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You can also rant about the universities in the US, but they are still the best in the world. I think you would have to elaborate on that quite a bit to make i

by ez77 15y ago

You can also rant about the universities in the US, but they are still the best in the world. I think you would have to elaborate on that quite a bit to make it somewhat true. Lots of foreign students, including some of the brightest, get their higher-education degrees in the US, mainly at the graduate level. That happens because a good chunk of the brightest professionals are professors at these institutions, and the research resources are plentiful. Clearly the research experience for top-level students is outstanding, both at the graduate and undergraduate levels. In this pretty narrow sense US universities are the best in the world. But… West Civ I? English Comp? College Algebra, including topics such as completing the square? Calc I derivative shortcuts? For the love of Pete, compare this kind of curriculum with what is taught in Europe, Asia and (gasp) Latin America. You will find that your average college graduate knows much less than elsewhere. Granted, the best may be future Nobel laureates, but that doesn’t hide the fact that undergraduate college education in the US has become a years-long remedial program for a disastrous K12 plan.

krschultz 15y ago
That's a stretch. Of the 40-50 kids I knew in college, not a single one took College Alegbra. Not to mention that my freshman English Comp classes was one of the most intense, interesting, useful classes I took in college. If some are guilty of comparing the tippy top of the US college system to the rest of the world's average, you are certainly guilty of comparing the bottom of the bottom to the world average.
- ez77 15y ago
  Of the 40-50 kids I knew in college, not a single one took College Alegbra. But this kind of "College Algebra" is, understandably, considered college-level material. That pretty much happens only in the US (considering countries with educational systems...), and choices such as this influence the overall academic level. my freshman English Comp classes was one of the most intense, interesting, useful classes I took in college That's great, and I happened to enjoy a lot my electives such as Theater 101 as a math undergrad (even if I was critical of the curriculum)... but the main point is: Should English composition courses be given at the college level? What, then, do you do during those twelve (OK... last three of those twelve?) previous years? I was puzzled when a student who clearly didn’t need English composition defended this setup, arguing that “a college student should know how to write”. Well, “a high-school graduate should know how to write”, was my response then and now, and if you press me elementary-school students should be well on their way to accomplishing this. I’m not saying this has an easy solution. Some countries “fix” their K12 woes by resetting the academic level at the college admission tests. As a result, a good chunk of the population has to find a way to raise their level, which is not ideal either. But what the US opts to do lowers the undergraduate level, no doubt. I wonder if this will eventually trickle down to Ph.D. programs. Edit: All this leaves out grade inflation and related issues... It is downright hard to fail most courses of some majors. This is bad enough.
auganov 15y ago
You are completely right, US is best in the world in that narrow sense and this is what matters for me. You see until high school I was studying in my home country, an European one, next I went to high school for a year in the US which had a large population of Asian foreign exchange students. Then I did a year of non-degree studying in China (not very relevant to the discussion) and now I study on-line following a British curriculum. I saw a LOT of Asians and Europeans struggle with the curriculum in the US. Language issues? For some, yes, but I knew a lot of people that struggled simply because they were not used to the way Americans are thought. I had friends complain that they were doing great back in their home country and now were just average. (I virtually only had foreign-Asian friends, foreigners didn't really hang with the Americans which is another story). And some courses were indeed simply more rigorous in the US than back home. What an average student in any country learns is how to beat the game, that's what school almost everywhere is about, not about deep understanding. That's why it's enough to change a few variables in the game and those students that supposedly followed a more rigorous course find themselves struggling like my friends in the US. The same thing happens at average universities. You just have to beat the game to get the diploma. Europeans on average have to beat a slightly more difficult game, big deal. Do you really think that there is a significant difference? I took AP calc and then “Maths 1” at that British school. The most notable difference? No calculator on the test. Of course, they do throw far more rigorous explanations at you, use fancier vocabulary, give you more trick questions, but to pass the test you don’t have to be much better, you just have to adjust to the game. European students will be as clueless about the simple Epsilon-Delta Proof as American are. They simply “cram” in a little more to students overseas. (cram as in learn without understanding rather than study hard). I don’t really see an European student being somehow smarter than you’re average American one. Trust me, after travelling a lot, getting to know many cultures average people seem average everywhere and extraordinary people are always extraordinary[1]. US happens to produce and draw most of those. I don't know, I might be going too far with that argument, but I strongly believe that those few top-class people which will be leaders in their respective fields will contribute to the economy far more than having each average person be a little better. As in it's better to have 1000 stupid soldiers led by a genius than 1000 slightly less stupid soldiers led by a moderately intelligent person. I'm not saying there's nothing to fix, there's tons of fixing to be done in every single country. I just think that as a whole country the US should focus on sustaining that comparative advantage in higher education, as long as it has that US is the world-wide leader of education, at least for me. [1] For some people it takes a lot of time to get to that stage, some might outright disagree with me. Most people have trouble filtering cultural differences and often see falsely assume that people in a certain culture are just “better”, because they use their native benchmarks to judge people elsewhere and the other way around.

