N. American vs. UK higher education: breadth vs. depth

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I didn't even realize until very recently that they don't have "majors" in the UK. I found this article comparing Yale and Oxford to be quite interesting.

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2010/ ... s-breadth/

Sometimes, I get frustrated that I have to take classes like history and ethnic studies for my computer engineering degree (I am at a US school: University of California system).

However, I would not trade it for the world. I think a more holistic view has great advantages and works better for the US (which is very diverse and so a holistic view is very necessary). I think the UK's depth works better for their culture (which the diversity is not as concentrated as the US in general).

Neither breadth nor depth is more superior. They are separate strategies. I tend to think that the US strategy will work out better because the world is becoming more internationalized (which means a world history class could make a computer scientist understand how to interact sensibly to other people in an international project). That is just my observation. We will just have to see.

I was fortunate to be admitted to a program here in the US where I was not required to take the general requirements, so I have been free to choose either breadth or depth at my own leisure. I tend to think that breadth should be sacrificed for depth, as the "breadth" courses offered at US universities tend to be extremely superficial in nature. An engineer taking an into-level history or English class will not gain any meaningful insights into either history or literature, and an English major taking one of those ridiculous watered-down science or math courses for non-majors isn't going to learn anything at all.

I'm just doing history and glad I don't have to do anything else.

Its amazing reading that just how different both systems are to Australia. From my understanding New Zealand is pretty close to the UK model. They do apply to read a subject.

In Australia we apply to do a course and undergraduates specailise. So in High school you apply to do dentisy, medicine, physiotherapy, speech pathology, archetecture, teaching (of various different types), accounting, nursing, etc. Very few students do postgraduate study here, but it is becoming more common. Most medical courses are beginning to be postgraduate courses, as they are finding the more mature students are better for it. We do have generalised coursed, like a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science, and while such courses have large numbers of students, the vast majority of students are in particular career based courses. Secondary teaching (ie. grades 7-12) does involve the person being qualified to teach two subjects and that can only be entered after a bachelors degree.

We have lectures of large numbers of students and then what are called tutorials and laboraties for almost all subjects. All classes have tutorials that have about 15 students in total in them. They are taken by all levels of staff including the very senior level professors, but there are also some master level students taking some of the first and second year undergraduate tutes, but they are mentored by professors who also take the same tutes, so it is luck if you get a professor or a masters student taking your tute. All practical based subjects have labs as well and these never have more than about 15 students either.

For people who know what career direction they want to head in this can be good, and I can see the useless parts of doing really basic subjects in areas you have no interest in. But for those that have no specific career directions it is very difficult for them in high school. Our high school system is also very open in that our graduate requirments are based on grades 11 and 12 and the only compulsory subject is an english/literacy based one. We do however study subjects for the whole year, on very rare occasions it would be for 6 months and most students do the same subjects in both grades 11 and 12. Many of the college and university courses have subjects that must have been studied at grade 12 level and often grade 11 as well and so kids are being expected to choose career pathways at grade 10!! !

As someone on the spectrum, who had very specific likes and dislikes this was what I needed, and it was great for me, but I can also see and realise now that the average 15 year old does not know what they want to do for the rest of their lives!! ! This is now beginning to change. A lot of work is being done with young people to help them to explore career options to test them using myer brigs and many other career type indicators, to encourage them to keep their options open, to reduce the number of prerequiste subjects for students entering different course, to have a common first year at uni for a field. Ie. all of those students entering the different science specialty courses, would do a general first year of science and so it would be easy for them to change within similar courses if they wanted to. Business courses (accounting, economics, law, marketing, etc) would also have a common first year or at least first semester) so that options are kept more open. There are places that are doing a generalist course, as is done in the US and that is proving popular for some students.

Students doing a generalist arts or science degree would choose majors and minors, and would be able to choose some other first and in some cases second year subjects from different places if they wanted to, but there would be no requirement for them to do so, and is very rare for them to choose subjects that are not taught by their facalty. While it would be rare for a science students to do arts subjects it would be possible, but in most of those cases you tend to have students doing double degrees and taking almost double the time to get them. This is very common for science students who want to maintain a language for example.

I think it’s great that some schools allow student to test out of general ed classes. It’s been my experience that most of these classes present material that should have been mastered in high school anyway…

Sadly, it’s also my experience that many of my classmates did not master this material in high school and struggle with it in college!

The knowledge presented in general ed/survey classes might be superficial, but it is not, I think, useless.

No matter what your field of study might be, everyone needs the communication and analytical skills developed in English/Lit class.

And while it’s true that the specific knowledge gained in classes like ‘intro to biology’ or ‘physics in the modern world’ might not be of use to a business major, the general understanding and appreciation for how science works should help to inoculate those business majors against misguided notions like the equivalency of Creationism and Evolution as scientific theories.

Likewise, even a superficial understanding of the history of the American Gilded Age should give thoughtful engineering majors reason to question the wisdom of unrestrained capitalism promoted by certain politicians/political parties/pundits these days…

Personally, I think over-specialization in education leads to limited, narrow thinking, and has greatly contributed to zealotry and extremism in American and elsewhere.

I felt pretty lucky to dabble into a bunch of things through a liberal arts degree.

The UK "depth" undergraduate degree is often said to be equivalent to an American master's - don't know if that's true.

On the other hand, it does look like one can get the best of both worlds at some US colleges, like Reed College in Portland. I recently looked at their course descriptions and they sound like they're at the graduate level in many respects. Not surprisingly, it is one of the biggest producers of Ph.D.'s of any school in the US.