<p>Hi everyone. I was wondering if there was a real difference between a British 3 year undergrad degree and an American 4 year one. Because I'm an American looking at colleges in the UK and I see that most of the degrees there are 3 years. </p>
<p>I'm specifically looking at the London School of Economics if it matters. </p>
<p>So, is there a big difference?</p>
<p>Yes, British universities and degrees are highly specialized. You will study economics at LSE, not history or english etc.</p>
<p>A British 3-year degree may presume that its matriculants are better prepared than is generally the case in the US.</p>
<p>yes, I agree with the above sentiments. I believe Brittish students (maybe only English, I'm not sure) have to choose a track to go on once they reach a certain age. 3 years is plenty at these instituitions because as greybeard said, they are quite a bit more prepared than most US students.</p>
<p>As everybody else has stated, yes, there is a difference. In the British system, you specialize a lot earlier, and thus, need less time to complete a degree program. However, I think you sacrifice a lot of the breadth that you would get from a classic American liberal-arts curriculum. The thing about the British system is that you can get away without learning the 'core' of academic subjects that American high schools require. I have a friend who is taking business, psychology, theatre, and art for his A-levels (actually, I'm not sure if they call them A-levels anymore, but they're the exams you take at the end of high school). Those are terrific and challenging subjects in their own right, but you wonder, whatever happened to English/history/math/science/foreign language? </p>
<p>If you're sure that you want to study economics, and pretty much ONLY economics, then LSE is the place to do it, for sure. There are a couple of other options, too. I know that LSE has exchange programs with American colleges, you might want to check into that. Also, I've heard of people doing undergrad in the US, and going on to read law/business/medicine/whatever in the UK after that. That's definitely a viable option, if you don't mind being in classes with people ~4 years younger than you are.</p>