EPTThe paradox of schools and universities in America - Page 8
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GrimmJ
Canada131 Posts
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Tommie
China658 Posts
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LoneWolf.Alpha-
123 Posts
Also, the US had a pretty good headstart, after WW2 when we took all the best scientists from Europe. While the rest of the world was in shambles, we discovered a ton of shit and invented a ton of shit. With that lead, we started recruiting the smartest people from other countries to our universities as well to continue our lead. Also, the culture in the US is very much favoring innovation. | ||
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Craze
United States561 Posts
On September 24 2011 04:53 jmbnm wrote: That's because you went to bad schools in the US. Community college to a state school (and I'm betting it's not Berkeley or UVA)? Sorry to break it to you, but at least there's still a chance for you to get into a good graduate school. The only universities that can compete with the top US ones (HYPSM. No, not UPenn or Columbia, they are quite good but not HYPSM level.) are Oxford and Cambridge. No, not UCL or LSE. We're talking overall prestige. Next tier is 5-20, and drawing from US News, ARWU, THE, and QS, it's schools like the rest of the Ivys, UChicago, Duke, Johns Hopkins, CalTech, Berkeley, UCLA, etc. The fact that you went from CC to state school and have still set yourself up to succeed shows that our college system works fine as long as the student works hard enough. But like YeahScience wrote you probably didn't attend a school that is highly ranked, where the University does more to help you. When I was at private college (Linfield) there was a lot more 1 on 1 time with professors, they got to know you, required you to be in class and cared about your future, or at least cared about how it reflected on them. I enjoy the University of Washington more, mostly because it's $25,000 less per year but that faculty support isn't as prevalent. They just have too many kids. | ||
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SharkSpider
Canada606 Posts
On September 24 2011 04:56 LoneWolf.Alpha- wrote: the university system in the US is completely separate from the primary school system in the US. Also, the US had a pretty good headstart, after WW2 when we took all the best scientists from Europe. While the rest of the world was in shambles, we discovered a ton of shit and invented a ton of shit. With that lead, we started recruiting the smartest people from other countries to our universities as well to continue our lead. Also, the culture in the US is very much favoring innovation. Just wanted to say, this is a very good reply to the question. I picked my university over a reputation that's been there for ages, and was only cultivated because a group of innovative, highly intelligent people wanted to create a place for excellent learning, and so did all of the people from Asia and Europe who study with me. | ||
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fdsdfg
United States1251 Posts
I know a few teachers, and we really do teach a lot of stuff. I'm not saying it's the best in the world, but it's not accurate to say our public school system is this useless heap. We just aren't allowed to stop pandering to kids who don't want to learn, which means the bottom half of our public schools is remedial crap that is just short of dropping out. Advanced public school classes really do teach a lot, I learned a ton. Though, I am from Massachusetts, and we were ranked #1 public schools in the country recently, so I am certainly not seeing the whole picture. | ||
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dLKnighT
Canada735 Posts
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gullberg
Sweden1301 Posts
On September 24 2011 04:54 GrimmJ wrote: I find it just as paradoxical to say that some of the best Universities are in China, Singapore, etc. when students from those countries are coming to the U.S, Canada, and Britain to study. Those universities weren't good when people were going to USA/Britain, now that they're back and improving their own universities it's starting to show. The "brain drain" will slowly be phased out when they understand that their own universities are just as good. Though it still holds some social value if you've studied at Harvard in Asia I guess. | ||
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Enki
United States2548 Posts
College mostly caters to the rich. You can get some good scholarships but if you dont get one have fun paying off your loans for the next 20 years. Still, my state is better then most, with the HOPE scholarship, assuming you had at least a 3.0 GPA in highschool and mainstain a 3.0 GPA in college and go to a public state school, then you don't have to pay tuition. But yeah, just like healthcare here, education is also a commodity, its not a right. | ||
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Tommie
China658 Posts
I cant imagine all the people in the US really taking scientific education. i see all these fucking dumb kids talking about going to college and i cant imagine that is anything like a real university where you actually need to have a brain. | ||
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Yuka
United States133 Posts
The perception of a paradox stems from the fact that the small number of really awesome universities far outshine the apparently crappy high schools. Don't worry; there are many crappy colleges in the US as well, and a small handful of notable (but not internationally newsworthy) high schools. It's all the big-name universities, both public and private, that continue to give the United States its self-perpetuating powerful education system. | ||
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BlackJack
United States10574 Posts
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Yuka
United States133 Posts
