Criticism from The Crimson

marite
Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:56:16 +0000

Yes, I know a very select groups of UK students because the universities I am familiar with are extremely selective. And, having talked to them, I understand that they are drawn to the US by the quality of the graduate education. By the way the total population of the UK is irrelevant to this discussion, not only because one cannot expect children and old age pensioners to be attending graduate school, but also because the college population is still proportionally smaller in the UK than in the US.

By teaching, I do not mean only pedagogical experience; this is secondary. I mean especially field knowledge. A prof cannot be expected to teach only what s/he has done research on and written about. This is why American graduate students take Ph.D. qualifying exams, usually at the end of their second year, to test their knowledge of their general field (s). Then only can they begin to think about their dissertation topic. By this time, the typical UK Ph.D. student is nearly finished writing the dissertation.

The “odd academic” is just right when it comes to Americans choosing to teach in the UK.