At Lancaster University, a full-time student only has to take three classes. From my experience, each class has a weekly lecture and seminar. Lectures can last from 50 minutes to about an hour and a half. While seminars typically last only 50 minutes, if you are taking a dance class, your seminar and lecture can last up to two hours. The time and date on which each lecture and seminar is held are not known to the student while they are registering for classes. At Mizzou, you can easily hop on a schedule planner and tailor your schedule to your liking, but that is not an option at Lancaster. If you enrolled in classes that overlap you will receive an email from your department and will need to choose one of those classes or select a different course.

The format of the lectures and seminars are also very different from how they are in the United States. During lectures, the professor will spend the entire time teaching the content. Though you can still ask questions, from all of the lectures I have attended, no one has ever asked a question during a lecture. Seminars are more interactive and, depending on your professor, you will be obligated to contribute to the conversation. At times, you may be verbally singled out to speak if you haven’t done so. Though seminars may sound intimidating at first, they give you an opportunity to connect with your peers and ask your lecturer questions.

Another major difference is how and when your academic performance is graded. If you are working in a team, you will all be receiving the exact same grade regardless of how the work was distributed. This was scary at first, but everyone in my group was present and ready to tackle the workload. But my group experience may not be everyone else’s experience.

Essay-wise, writing essays in the United Kingdom is a completely different beast. Depending on how your essay question is worded, you will have to use a different essay format. You have to focus on the “assignment brief instruction words” such as clarify, critically evaluate, criticize, interpret, etc. For each of these different words, you will have to follow a different essay format, which can be tricky if you are not familiar with writing essays in the United Kingdom.

In terms of when your assignments are graded, you could have already submitted multiple assignments from two months ago, but they will still remain ungraded. This is because you will receive your final grades about a month and a half after the term has ended.

Another big difference is that the heavily weighted assignments are not due until the month after the term has ended. For example, all three of my classes have essays that are due on Jan. 18 even though classes end on Dec. 15.

Overall, there are very clear differences between how the university works at Mizzou and Lancaster. With assessments being scheduled after the term is over, it can make it very easy to lose focus on your schoolwork, but that also gives you free time to get more involved on campus and travel around the country or neighboring countries.