On September 24 2011 05:21 Enki wrote: College mostly caters to the rich. You can get some good scholarships but if you dont get one have fun paying off your loans for the next 20 years. Still, my state is better then most, with the HOPE scholarship, assuming you had at least a 3.0 GPA in highschool and mainstain a 3.0 GPA in college and go to a public state school, then you don't have to pay tuition. But yeah, just like healthcare here, education is also a commodity, its not a right. I strongly disagree here; what is unique about the United States is that there are many reputable public universities which are on-par with (or even outclass) private universities. You need not be rich, or even reliant on scholarships, to afford an amazing education. I finished my degree without the HOPE scholarship (guessing you're talking about Georgia), and what brought me to Atlanta in the first place was that the cost of education was so much cheaper than what I was paying in-state in California. The overall advantage the US has is the array of educational choices. | ||
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Engore
United States1916 Posts
Then there's people who actually give a shit and try to study. Also many of the big colleges you probably hear about and think of like Harvard, Yell, Duke, MIT, etc., get their students from private/prep schools that have exceptional students and require a high tuition. These type of 'high schools' require a lot to go there. Uniforms, high tuition, intelligence, some require special academics as well as community service. The kids from these places go to the universities you think of, most likely. For example, my state has a school "Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts" which requires transcript, sat or act scores and 3 letters of recommendation. Public schools are just there to get you a basic education, at least that's how it's scene in many cases. | ||
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Surrealz
United States449 Posts
On September 24 2011 01:48 giuocob wrote: Universities are private. America has been the site of many, many scientific and academic discoveries in its history, far more than any other country. These people drive universities and make them exceptional. Most high schools and below are public. It is well known that most anything the American government touches turns to shit, and public schooling is no exception. this comment was both concise and true. I also consider the tests at which we are gauging our academic knowledge are increasingly subjective and outdated, and really don't do the average American student justice. | ||
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cz
United States3249 Posts
On September 24 2011 05:29 Surrealz wrote: this comment was both concise and true. I also consider the tests at which we are gauging our academic knowledge are increasingly subjective and outdated, and really don't do the average American student justice. Don't private universities still receive the majority of their funding from the government though? | ||
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Yuka
United States133 Posts
On September 24 2011 05:24 Tommie wrote: So what is the difference between college and universities? I cant imagine all the people in the US really taking scientific education. i see all these fucking dumb kids talking about going to college and i cant imagine that is anything like a real university where you actually need to have a brain. In the US, "college" and "university" are used interchangeably for many scenarios. However a university is usually made up of several colleges (sometimes each one will specialize in a different field of study or something), so the general implication is that a university is much larger and offers a wider variety of choices. Colleges are often perceived as smaller but not necessarily 'worse' than the big universities (for example many of the small liberal arts schools are colleges). | ||
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Yuka
United States133 Posts
On September 24 2011 05:31 cz wrote: Don't private universities still receive the majority of their funding from the government though? No, not directly anyways. Many private schools rely on endowments (donations from alumni and such) as well as tuition. Tuition is sometimes indirectly puffed up the government via loans. Private universities, as well as many high-tier public universities, make a killing from some combination of these factors: a) research and patents; the discoveries, inventions, and research makes a fuckton of money b) sports; licensing and TV rights greatly inflate the value of many schools c) endowments; as previously mentioned ~ note that most private schools attract far more alumni giving than most public schools but there are always exceptions (UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, etc.) | ||
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Mallard86
186 Posts
On September 24 2011 04:56 LoneWolf.Alpha- wrote: the university system in the US is completely separate from the primary school system in the US. Also, the US had a pretty good headstart, after WW2 when we took all the best scientists from Europe. While the rest of the world was in shambles, we discovered a ton of shit and invented a ton of shit. With that lead, we started recruiting the smartest people from other countries to our universities as well to continue our lead. Also, the culture in the US is very much favoring innovation. You are only partially correct. Ill address several misconceptions in your post. First, America took the lead in Nobel laureates over Germany before WWII. This lead in top scientists grew as fascist and despotic governments began to show themselves and scientists in those countries began to flee to a safer haven, the US. Einstein is the most well known but there were others like Fermi and Bohr. At the end of WWII, the US, Russia and Britain all made attempts to round up and import all the top scientists of the defeated countries. Von Braun is the most well known example. The real reason that the US took the lead is because the US had money, much more freedom of movement and sharing of information compared to Russia and was not devastated like much of Europe and Asia. Today the US is tops among universities because we import a lot of foreign students and professors. The lead that the US gained at the end of the war has been perpetuated by the general practice of many other countries to send their best and brightest students to the US to study where many of them end up staying to teach and research. | ||
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a7choi
United States1664 Posts
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