Meaning & use
technical college
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
A school for older students or adults that teaches practical job skills, such as engineering, building or computing.
Grammar: Countable: a technical college, two technical colleges; often shortened to tech.
Patterns
- study at a technical college
- a technical college for something
He trained as an electrician at a technical college.
The technical college offers courses in welding and plumbing.
After school, she enrolled in a technical college to study computer repair.
Word forms
| plural | technical colleges |
|---|
Common combinations
- attend a technical college
- Many students attend a technical college before starting work.
- local technical college
- The local technical college runs evening classes.
- technical college course
- She took a technical college course in carpentry.
- graduate from a technical college
- He graduated from a technical college with a diploma in nursing.
Synonyms and how they differ
- vocational school
- Vocational school is the usual American phrase and often focuses on one trade, whereas technical college can cover several fields.
- trade school
- Trade school stresses manual trades like plumbing, while technical college can include science and computing.
- community college
- Community college in the US often offers general credits for transfer to a university, which a technical college usually does not.
Word family
- technical adjective
- relating to practical or specialized skills
- technician noun
- a person skilled in a practical technical job
- technology noun
- scientific knowledge used in practice
Commonly confused: technical college or university?
technical college vs university
A university awards academic degrees and focuses on research and theory, while a technical college focuses on practical training for particular jobs.
Practice
Rather than going to a university, Marta enrolled at a ___ to learn how to repair engines.
Choose one answer.
A technical college teaches practical job skills such as engine repair. A law faculty is part of a university and deals with academic study of law, so it does not fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “technical college”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.