I'm a little confused about which of the following sentence is correct. If both of them are correct, then when to use each of these?

  1. From where have you done your Bachelors?
  2. Where have you done your Bachelors from?
  • 1
    I would never say any of those. I'd just say: "Where did you do / get your Bacherlor's Degree". I would not use "from" with "do", do not being a verb expressing movement. You could use "from" with "get": "Where did you get your Bacherlor's Degreee from?". As to the place of the preposition it's quite common in questions to reject it at the end of the question. – Laure Feb 6 '14 at 5:40

Do from is an ‘Indianism’, so use of this phrase must be referred to speakers of that dialect.

In Standard English we use at with the verb do; the preposition phrase names the place where the work was performed:

I did my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin.
He did an internship at Microsoft.

We use from in this context with receive; the preposition phrase names the entity which conferred the gift:

I received my doctorate from the University of Wisconsin.

In ordinary speech, however, we use the verb get, which may take either preposition phrase (though at is probably more common)

I got my bachelors at Vanderbilt.
I got my bachelors from Vanderbilt.

With do we use at;

In a question, no preposition at all is needed, whichever verb you use:

Where did you do your bachelors?
Where did you get your bachelors?
Where did you receive your bachelors?

By “Standard English” I mean English usage which will pass unnoticed with any educated native speaker—appropriate to its register and not dialectal, foreign, antiquated, or precious.

  • Very good definition of standard English suitable for ELL where I think we have a responsibility towards those ESL students who rely on the answers. – Laure Feb 6 '14 at 9:44
  • @Stoney, should "bachelors" not be capitalized and/or have an apostrophe? I'm fairly certain you have quite a bit more experience with such things than I do, but I find it reads oddly. For one thing, reading some of these sentences makes me imagine a group of actual bachelors (the people, that is). Obviously context would clear that up, even in the single sentence in some of the examples. But I find this strange. Thoughts? (+1, by the way; excellent answer!) – WendiKidd Feb 6 '14 at 22:57
  • WendiKidd Usage varies. It seems to be rarely capitalized any more, except in the formal Bachelor of X. Most schools refer to it as "bachelor's degree". But I'm uncomfortable with a possessive unattended by a possession; and the possessive never made any sense to me anyway--if we were being rational about it it should be "bachelor degree". So since it's a colloquial rather than formal expression I feel free to treat it as what it is, a singular noun which happens to end in {s}. – StoneyB Feb 6 '14 at 23:36
  • @WendiKidd - More about the capitalization/apostrophe questions can be found on ELU. Start here. – J.R. Feb 7 '14 at 19:34

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