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When you google "studying/study/studied psychology at" (or any other subject of study e.g. law) you get a lot more results from British English websites where people talk about doing a degree at a certain college or university. I am wondering why this phrase does not appear so often in American English, even though AmE dominates google searches in all areas.

Can anybody explain?

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    It may be affected by British undergraduates typically taking a single subject, such as law or psychology. In the USA law is a graduate course and undergraduates are instead described as majoring in something as part of a broader course (often not law even when they eventually become lawyers)
    – Henry
    Commented Dec 17, 2016 at 11:47

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The British and American higher education systems are different, in Britain a person is offered a place at universty to study a certain subject such as law or psychology whilst still at 6th form at high school or a 6th form college. It is normally expected that a student will continue to study this subject until they graduate.

In American, as I understand it, a person will be offered a place at a university but is then able to choose to study a number of courses from those that are offered by that university. They may study some English Literature, Math, Physics and so on.This will then become their major.Subjects such as law and psychology are studied after graduation in graduate or Proffesional school.

So a British student goes to university to study a particular subject and so it appears more often in British English.

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    +1. A couple of things you might want to incorporate: 1. US students do go on to specialize in graduate or professional school, and you can't really major in law or medicine as an undergraduate, so you will see more examples of studied law at or studied medicine at and similar subjects with specialized schooling than examples with common undergrad majors (like English or psychology). And 2. US students would study math or maybe mathematics, but not maths ;-).
    – 1006a
    Commented Dec 17, 2016 at 16:38
  • How about graduate schools in America? Is it common for a graduate student to say "I study/studied marketing, psychology etc." like in Britain (and presumably other European countries) or are other expressions used to inform others about someone's education?
    – Peter
    Commented Dec 18, 2016 at 7:06
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    @Peter I think the most common way of saying this would be to refer to the specific degree: "I got my (PhD/Masters etc.) in (subject) at". People certainly do say "I studied X at" but it's a little ambiguous in that case whether you mean undergrad or graduate school (for subjects that can be studied in both), and whether you completed your degree or not.
    – 1006a
    Commented Dec 19, 2016 at 5:09

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