<p>I agree that you should decide your major by the end of high school. In Romania, you don’t apply to a college, you apply directly to a specific faculty, for example the Faculty of History from the University of Bucharest. If you are admitted, you can’t switch to the Faculty of Math, for example. So most of Romanian students know by the end of the 11th grade what they want to do in the future. It’s better because you are more focused on a subject, but it’s worse because you have a compulsory schedule. I mean, you can’t choose any class, you HAVE TO take the required classes from the first year to the last. As someone said before, all the systems have their pros and cons, it depends what system most suits your needs.</p>
<p>I think that some people are forgetting just how beneficial the American system is. First, the number of students who change their majors in college is astoundingly high. The freedom to change your major when you discover a different subject that you like increases efficiency. People who are happier will do better work. Forcing people to finish a major, even after they find they don’t like it, is an inefficient system.</p>
<p>Now, I’m sure someone is thinking the high school angle, that if high schools taught better, than students would know what they want to do. My high school prepared me just fine, and I know that I want to do something with Poli Sci. But there are several majors to choose from: IR, PubPol, PoliSci, Econ. I can’t make that choice without experiencing all of those majors first.</p>
<p>I also don’t think that distribution requirements are bad. Forcing people to stay to one major may work fine, but think if they had some experience in different subjects. It’s about the connections between subjects that are important. It’s the flexibility of the American system that many want to come with to the United States.</p>
<p>That said, I agree that 4 years of college may be too much compared to other countries. But it’s not always shorter. France has les classes pr</p>
<p>i agree that the american system is more flexible. but MANY americans are idiots and i think a rigid curriculum would benefit them, there are so many college drop-outs and people who graduate without learning. in fact, they party for 4 years, and have a lazy, stupid, narrow mindset.</p>
<p>^ As much as I hate to say it, I honestly can’t disagree with you, which is frustrating. Why do so many kids go to college when they really should not? Career and earnings. And in a nutshell, we see why we have so many problems.</p>
<p>My major problem with the way the american system tests is not that there are too many, just that the format doesn’t cater to regulated or predictable study schedules. Someone mentioned that 120 tests in 4 years is about one test a week. But professors don’t coordinate with eachother (granted, that’d be near-impossible) so midterms are sporadic throughout the semester. Some weeks students dont have any assignments, other weeks students have piles and piles of work to complete on top of exams. Is there a university or college that sets out 1-2 midterm weeks in addition to finals week for each semester? Personally I feel that finals time is much less painful than midterm “season” (though in reality it’s always midterm season after the first month of the semester).</p>
<p>I think the numbers speak for themselves. There are FAR more international students that come to the US for college than the other way around. And the US students who go abroad don’t usually complete their whole education there anyway. And the thing about being overtested is just unfounded. Think of how many tests high school students take. I’m sure it’s more than 120 in 4 years, even if they are much easier than college tests.</p>
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That argument is flawed.</p>
<p>Sure there are many more international students at American universities than vice versa but that might also be due to the fact that the most common foreign language to be studied in K-12 is English, and that the American system is unique; you would have to compare the number of international students in the US with the number of international students in all other countries combined (everywhere but in the US do students have to declare a major before entering college) to conclude that the US system is the more popular one.</p>
<p>And the simple fact that more foreign students are coming to the US than US students going abroad might also indicate poor foreign language proficiency among American high school graduates, a general ignorance about the possibility of doing a complete degree program abroad or a low level of maturity (college students everywhere but in the US usually live on their own - no dorms, no meal plans, no student health center…).</p>
<p>hinmanCEO: i have to believe the college dropout rate in the US is comparable to the washout/failout rate at other universitites worldwide. i looked but i couldnt find data to prove or disprove this. but with the anecdotal evidence people provide here (such as lilybbloom’s post #17 and others) would seem to help my point (tho i realize the fallibilty of anecdotal evidence). i think an important thing to note tho is that in the US the washout/failout rate is very low. does this mean american graduate and their schools are dumber? worldwide evidence would say no. </p>
