An American doctor needs a first degree; a Brazilian one starts medicine straight away
Undergraduate study sounds universal, but its shape changes at every border. In the United States, law and medicine only begin after a bachelor's degree. In Brazil a would-be doctor picks the subject before entering university and spends six years on it, while India's MBBS takes about five and a half.
Broadly, undergraduate education covers everything after secondary school up to a bachelor's degree. In some systems it reaches further: certain British science courses and some European medical programmes run all the way to a master's level before a student counts as a graduate.
Americans typically spend four full-time years on a bachelor's, most often a BA or BS, though fine arts, nursing, architecture and many other variants exist. Neither law nor medical schools demand a particular major, although medicine requires a set list of prerequisite courses. Many students begin at a two-year community college, earn an associate degree and transfer; aligning those courses with what universities expect is called articulation. The words college and university are used loosely, differing between states, and some colleges, Smith among them, award graduate degrees.
Brazil offers free public education from kindergarten through postgraduate study as a constitutional right. Entry to university comes through a competitive exam, the Vestibular, and since 2009 most federal universities also use scores from the national high school exam, ENEM. A technologist diploma takes three years, most bachelor's degrees four, and law, engineering, geology and veterinary science five.
India runs the third-largest higher education system after the United States and China, overseen by the University Grants Commission. Arts, commerce and science degrees usually last three years, engineering and pharmacy four, law and architecture five. Growth has been rapid, with nearly 20,000 colleges and over 8 million students added between 2000 to 2001 and 2010 to 2011, and more than 1338 universities by 2026. Japan splits its four years into an associate stage followed by a bachelor's stage, while Hong Kong planned to lengthen its degrees from three years to four, with the first students under the new scheme arriving in 2012.
Source: Undergraduate education
