For the past few weeks, I’ve been living on campus to chill with the Euros in this program I’m taking part in. Just now there was a fire drill, as happens in the dorms about every other day, and so we stood outside and talked. (Thankfully, the rain had just stopped.)
We got to talking about credits remaining in our respective degrees, and some interesting stuff popped up. Sorry if this is recap for anyone, but I found the points extremely interesting.
In the UK, one can specialize in the last two years of high school. This is not at all unique to the UK within Europe, but it was the example we discussed today, so I’m running with it. This means that when going for an MD, one needs only study 6 years at the university level, compared with the typical 8 or longer in the U.S. Pretty cool, no?
There’s one student here from the Netherlands studying International Business. As part of her courseload, she has to learn to play golf. If that doesn’t demonstrate a profound understanding of the the field, I don’t know what does. She mentioned also that some students learn to ski, too—for credit, mind you—as ski trips are a big part of the business world in Europe.
Now, the obvious rebuttal to this kind of education is that it is concentrated to the point of detriment to the overall education of the student. For instance, those extra two years an American would spend at college result (at least ideally) in a broader exposure to disparate fields. But I have to say, without the huge focus on foreign language knowledge and anthropologically refined social practices like the golf example, what’s the point? It’s almost as if the Europeans are going so far beyond what I typically consider specialization that they are reaping huge benefits from it.
It’s such intelligent specialization that it recognizes the importance of a variegated, yet highly contextualized, skillset.
Hats off to you, Europe.
And for my last two years of high school, I specialized in blogging, preparing for the future, when I would have some day a Blog-site web-thinggy of my own….
playing golf ya?! Nice I should go and ask my professor for credits like that. Awesome. But in a way kind of scary because those stereotypes that everyone think of first for making business is playing golf…well the real world looks kind of different I think
@Cihan: I’ll ask my mother for some anecdotes sometimes. I think she’s definitely on the side that would believe golf education is an excellent advantage for young businesspersons—especially women, who generally don’t learn golf “socially” and therefore would need a class dedicated to it.
I’m pretty sure at most American universities, business students can take golf for credit as a part of general education requirements. And I’m positive women are allowed to play too
I agree that most universities have a Sport or Phys Ed category, from which a student could elect to play something like golf, but I found this phenomenal because she claims that International Business majors (at her university) must learn to golf well. Failing that, they can do skiing.
I seriously find that really freaking significant.
I’m on the fence about letting women play, though.
To be honest…my first impression was:
“From which tree nursery university does that girl come from!?” and the then I thought “Probably from a privat one that want to be elitist”
But hey, if I could earn some credits for playing “balls” who wouldn´t
Cihan has a point there.
I just wanted to add, that despite it’s seemingly great system regarding specializing in high school. The UK system doesn’t really allow double majors. If you want 2 degrees, you have to go full out for both separately.
@Jim: I didn’t know that, but it certainly makes sense. I’ll give the EU system a thumbs down on that count.
@Cihan: Oh really? That’s my first impression whenever I hear someone is from anywhere in Europe. <3