<p>the fact that a lot of people are not mentally prepared to go to college does not reflect the system, it reflects the society. after all, the american dream is going to college and getting a good job…</p>
<p>LadyinRed: in all the classes i’ve ever taken, i was given a syllabus which said exactly when my exams/papers/whatever were due. if some people choose to ignore that and leave all their studying to the last minute where they can’t make a regular studying schedule…well, that’s their own fault</p>
<p>b@r!um: while i agree with your ideas on why american students dont emigrate their education, i think there are a lot of other reasons you dont address such as travel expenses (both monetary and not) and testing that is required for entry into foreign schools that can be very hard to arrange in the us (after all, the toefl and sat are offered worldwide while the english College Entrance Exam and japanese Joint First Stage Achievment test are not)</p>
<p>Skraylor- consider that many American colleges practice grade inflation, which is unheard of in most foreign countries. In countries such as India and China, I would argue that there is grade deflation. As for college students not being prepared, that boils down to 2 things: the gulf between high school and college and society. </p>
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<li><p>Colleges have unrealistic expectations of what most Americans learn in high school b/c many high schools do not have the resources to provide the preparation that colleges expect. This stems from the criminal lack of funding for public high schools across the nation. </p></li>
<li><p>American society does not stress education, it stresses money. People are judged on their bottom line, not their last degree. American see college as a means for upward social mobility. Many foreigners see college as that + maximizing one’s intellectual potential + meeting family/community expectations.</p></li>
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<p>An overabundance of tests have become a frivolous part of the American educational system. How students score against others on an academic front does not indicate how a student will succeed in the competitive marketplace known as work. An “A” on a multiple choice test or a great essay does not equate with career success. Communication, teamwork, thinking outside of the box, strategizing, writing, perfoming tasks and conducting/participating at a meeting, teaching, mentoring, etc., quality in any of the above cannot be measured by a test.</p>
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<p>I guess the real problem is the great variance in quality across different High Schools in the country. A Harvard-bound student in a competitive (public or private) High School in the US is likely to have taken multiple AP classes to a level that would be comparable to an European curriculum, whereas a disadavantaged kid in a poor inner-city school district may graduate with a level of knowledge, e.g. in math, science and languages that, in Europe, would be probably comparable to the equivalent of 8th or 9th grade at best. </p>
<p>In other words, it is very difficult for an external observer (e.g. a college admissions official) to evaluate the qualifications represented by a US High School diploma without looking deeper at the student’s academic record. Even GPA or list of courses taken are not objective measures for comparison because, except in cases like AP classes where standardized exams are used, different schools have different criteria for testing students and assigning grades. The same High School diploma may be awarded to a student who is proficient in, let’s say, multivariable calculus, and another who barely knows trigonometry or elementary functions (exponentials, logarithms, polynomials, etc.). </p>
<p>In Europe by contrast, a British A-Level certificate, the German Abitur, or the French Bac represent ** the same qualification ** irrespective of the school the student has attended, not least because those school-leaving certificates are, to a great extent, based on external exams.</p>
<p>You’ve hit the nail on the head, bruno123. Saying that the United States don’t spend enough money on education is ridiculous; they spend more than France per student, for example. But French bacheliers (that is, holders of the baccalaur</p>
<p>As for the real subject of this thread, I agree that simply testing a few times, comprehensively, would in the same vein greatly improve undergraduate education. People who are forced to remember what they learned in Year 1 all the way at the end of Year 3 obviously learn it well.</p>
<p>Skraylor, I did not mean to explain why American students don’t study abroad as frequently as some other nationals; I just wanted to discredit the argument that ‘American colleges are the best because they have the most international students’. I could continue the list of possible reasons, e.g. that the US itself is much bigger and more diverse geographically and culturally than most other countries; if a student from the Northeast wants to study far away from home, he can go to California. A German student would have to go to Spain to get a similar experience.
