Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

What would you say is a reasonable assumed level of education for, as the title says, High School and College skill levels, both halfway through a Bachelor's as well as graduated with a BA or BS from a quality university?

I'm trying to parse these out for a setting, and while it seems like at the High School level, Defaults would be better from a realism standpoint, it kills any gradiation. "Hey, how good are you?" Well, I've got a 9 IQ and a default in an IQ/H skill, and so does everyone else in my class."

Kinda dull.

So assume both a Cultist viewpoint as well as a moderately cinematic viewpoint? What do you think?

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Skill 11-12 for a recent graduate of a unremarkable (in either way) university. Let high school students mostly operate off defaults, with a few points here and there in the areas they're especially interested in (even if that's Carousing).

As for mid-way levels, call it 10-11?

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Note that one of the criteria is that, as people raise in education, their IQ increases as well. At least, in the Templates I've seen. (Probably a "chicken-and-egg" thing. If someone doesn't have an IQ of X, they probably wouldn't have gotten a degree of level Y.)

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

If you have problems with the too-steep differentiation of 'you have a point or you don't' for a class-full of high school students, use Dabbler perks. A half or quarter point can make a big difference between somebody pulling off a passable grade in a class and someone not even taking it.
That's not too surprising for templates, because a template that really uses a college education is likely going to be of the know-it-all type. Adventuring nerds usually lean to the omnidisciplinary.

A highly skilled chemical engineer would certainly have a college degree, but might only have a couple highly developed IQ skills and an average IQ. It's just that that character is less likely to turn up as a PC than someone who can also handle three other kinds of engineering, repair a car, and program a computer.

Education can justify an elevated IQ, but neither mandates the other.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I should probably mention that the effect of the Dabbler perk is pretty much an assumed setting rule. I really like the smoother gradiation from Default to Def+1, Def+2, Def+3 and finally 1-pt that it offers. Not to mention it allows someone who's had a few months' worth of classes in a subject to have that matter.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Having recently bought the 4e Basic Set, I would really like to know where the Dabbler perk is described?

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Power-Ups 2: Perks, an e23 PDF that compiles most (or all?) of the GURPS 4e perks that predate it and a number of new ones. I think Dabbler was one of the new ones.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I thought I remembered seeing Dabbler in Martial Arts? (It was a friend's copy, so I can't look it up.)

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

One can generally assume that a high school student is operating on the default, at a generous TDM (the teacher doesn't want you to fail; you've probably studied EXACTLY THIS MATERIAL in the last month; high school rarely covers really advanced skill applications) and a bonus for taking extra time (because even a test in high school is rarely the kind of situation that doesn't let you squeeze double or triple the 'standard' time to answer a question).

College students - the ones really applying themselves, anyway - most likely have an IQ of 11 by the time they finish high school and a point or two in their areas of study. They're then operating on a favorable TDM (because before the postgraduate level, college is still not an environment designed to make you fail, even if the material itself is more advanced), and then racking on extra time if they take it.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

High School students are very unlikely to have any Science or Professional Skills. Many of their teachers will be no better than 12 in the subject they are teaching.

Exceptions might be made for the absolutely brightest kid in school who's gotten an early start on his Ph.D.

High School kids may have other Skills though. Athletic/other Physical and Hobby Skills are most likely. Probably not Driving. Even amjor jocks though are unlikely to have more than a pt of 2 in even Physical Skills.

If a college student graduates ready to take an entry level job in his degree filed then that translates to a skill of 12 or higher. That's pretty much by definition. Extrapolate from there.

If all this seems dull.....well, Gurps primarily concentrates on measuring the Skills of Adventurers and most High School and College students will have few if any Skills useful to Adventurers.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

My feeling has always been that the education system in GURPS (200 hours = 25 days of work = 1 character point) is simply a useful and plausible abstraction that does not reflect the range of real world learning, which involves far too many variables to model in any playable way.

Besides, in character design, it doesn't matter if they learned the skill in a year or a week; it only matters that they have (or do not have) the skill when they enter the story.

So I just rely on skill levels and I don't worry exactly when or how the character learned them.

12- = competent professional; if this is a skill where you can make a living, you can keep a job with this level of skill.

