Ahhh, I see. I don’t really know much about what happens over there except the high school level is a much higher track with all the testing that goes on to determine if you live the rest of your life as a plumber or a person with a future. But I did think they would have embraced the general classical education approach across several disciplines.
(Apologies to any plumbers.)
Yes, that is somewhat correct. The part of embracing classical education is correct to the extent that it is there, but traditionally covered (more) by the end of high school. This is still the case, but is now stratified in the sense that not all students have access to a grade / high school system with such advanced standards. Though to be fair, that has probably always been the case, as admissions to Oxbridge have been traditionally privileged to an extent; not terribly unlike the U.S., the path to elite admissions begins well before the college applications, or most importantly in the case of Oxbridge, the interview.
I have observed that the level of high school education generalizes to other parts of Europe. The knowledge base of German high school graduates (e.g., “Gymnasium”) is fairly rigorous and comprehensive. I basically agree with PurpleTitan’s observation too, though I’d factor in that the foundational grade school preparation of some European counterparts may allow them to refine their undergraduate majors more successfully.
And in Germany and other European nations, technical education / occupation degrees (not precisely STEM), some of which are shorter courses than full university degrees, are both common and respected paths. They are not necessarily disparaged in the manner an Associate’s degree or technical accreditation might be in the U.S., as it is recognized that these paths may in fact serve certain students, and the general society, better on the whole. Consequently, the spots for full university degrees in traditional sciences and humanities are allotted to those whom they feel would benefit the most.
Just to confuse things further, Columbia University has a School of General Studies, but it is distinct from the Columbia College division in that it is for non-traditional students, although students in both divisions choose majors from the usual liberal arts subjects. “General Studies” at Columbia does not mean anything like any of the things discussed here (free-form like at Evergreen State, “great books” curriculum like at St. John’s College, three minors instead of a major, student designed interdisciplinary major).
Yep, the English have a year of “college”, which is after HS and distinct and separate from “university” where students study several subjects and prepare for A-Levels (which determine admission to university and are akin to AP tests in that they test subect knowledge though all A-Levels are generally as tough as the hardest AP tests; some AP tests are a bit of a joke). However, even college in England doesn’t provide a broad liberal arts education like what many LACs/RUs in the US aim to provide as students generally study only 4 subjects.
I too like the German system where universities are seen as mostly for academic pursuits and you can enter many careers by apprenticing instead of going to uni. For example, many people becoming software developers in Germany and bankers in Switzerland (and rise up very high in their professions) by apprenticing and never spend a single day in college/uni. However, you need corporations buying in to the idea that setting up apprenticeship and training programs is good not only for the company but also society as whole and that that is a good thing.
Good call on Columbia’s School of General Studies, @ucbalumnus – if this same program has remained intact, I had a family member graduate from it, circa WWII. And I believe he attended mostly night classes at Columbia, which allowed him to keep working in the city during the day.
Yes, PurpleTitan, I agree the German system has some advantages. And its fair share of quirks. You might already know the following examples, alas: it has kind of been a running joke within Germany that the only profession that does not require either an apprenticeship, or a full degree, is a florist. Hence you could see many florist shops run by Ausländer (“foreigners”) who arrived without proper accreditation. In fact, there are even a couple of films that have been made about the apprenticeship culture – the proverbial “you need training for everything in Germany” – including one film, I believe, by esteemed (and recently deceased) director Harun Farocki.
On the flip side of the hierarchy, there is a recent PhD trend within the German-speaking countries. For the most part, the PhD is equivalent, and holds similar respect, as its U.S. / UK counterparts. However, there is also a notion of “PhD envy” in Germany / Switzerland / Austria, wherein higher level positions in some corporations, politics, etc. practically demand a PhD. It’s a feather-in-cap requirement, and frankly, it doesn’t matter what subject the PhD is in.
This peculiar Germanic PhD frivolity has in turn bred some fraudulence: a small cottage industry has sprung up where hired student-writers will write a dissertation, and even on occasion attend graduate classes under the table. This is of course not the norm at all, and there’s still plenty of powerhouse research performed with great integrity and innovation. However, there have been a select few, more recent cases where high-level German politicians have been caught out with a fraudulent dissertation.
Re: #43 and the German educational system
While it has a number of advantages, doesn’t it also start tracking students into different types of schools at around 5th grade? I.e. teachers and parents need to estimate a student’s optimal educational path quite early.
i think there is a nomenclature problem here. The classics or theology-based curricula of 19th-century American universities, or the Great Books curriculum of a St.Johns’ sort of school, are not “General Studies” of today. “General Studies” are in reality a bunch of disunited 100-200 level courses that students take to tick off boxes and avoid making choices or investment in an area of intellectual inquiry (“I just want a degree, I don’t care what it’s in.”) .The current university structure is siloed into departments. Funding and resources follow enrollment in majors. The traditional classics-based or Great Books curriculum would be labeled as an interdisciplinary “Western Civ” degree today. It seems to me that what others above are advocating is not really “General Studies,” as no one even agrees anymore as to what a college-educated person should know, but rather a form of interdisciplinary major. But I will say that interdisciplinarity is a hard sell at the institutional level, because funding allocation is based on the number of majors. I also think that broad general competence in a variety of areas is supposed to be the product of a good high school education. Even if you pursue an interdisciplinary major in college, it still has a focus. All those nice young men at Harvard in 1870 were essentially training to be Protestant ministers, just as all the nice young people at the service academies today are training to be warriors, regardless of what they actually end up doing.
