There is a hint that you’re saying ‘just focusing on one or two subjects” is less work though? I do get what you’re saying about juggling the workload and timetabling of lots of different coursesI've become quite familiar with the UK education. There's this misconception that in the US you can't specialize in a subject earlier on in your degree, and that's not true. There are gen eds that we're required to complete and most people don't declare their major until their sophomore year, but that's because in order to declare your major you have to meet the major requirements. For example, I'm an applied math major with a minor in physics. I was admitted to my university in the college of science because like most students I did not enter university undecided. I was not able to officially declare my major or my minor until I passed several classes in my major and minor. I was still taking 4 math classes and 1 physics class, but I could not officially declare my major. For the college of engineering at my university, they have to pass certain classes too, but they also have to maintain a higher gpa than my program or they have to pick a different major. So in the US, we do specialize early on but while we are taking classes in our majors and minors we also have mandatory gen eds and it's not official until you've proven you can handle it. I was fortunate enough to take a lot of university-level classes in high school that transferred over, but some students are stuck taking the max amount of credits to graduate on time, especially if they double major. When I'm referring to course load, I'm referring to the fact that we often cannot focus on just one or two subjects because if we did it would take 6+ years to graduate because of all the graduation requirements and if you drop below full-time you lose your government aid.
I'm not saying one system is better than the other. I was saying if Ruby is not the type of person who can handle a heavy course load, as in multiple courses with their own graded assignments every week that can tank your gpa, she would not have made it out of undergrad here.
Additionally, at the master's level in the US, there aren't any gen eds. They are there to specialize in one field. The only difference is that they require more courses in the subject area that you're studying in the US.
Academic funding and general academia chat
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There is a hint that you’re saying ‘just focusing on one or two subjects” is less work though? I do get what you’re saying about juggling the workload and timetabling of lots of different courses
Not necessarily, but in the UK there are a lot of ungraded assignments. Even if the assignment is mandatory, if it doesn't count towards your grade you don't have to worry about correctness, so if something comes up, you can slap something together and revisit the material later. In the US, ungraded assignments are not a very common thing. They give us mock exams and problems that would be nice to practice, but that's considered study material, not homework. Our actual homework is graded for correctness, so if something comes up and you slap something together and it's all wrong, you get a zero, and that goes toward your final grade which goes on your official transcript. They assign the material on a weekly basis at my university, so we don't usually have the opportunity to get a head start on it if we know something is going to come up later. Other universities do sometimes give students access to all course materials at the beginning of the semester, though.
That is to say, in the UK, a lot of your grade is dependent on a few exams or essays, so theoretically, you could slack off until exams and still get your degree. I wouldn't recommend it as they give you those ungraded assignments for a reason and you do need to take the time to learn the content, but it's theoretically possible. In the US, for most courses, if you fail to complete 1 weekly assignment you could go from 90% to a 70% overnight and you can't pass a course in your major or minor with less than 70%. That means if you are a student who likes independent study, but you don't do too well with constant assignments and obligations, you may do better in the UK. If you are a bad test taker, but you're good at juggling a lot of assignments you may do better in the US.
Oh fair enough! Thank you for your great replies, they’re so detailed. 
No problem! I've always found it interesting that the UK and the US have completely different systems for secondary school, but by the time one exits university, there's not a noticeable difference in education level.Oh fair enough! Thank you for your great replies, they’re so detailed.