So what does a college degree mean in GURPS? (This could be a two-year degree for some skills, by the way.) The average graduate will have one skill, possibly two, representing their major, at 12- or 11-. 12- means someone really knows their stuff, can hit the ground running or only needs minimal training, and can do the job pretty much from day one. 11- is for the guy who passed with a C+ average and knows his stuff well enough to get hired, but better learn the rest of what he needs on the job real fast or he is going to get fired eventually...or maybe arrested if he screws up badly enough. A few whiz kids, who are probably going to graduate school anyway, might have one or two skills at 13-. They will have a few other skills, representing important secondary areas of study or activity (this may include Carousing), at 11- or 10-. A typical B.A. or B.S. probably represents about 10-20 points of skills.

A high school student? Hmmm...with a few exceptions, I would assume high school students a) use most skills at default (IQ-5, etc.), b) have ONE point in a couple of skills (the subjects they are really into, hobbies or activities they spend a lot of time on), or the Dabbler perk, and c) might, if they are unusually strong in certain areas (for a high school student), have higher levels in one or two skills.

Dabbler is a great addition for low-powered games; it seems a good way to handle high school kids who are "whiz kids," local stars, perhaps, well above their peers (+2 or +3 over default in a couple of select skills), but not truly skilled in the way that GURPS means it.

Mark

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Well I read somewhere that a typical college semester would be like 1 point in a skill (some have even suggested that it should be Intensive and that it should suffer from Maintaining Skills) I'd put a high school year as a point in all the subjects studied but that you don't have to maintain. Some older folks might beg to differ... but I still got all my highschool education.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Just to point out, but most universities won't let you get away with focusing solely on your major. Any college graduate will pick up a broad range of skills, although mostly at the Dabbler level. I know I don't have a full point in History, no matter how many courses I took (3 or 4 IIRC). Actually, I think a lot of people would argue that all the miscellaneous stuff you pick up in college is at least half the point.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Intensive Training is for Army Ranger School. not a semester at Chug-a-Brew U. Most people never picked up an actual Skill in a college course so there's nothing to maintain.

4 hours of lecture hall for 12 weeks (or whatever a semester is these days) would only come to 48 hours (if it counted fully as study with an instructor which I am dubious of). The remaining 150 hours would have to come from self-study at half speed for something like 20-25 hours per week per course you're taking.

1 cp per year in the major field only seems more likely to me.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Yes but that could justify a skill like Liberal Arts or College. Think of them as the accademic equivelant of the soldier skill.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I'd buy that. Expert Skill (College Core Curriculum) or something similar sounds like a reasonable way to model that, and I'd most likely let my players take it if I was running a game. (As long as they didn't try to abuse it anyway.)

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

ok well I was using intensive training for those cram sessions where you ace the final after and then forget everything three weeks later (which I wouldn't even really call it that, but I know that some would). I think that saying most people don't pick up a skill would be more accurately said by "those that get drunk, party, and don't give a crap about school" because some places actually have less partiers and more actual students.

anyway it's 3 per class for 16 weeks (at UARK anyway). same number of hours of in class time. so, yeah sure you could say that the 300 or so hours required to get that point in addition to the 48 will only get you 1 point of a single subject but that 300 hours only amounts to about 3 hours per day (300/16/7... yes people study on weekends too if they know and appreciate where their money is going), and if you're only studying about 3 hours per day let's face it, you could always study a second subject and get two points :)

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Even people who don't party likely don't earn actual skill points for a single semester of a single college class. The majority of teaching time in school, including college, people aren't actually learning anything, especially not anything new - a huge portion of the time, they're reviewing stuff you already know (or should), going over procedures, etc. The pacing of classroom instruction really isn't ideal for most people - you'll go over a lot of stuff that you've already got a really good handle on repeatedly, and might not get enough time to learn stuff that you have a hard time with, for example. One-on-one individual instruction's much better.

Also: I don't know anybody who studies for three hours per class every single day. I don't think anybody does - instead, they take multiple courses at once, usually four or five.

Anyways, Kromm's said the 200-hours-per-skillpoint bit's entirely unrealistic and shouldn't be used to determine actual education. It's a gameplay abstraction.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

The cramming is more likely to represent some form of the Time Spent modifers on p.346. Even Tests (which after all are taken out of combat) probably count for the +4 for Routine difficulty (even for Default Rolls). You just don't get a Default to Calculus until you start studying it.

Ok, 48 hours of class time and that's being generously counted as time with an instructor. You need 304 hours more as self study is only half speed. On the Job Training at quarter speed might be a better representation.

Over 7 x 16 or 102 days that's 3 hours of diligent study per course _every_ day (if you're really diligent).