UT Austin has a pretty amazing General Liberal Arts degree program, called Plan II. It has been around for over 75 years. It includes a capstone project / thesis.
I’d say 75% of the Plan II students dual major, Plan II for the LAC experience, plus something practical like business or engineering.
https://www.utexas.edu/cola/progs/plan2/
In Plan II a teacher must apply to teach the students, presenting their ideas for the class and samples of work, to a combined group of faculty and student representatives.
pretty amazing program…
-psy
Plan II is a great program. In terms of core curriculum requirements (I am not talking about the difference between respective schools, which need not be hashed out here), how different would that be compared to, say, Columbia’s or U. of Chicago’s respective cores?
Maybe that’s your understanding of General Studies but it’s not necessarily how it works at different colleges. As is the case in just about everything in this world, it depends.
It seems to me, when all is said and done, one of the main components in this discussion is whether GS is defined as (1) a broad-based curriculum, in and of itself; or whether it is (2) a broad-based curriculum, leading to a specified focus.
The statements that European secondary education tends to cover a lot of the broad-based curriculum is obviously a plus we do not have. However, at this point, no matter how valuable a liberal arts bkgrd is, I do tend toward the specialized field at some point.
BTW, just throwing this out: Stanford notes for their MBA program they look for a strong liberal arts background with emphasis on writing and quantitative reasoning. (They particularly single out Psych, but that’s not relevant here.)
@simba9: As for history and psychology degrees being useless, I hope you realize that nearly all degrees (except for certain engineering, computer science, and business ones) are useless in the sense that students struggle finding a job relevant to their major after graduating. This is because (most of) our undergraduate degrees, like it or not, are not vocational degrees. Those who major in a science - but don’t want to go to graduate school - often have a hard time finding a job. For example, I’ve known many biology (and neuroscience, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, and even math) majors talk about how difficult it is to find a job. A lot of the time, their job prospects are no better than, for example, a philosophy major’s. And if they do find one, they’re often “lab monkeys.”
So with this in mind, I see no problem with General Studies degrees. Though I’ll admit I haven’t seen too many colleges offer this major, the few I’ve looked at seemed to be interdisciplinary studies type degrees, and I’m personally a fan of IS degrees. They’re a great alternative for students who had diverse interests.
Haha @SweetHeartGirl, I didn’t see @simba9’s earlier comment. But considering that Stanford singles out psych as one of their top recommended undergrad majors for an MBA, he might want to contact Stanford admissions and set them straight.
Can you imagine a world of only math and engineering majors? >-)
Haha rereading my post, I hope it didn’t come across as rude!
And no, I couldn’t, even though I’d originally intended to major in engineering 
@sweetheartgirl. I’ll agree that some of the hard science grads(mostly failed med school applicants in my day) have a hard time finding employment. But if you are an unemployed math major in this day you have to be actively trying to be unemployed.
Yeah, you’re right, that could be one possibly. Some have told me that they really aren’t “qualified” for certain jobs. For example, I know one person said they weren’t being hired for data analyst jobs because they didn’t know enough programming.
Yeah, just the other day, I forget the major (but it was not math/CS oriented, or any other usual suspect) and they required a course in coding. It might have actually been a psych major.
Can I see the source for that?
I am not particularly interested in this variant of the debate, nor do I know where lindyk8 found the psych mention, but this breakdown was easily found on the Stanford MBA admissions page. The highest percentage of the entering MBA class were humanities and social science majors. Other top MBA programs have fairly similar profiles.
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/programs/mba/admission/evaluation-criteria/class-profile
I did not see simba9’s post upthread, but: disparaging history, psychology, or other humanities in favor of STEM degrees is unwarranted. Rigor, use-value, and worthiness – whether intellectual or remunerative – depend on the discipline, the department, one’s relationship to their respective society, and most of all, the individual.
Stanford’s business school likes a diversity of academic backgrounds, so I’m not surprised that most of their students have some kind of humanities or social science degrees. (Other business schools have different preferences.) But I was looking for evidence that Stanford’s business school recommended people get psychology degrees in particular, which was the claim by lindyk8. I used to work at Stanford and know enough Stanford MBA’s to be pretty sure that she wouldn’t be able to back that up.
anhydrite, please read what I wrote before commenting on it. All I said about history and psychology degrees was that people might find it hard to find jobs with them, which is the case. My sister got a degree in psychology, and the best she could do job-wise was telemarketing and customer support over the phone.
Salary.com rated psychology as the 2nd worst major, and Time reported on a study that showed psychology was the worst paid college major.
http://www.salary.com/8-college-degrees-with-the-worst-return-on-investment/slide/9/
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2073703_2073654_2073673,00.html