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Preposition in/at | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Honest Diglot Groupie United States Joined 5263 days ago 89 posts - 92 votes  Speaks: Arabic (Gulf)*, English | Message 1 of 4 19 December 2014 at 4:30pm | IP Logged |
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Greetings,
I'd like to know which preposition to choose in this context: I teach Physics (in-at) the college of sciences. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4478 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 2 of 4 19 December 2014 at 5:24pm | IP Logged |
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Use 'at' (e.g., "I teach physics at college").
If you were referring to a place you would use 'in' (e.g., "I teach physics in Australia"). BTW: "college of sciences" doesn't sound like a proper English phrase. If it's a proper name you could capitalise the words "the College of Sciences" or you could say "a science college". Edited by patrickwilken on 19 December 2014 at 5:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 5004 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 4 19 December 2014 at 7:45pm | IP Logged |
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patrickwilken's answer is not wrong, but in case you want more details and less restrictive prescriptions: it is
also acceptable to say "in the College of Sciences." For example, a little Googling shows that Texas A&M International University greets its new professors with "Thank you for choosing to teach in the College of Arts & Sciences at TAMIU." This "in" usage is usually only used, however, when "College" refers to a part of an institution, such as the College of Sciences or the School of Business within a larger university. If "College" refers to the institution itself, then it's much better to say "I teach at X College" and not "I teach in X College." These nuances are one of the last errors to disappear in advanced learners if they do at all, as there's no obvious pattern and you just have to hear it thousands of times. People will get the meaning either way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4478 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 4 19 December 2014 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
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'In' has the sense of enclosure, while 'at' refers to a point. To make this clearer try replacing 'in' with "within' in the sentence.
I assume that's the meaning Texas A&M is getting at when they use "Thank you for choosing to teach in the College of Arts & Sciences at TAMIU." The IN in the above sentence emphasizes their membership of the college (i.e., they are literally within the college). If you used AT it would put the stress of the meaning in the sentence on the place they work, not their membership of it (i.e., College of Arts & Sciences at TAMIU). Generally you want to emphasize where you work, not your membership of the institution, but as robarb says both are acceptable. I am not 100% sure, but I think the default is to use "at", unless you specifically want to emphasize that the person is "within" the institution. "I teach AT Harvard" implies that the place where I work is Harvard. "I teach IN Harvard" implies that I am a member of the Harvard faculty. However, you are generally a member of a specific department/faculty so generally you would qualify this, and so it would be better to write something like this: "I teach in the faculty of law at Harvard University". Edited by patrickwilken on 19 December 2014 at 8:48pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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