that decides who gets into university in Brazil
Brazil's Enem replaced universities' separate entrance tests with one national exam that almost every public university now uses to admit students.
Sandel's Justice was the first Harvard course put online free
The lectures reached tens of millions of viewers. Critics called the edX version, JusticeX, old footage with quizzes, no better than assigning a book.
England's regulator says some degree algorithms inflate Firsts
England's Office for Students says two degree algorithm practices inflate Firsts: awarding the best of several results, and dropping a student's lowest marks.
A university GPA is a weighted average, not a raw one
A GPA multiplies each grade by its course's credits, adds the results, then divides by the total credits attempted across the whole term.
The 1871 act that ended religious tests at Oxford and Cambridge
The Universities Tests Act of 1871 ended Oxford's religious tests, in place since 1581, and opened Oxford, Cambridge and Durham to all faiths.
A chaplain's student hostel gave the Sorbonne its name
Robert de Sorbonne, a royal chaplain, opened a hostel for Paris students in 1257. Officially, the Sorbonne stopped being a university in 1970.
Al-Azhar: how a Fatimid mosque became a university
Al-Azhar began as a Fatimid mosque in 970. By 988 the state paid 35 scholars to teach there, and it later became a modern university in Cairo.
How a 1992 law turned Britain's polytechnics into universities
The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 gave 34 British polytechnics degree-awarding powers, ending a divide that had run since 1965.