If someone studied sth at Uni for two years then decided to study sth else. Do they have to start from the be?

Question

If someone spent two years at university studying something then decided to study something else.

Will they have to spend three years studying that other thing or the two years they spent studying the first thing will count.

ie: If someone spend two years at Uni studying chemistry and then decided to study biology. Will they have to spend three years studying biology or less than that (considering they spent two years at Uni)

Answer 1

You degree is based on the actual courses (modules) that you study. Some modules are common to many degree areas eg some Math modules are common to business, science, engineering.
In your new degree program, you can get credits for the common modules but you will have to study the unique modules from scratch.

I hope you had some common ones, otherwise you'll be in college for a few more years.

Answer 2

It depends on the degree that you're studying and may depend on where you're studying. You'd need to go and talk to advisors in the faculty or faculties that you're currently in and that you want to move into. If you're simply changing degrees within a faculty (e.g. moving from chemisty to biology), you'll probably have more chance of being able to decrease the amount of time spent on your new degree.

As others have pointed out, a lot of subjects/modules overlap in some degrees and should be counted towards your new degree - providing you passed - and that will lessen the amount of time you have to spend on the new degree. However, if you're looking at a drastic move - say law to medicine - there's a much smaller chance of having subject overlap and a good chance you'll have to begin again.

Many degree courses have basic level subjects as their first year subject. It can often be stuff similar to what's been taught in high school, to make up for ppl who weren't taught it previously or as a refresher for those who have. Depending on the degree in question, these are generally quite easy to understand, provided you completed high school and you could consider attending summer school for some of these units - it may speed things up a little bit. Some institutes will also recognise outside experience, say from a job, if you can provide proof of satisfactory experience and you can gain exemption from specific modules within a degree.

The best thing to do is to talk to an advisor at the university - you can usually find a careers advisor or a councillor on campus. They're great people to talk to and would be the best, most unbiased people to talk to regarding changing courses. If you're changing faculties, they'll be able to direct you to the best people within that faculty to talk to regarding your new course and what speciality you were looking at.

Answer 3

Most 'good' universities won't let you transfer into the third year of a degree course, so even if it was similar, you may have to start at second year entry rather than straight into the third year. If it was two entirely different subjects (eg from Computing to Drama) then you would have to start right from the beginning. If it was something related (e.g. Computing to IT management) then the tutors will take a look at your modules and transfer you onto second/third year depending on your modules and the univerisities policy.

Answer 4

Not necessarily, it depends how many of the modules crossover. With Bio & chem for example, they may have to start from scratch, but if there are some crossover modules in level 1, they may get to go on to level two.

Much depends on the receiving uni & the references from original place. If you want to continue on the same course, there are often few problems as long as course content doesn't differ too much. They may ask you to do an extra module somewhere if needed.

Hope this helps.