5.1 Education and Career (Educación y carreras)

School systems differ from country to country, so a reading will usually tell you which one it's describing. These two are the most common in exam-style texts.

• el colegio: a school, often a private primary or secondary school. It is not "college". University is la universidad.
• la carrera: a university degree program or major (estudio la carrera de Medicina), and also a career. Context tells you which.
• la facultad: a school or college within a university (la Facultad de Derecho, the law school). University teaching staff is el profesorado.
• el bachillerato: in Spain, the two final years of secondary school; in many Latin American countries, secondary school or the diploma you get at the end.
• las notas or las calificaciones (grades). Spain and Mexico grade from 0 to 10 (a 5 passes in Spain, usually a 6 in Mexico); Chile grades from 1.0 to 7.0, with 4.0 to pass.
• aprobar (to pass); suspender (to fail, in Spain) or reprobar (to fail, in Mexico and much of Latin America)
• la beca (scholarship), la matrícula (tuition or enrollment), el título (degree or diploma)

Some of the biggest public universities in Latin America charge local students little or nothing for undergraduate tuition, such as the UNAM in Mexico City and the University of Buenos Aires. That makes them very competitive. Students from poorer or rural families still face costs like transportation, books and lost income, and many attend weaker public schools before university. Texts often discuss school dropout (el abandono escolar or la deserción escolar) and the gap between public and private schools.

University traditions are old in the Spanish-speaking world. The University of Salamanca in Spain dates to 1218, and the National University of San Marcos in Lima, founded in 1551, is one of the oldest in the Americas.

For years Spain has had one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the European Union. Many young graduates take internships (las prácticas in Spain, la pasantía in much of Latin America) or move abroad, which people call la fuga de cerebros (brain drain). In much of Latin America, a large share of workers have informal jobs (el empleo informal), without a contract or benefits.

Job-hunting words: el currículum (also la hoja de vida in Colombia), la entrevista de trabajo, el puesto (position), el sueldo or el salario, contratar (to hire), el/la aspirante or el/la candidato/a (applicant).

• Talking about plans: pienso estudiar…, me gustaría trabajar en…, voy a solicitar una beca
• Cuando + subjunctive for the future: Cuando termine el bachillerato, quiero estudiar Ingeniería.
• In a job interview or a formal email, use usted: ¿Podría usted explicarme…? Start emails with Estimado/a señor/a… and end with Atentamente.