Are you assuming you only study for 1 course out of 3-4 per semester? Which course are you picking? Do you not study _at_all_ for the others? Then there's all the other time-eaters like eating, sleeping and travelling between classes. I don't know about you but I got in quite a bit of gaming time in college. :)

I'll stick with my 1 cp per year in the major area of study only.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Sorry I don't understand how since there's academic skills listed in the book, there aren't people capable of retainiing them over a semester. Also there's Research.

Where is it you "should know" accounting or psychology or marketing or anything other than the dates of historical events (high school rarely teaches the impact through the ages)

That I'll agree with

While yes, one on one courses are better, I'll have to disagree, I know that most every class will have some small measure of review for the things you learned in previous classes but the way they structure classes in schools that know what they are doing, more like 3/4 of the time is spent on <gasp> new material.

Well about half of the responsible students I know usually study for 3 hours in two classes. The point is that each class in which you study that much (which is usually at least one or two of the classes) is worth in game mechanics 1 point.

incedentally I think that's what the OP asked about :D

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

If the 'responsible' students you know are only taking two classes per semester, it would take them ten years to finish a normal 120 credit degree.

People can still learn skills in college - it's just a lot slower than 1 skill point per class per semester. That's about five skill points per semester or forty total for a normal bachelor's degree. 1 skill point per year might work - 1 skill point per full load of classes in a semester might work, as well, though I'd only put half of those in their primary skill.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Nope they're only studying 3 hours a day for two of the full load. The others are cores from the first year they didn't get early, and as I said before they only get the point for the one or two classes where they study 3 hours a day. Also we're only required to take 4 classes a semester

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

About a year ago I started a thread for a game I was thinking of running:

Anime Ordinary High School Students

I got some good comments. I gave my first try at a template at the beginning and a revised one at the end of the thread.

Short version: High school gives you 4 points a year, 1 each in Math (applied), Literature, History, and Writing,

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I'm going to voice my support for the use of the Dabbler Perk for College classes. I've used an unofficial version of this for a while and it seems to work well. I generally use plain 'ol default for High School Students, however.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

Yes. If you gain skill pts from a College curriculum, you don't from a High School one covering the same broad subjects. High School barely covers the basics (i.e. Defaults). If you didn't have the HS education you mostly wouldn't get a Default.

Even with largely Yes/No things like Languages there are significant amounts of nuances they don't cover in High School.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I think this is a fundamentally wrong understanding of what Default means. I'm curious what others think.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

read somewhere that one skill point equals 200 hours of study.
40 hours a week (including homework) for 40 weeks a year would yeild 8 CP per annum. whether you actually paid attention in school is another thing!

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

That is assuming one on one teaching, and the ration ares if it pressure learning, self taught etc.. a point in a skill can also represent a narrower than a Talent natural gift.

Compulsory Education is the modern Western way of imparting working knowledge (defaults) some of it goes to raising IQ other part grants a default in the first place.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I agree with Fred. If you've never had a calculus class (Mathematics; Applied), I wouldn't let you even try at default a calculus problem - if you've never had calculus, you won't even know what the symbols mean!

It'd be either that, or assess massive unfamiliarity penalties for anything you didn't study in school, and have high school just give you some familiarities - essentially making it so that any time you attempt a skill taught at school at default, if you haven't finished high school you're also getting further penalties on top of the default use.

Effectively, before you take high school you have lowered defaults on anything high school teaches. It's only after you pass your classes that you get to use your skills at their actual default.

Re: Assumptions on High School and College Skill Levels
 

I also agree with Fred. Defaults are supposed to be dependent on the character's background. In a modern campaign set in a first world country, people are typically high school graduates. So the general knowledge from high school in game terms is your default in History, Literature, Mathematics, Science skills, etc. A lack of a high school education would be represented by a Social Stigma plus possibly reduced IQ, Illiteracy of some level and an implied lack of default skills. You could certainly justify a few points in skills based on your interests in high school, but learning them in high school is just a feature.

College again I would treat as a feature. If you went to a good school and took advantage of all opportunities to improve your mind you could justify buying a level of IQ plus points in skills for your major. If you partied a lot, possibly nothing but points in certain social skills. A skill level of 12 or so sounds right for the typical major for a good college but a character could justify higher or lower skill easily enough. If you really want a game mechanic, maybe assume 15-20 points in Attributes, Advantages and skills acquired for an active college education.

- DW