Well, travel expenses are as much of an issue for American students as they are for foreign nationals, and contrary to US colleges foreign universities don’t expect American students to take their national college entrance exam; they will usually accept AP and SAT results instead.</p>
<p>Personally, my main gripe with US education is that it’s wasted on so many kids who just don’t want to learn. Sure, in my school(which is very well funded, one of the top in the nation), we have the top honors kids taking honors/AP courses only comprising maybe 20% of the population and who all plan to go to college and get As/Bs in all courses. Then, we have the ‘regular kids’ group comprising maybe 40% of the population. These kids aren’t particularly smart, taking regular courses, but want to go to college and do well in life. Then, there are the ‘don’t care’ group, comprising about 40% of the population. These kids don’t give a crap about school, and if they are forced to go, come late, and do drugs at school. Money is being wasted on the 40% group of kids who don’t care. Why spend money on education for someone who doesn’t want to learn? Why force a kid to sit down at a desk when he won’t bother to do the work or attempt in some fashion to succeed? That is why, in my opinion, the US education system is screwed up. To solve this, I would suggest something like a minimum GPA to stay in school(maybe a 2.0, a C average in regular courses and a D average in honors courses), combined with the fact that education should not be compulsatory above the age of 16. It’s not worth spending money on someone who doesn’t want to get educated.</p>
<p>What I meant by the money thing was that many inner city schools are poorly funded in comparison to more affluent suburban schools. </p>
<p>Anyway, I agree that there should be a minimum gpa requirement to stay in school. Also, there should be year-end final exams and if students do not pass those, then they repeat the grade. if someone fails the final exams, but has a 2.5 gpa, then they should probably be allowed to pass, but not the other way around b/c then you would have slackers who would just cram for the final. Also, there needs to be more focus on developing writing skills in high school. My dad is college professor at a regional Purdue campus and he says that some of his students’ term papers are painful to read. Also, when do you think would be a good time for students to declare their intended major? I think as a college freshman is the best option. Also, some high school requirements such as fine arts need to be axed. If people are interested in theater or music or whatever, then they can do it after-school or outside of school or just take those courses as electives.</p>
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<p>most international students (especially asians) i know at my school dont go home for winter or spring breaks. most us students studying abroad i know do. while family does not tend to be stressed in the US as much as in, say, hispanic countries, it is fair to say that making appearances is especially important to US families which is where i was getting the non monetary travel expenses…and a plane ticket from cali to NY is much cheaper than from germany to NY</p>
<p>not that it’s a huge reason but an extra 3k/year is still something</p>
<p>I think at the HS level, they need to overhaul the system. They need to make every student get a certain amount of AP credit before they can graduate. They need to make sure all of them can do basic math and basic English before they can graduate. Teachers need to be banned from giving grades based on attendance and conduct. </p>
<p>At the collegiate level, they need to put a cap on core classes. Make the core fifteen credit hrs of enrichment courses, and fifteen credit hrs of courses pertaining to your major. Every other class you take has to either concern your major or your minor.</p>
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<p>standardized tests are already in place in most states to at least try and access the basic english/math proficiencies of all students. while i’m not aware of any states that hold back low scorers (i spent high school in VA with the SOL’s), they do determine funding and whatnot…the problem with holding people back because of scores is that dropout rates increase dramatically among poor black and latino students. we could debate how other countries do not have the “problem” of non-native language speakers immigrating and sending their kids to school (i.e. not many Spaniards go to England just to put their kids in public school) and how this affects things like basic english comprehension and whatnot but i’d rather not.</p>
<p>you also cant use ap credits for graduation requirements. this either means forcing all students to take the ap tests (at 84$ a pop right?) or simply requiring them to take the classes but not the tests. the problem with the later is obvious, there is nothing to motivate the teacher to be a good one. the problem with the former is the monetary cost…</p>
<p>lastly, i still dont understand the obsession with getting rid of core classes. why would not letting engineering students take an anthropology course be a good thing? or a history major taking a science course? or etc. etc…</p>
<p>Skraylor: Because it’s a waste of money, plain and simple. If someone wants to pay extra to take the class, fine, as long as the school has extra room in the class. </p>
<p>However, the purpose of going to school is, from a pragmatic perspective, NOT to become a more well rounded person, but to succeed in getting a good job and earning more money. If students enter school knowing exactly what they want to major in and are committed to their studies, then they could easily learn what a present U.S. student learns in 4 years in 2 or 3 years. From a student’s perspective, this is fantastic. This means that the student could shave off $50k-$100k off their tuition bill by just being focused in college. This would increase the ROI(return on investment) from college enormously, and certainly encourage more people to attend college.</p>
<p>So, in summary, the thought of the European system is not getting <em>rid</em> of core classes so much as being completely dedicated to your major classes and treating the extra classes(which you may take) as extracurriculars, more than anything else. Which is the way it should be. If I’m going to college for Computer Science(which I am, hopefully), then why waste time taking History classes? Such classes are not likely to impress my future employer, so unless I am actively interested in them, why bother?</p>