by ez77 15y ago

krschultz 15y ago

That's a stretch. Of the 40-50 kids I knew in college, not a single one took College Alegbra. Not to mention that my freshman English Comp classes was one of the most intense, interesting, useful classes I took in college. If some are guilty of comparing the tippy top of the US college system to the rest of the world's average, you are certainly guilty of comparing the bottom of the bottom to the world average.

ez77 15y ago
Of the 40-50 kids I knew in college, not a single one took College Alegbra. But this kind of "College Algebra" is, understandably, considered college-level material. That pretty much happens only in the US (considering countries with educational systems...), and choices such as this influence the overall academic level. my freshman English Comp classes was one of the most intense, interesting, useful classes I took in college That's great, and I happened to enjoy a lot my electives such as Theater 101 as a math undergrad (even if I was critical of the curriculum)... but the main point is: Should English composition courses be given at the college level? What, then, do you do during those twelve (OK... last three of those twelve?) previous years? I was puzzled when a student who clearly didn’t need English composition defended this setup, arguing that “a college student should know how to write”. Well, “a high-school graduate should know how to write”, was my response then and now, and if you press me elementary-school students should be well on their way to accomplishing this. I’m not saying this has an easy solution. Some countries “fix” their K12 woes by resetting the academic level at the college admission tests. As a result, a good chunk of the population has to find a way to raise their level, which is not ideal either. But what the US opts to do lowers the undergraduate level, no doubt. I wonder if this will eventually trickle down to Ph.D. programs. Edit: All this leaves out grade inflation and related issues... It is downright hard to fail most courses of some majors. This is bad enough.

auganov 15y ago

You are completely right, US is best in the world in that narrow sense and this is what matters for me. You see until high school I was studying in my home country, an European one, next I went to high school for a year in the US which had a large population of Asian foreign exchange students. Then I did a year of non-degree studying in China (not very relevant to the discussion) and now I study on-line following a British curriculum. I saw a LOT of Asians and Europeans struggle with the curriculum in the US. Language issues? For some, yes, but I knew a lot of people that struggled simply because they were not used to the way Americans are thought. I had friends complain that they were doing great back in their home country and now were just average. (I virtually only had foreign-Asian friends, foreigners didn't really hang with the Americans which is another story). And some courses were indeed simply more rigorous in the US than back home. What an average student in any country learns is how to beat the game, that's what school almost everywhere is about, not about deep understanding. That's why it's enough to change a few variables in the game and those students that supposedly followed a more rigorous course find themselves struggling like my friends in the US. The same thing happens at average universities. You just have to beat the game to get the diploma. Europeans on average have to beat a slightly more difficult game, big deal. Do you really think that there is a significant difference? I took AP calc and then “Maths 1” at that British school. The most notable difference? No calculator on the test. Of course, they do throw far more rigorous explanations at you, use fancier vocabulary, give you more trick questions, but to pass the test you don’t have to be much better, you just have to adjust to the game. European students will be as clueless about the simple Epsilon-Delta Proof as American are. They simply “cram” in a little more to students overseas. (cram as in learn without understanding rather than study hard). I don’t really see an European student being somehow smarter than you’re average American one. Trust me, after travelling a lot, getting to know many cultures average people seem average everywhere and extraordinary people are always extraordinary[1]. US happens to produce and draw most of those. I don't know, I might be going too far with that argument, but I strongly believe that those few top-class people which will be leaders in their respective fields will contribute to the economy far more than having each average person be a little better. As in it's better to have 1000 stupid soldiers led by a genius than 1000 slightly less stupid soldiers led by a moderately intelligent person. I'm not saying there's nothing to fix, there's tons of fixing to be done in every single country. I just think that as a whole country the US should focus on sustaining that comparative advantage in higher education, as long as it has that US is the world-wide leader of education, at least for me. [1] For some people it takes a lot of time to get to that stage, some might outright disagree with me. Most people have trouble filtering cultural differences and often see falsely assume that people in a certain culture are just “better”, because they use their native benchmarks to judge people elsewhere and the other way around.