Names for schools and universities are confusing

✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.

Grad school, college, university

Education systems to differ per country - so so does the naming.

Translation can get confusing - and often also useful/necessary if you want a job in another country.

Countries where "grad schools" are a concept (mostly the US, to some degree other English-speaking countries) usually split things like:

• college (rewards bachelor diplomas)
• grad school (rewards masters, and possibly doctoral/PhD diplomas)

They may be part of the same institution, and that may be called a university. (and in that case, it is usually the university and not the college that awards titles)

The same countries tend to use:

Undergraduate tends to mean 'is doing or has finished a bachelor diploma',

postgraduate has something "anything after bachelor degree" (and, confusingly to me, not to graduate-school diplomas)

Note that various countries historically had a clearer cut universities meaning "here's a study, this is how long it is" (i.e. no inbetween diploma), and/or may (still) have a clearer distinction between bachelor diploma in university sense and the trade-school sense.

These countries tend to have universities be bachelor+master things, with no college/grad split, because because that's how they were set up.