Sherlock has none - too bored to get a degree 

Vhanja wrote:

I wouldn't know enough about the UK college system to answer this. I don't know what majors exists. What would make sense for John? What majors are there for him? Math? Is there something medical?

I think UK colleges are similar to U.S colleges in that they offer a wide arrange of degrees, like Economics, Psychology, Visual Arts, etc...

Yes, John is a doctor, so I guess it makes sense that he would have a medical degree. Maybe a masters in medicine or surgery....

@ Harriet:
lol, that is a justifiable opinion. Though I think in canon it is mentioned that Sherlock went to college (I beleive it was in the Musgrave Ritual)

@tobeornot221b: 

Oh, I completely missed that! Thankyou! That makes me happy, since I'm considering a chem major myself. 

Last edited by tea&ash (October 8, 2015 9:23 pm)

John would have to have a medical degree to be a doctor (he could possibly have done his medical degree as a post-graduate, but I don't think he did).   

I don't know of any unis that do a major/minor type system as in the US, but may offer joint degrees, or a main subject with another (e.g. Maths with Physics).   Medicine (with a capital M! i.e. the course that qualifies you to be a medical doctor) is studied anytime after age 17/18 (I believe it's not studied until later in the US). 

And colleges are different too.  Mostly (not always) people do degrees at universities - several years ago a lot of polytechnics and so on changed over to being "universities".   Colleges are often parts of a bigger universite (e.g. Jesus college at Cambridge), or for GCSEs/A levels/vocational courses from about age 14 upwards.    And schools are for children - up to the age of about 18.  Unless, again, you're talking about the School of X within Y university.  Or London School of Economics.  But a university student wouldn't say they were going to school.  The more I think of it, the less clear it is!

Last edited by Liberty (October 8, 2015 9:32 pm)

I tried looking it up on the Oxford University website, they offer online and distance courses but I can't seem to find out if they offer a chemistry degree that way, and I don't really have the time or patience to pursue it at the moment.

Anyway, I have this book I borrowed called The World of Sherlock Holmes and it has a chronology of Holmes' (and Watson's) life. According to this author, "c. 1873 Holmes goes to University, spending two years in residence and coming down without taking his degree."

tobeornot221b wrote:

Molly says in TSoT that Sherlock was "a graduate chemist".

And Seb in TBB says: "You’d come down to breakfast in the Formal Hall and this freak would know you’d been shagging the previous night."

Formal hall is a traditional meal heald only in a small number of universities so we can assume that Sherlock probably went to Oxford or Cambridge. 

Wikipedia says: "Formal Hall or Formal Meal is a meal held at some of the oldest universities in the United Kingdom and Ireland (as well as some other Commonwealth countries) at which students dress in formal attire and often gowns to dine. These are held commonly in the colleges of Oxford,[1] Cambridge,[2] Dublin, Durham, St Andrews, Royal Holloway London, Nottingham, the Australian Sandstone universities (Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney, Tasmania, Western Australia), and the University of Toronto."

So I would think that he studied chemistry at Cambridge and graduated there before coming to London.  
 

Last edited by SusiGo (October 9, 2015 7:20 am)

We don't have the American system of majors/minors in the UK - in fact I don't even know what that means?

You go to university to read a certain subject and when you graduate you get a degree. I also read that Sherlock went to either Cambridge or Oxford - and as for the dog, I never saw that it as a dog Victor kept in campus at uni but always imagined that since it was Sunday, perhaps his family had come to visit and brought over the dog (or maybe they lived close to uni?)

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

I always imagined that Victor Trevor was a bit of a rebel and, no doubt against regulations, kept a dog at University.

It would be a pretty impossible thing to do on campus... where did he walk it? How did he make sure nobody knew so word didn't spread? Especially after it bit another student?
 

Last edited by Dorothy83 (October 9, 2015 1:01 pm)

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

John Watson probably went to University College London (UCL) and studied Medicine.

Forgive my American ignorance, but could it be possible he went to "Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry"?

John: "A bit different from my day."  Implies he was familiar with that campus.

wiki-article wrote:

The school exists on two main sites, having a presence at the site of both of the former colleges at and near their respective hospitals, St Bartholomew's Hospital (in Smithfield, City of London and nearby in Charterhouse Square), and the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets with an additional site at Queen Mary's main (Mile End) campus.

According to that article, there was a "Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital" that was merged into the above-mentioned school in 1995.

My first thought upon reading this was, "John is a middle-aged guy, maybe he went to Bart's College before it merged".

But then I remembered that I am almost as old as he is (actor or character, take your pick), and I didn't go to college until 2000.



 

Ah, this must be where I got the idea John studied at King's: from his CV. 

And the same site has an article about Sherlock doing NatSci.