From: ciar04@vaxa.strath.ac.uk
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: US vs British university degree
Date: 26 Aug 92 16:23:25 GMT
Organization: Strathclyde University VAX Cluster

There has been 3 excellent posting on the subject of comparions of
universities, namely by

         echong@porpoise.ecn.purdue.edu (Edwin Chong)
         eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad)
         goh@nyquist.usc.edu (K.C.Goh)

Unlike the previous contributors, I obtained my 1st degree in Singapore.
Currently, I am doing postgraduate research in the UK.  As such, many of
my opinions relate directly to the UK/Singapore context.  However, I am
also fairly familiar with the US environment.  Also unlike the previous
contributors who come from an engineering background, my field of study is
business (or more specifically, finance).

> : In the UK, you can get away with receiving a PhD without ever having to
> : take a single course beyond the undergraduate level (in some places at
> : least), whereas in the US every MS/PhD student takes several graduate
> : courses before getting their degrees (many places have strict course
> : requirements).
> If you are good at passing exams you can do well in US universities. For
> example there was a Malaysian PSD scholar who graduated with PhD in 5 years
> after MCE(GCE O level). This is fact, I read in in Malaysian newspaper.
> 	 In UK , no matter how brilliat you are, you can only
> get it in 6 years, 1 year A level, 3 year BSc, 2 year PhD.
> 	Because you can take exams in USA for your PhD, your research work
> need not be of greater depth. In UK system, you must do more original unguided
> work to complete your PhD.
> 	A colleague of mine who got his PhD from USA commented that, in USA
> ordinary student can get PhD because he is guided whereas he may fail in a 
> UK system because he is unguided.

Many universities in UK now require PhD students to take some sort of taught
courses at the beginning of their programmes.  Mind you, in UK, there are
two types of Masters programme:  taught and research (see brochures for
the UK universities).  Usually, taught Masters award MSc, MBA, MCom or MA,
while research Masters award MPhil.  The taught Masters usually comprise of
a 9-month intructional program (followed by exams) plus a research project
that last 3 months.  While MPhil programs are technically one year, most if
not all MPhil students complete the program in 2 years.  MPhil (and PhD)
students from many universities are now required to attend the instructional
part of the MSc course.

PhD programs are usually 33 months in duration (see brochures).  Unless one's
work is exceptional, no university would be willing to award the degree within
the period.  This is no problem because funding (such as the UK's Overseas
Research Scholarship etc) is for a period of 3 years.  However, it is common
for students to work on the thesis for 3 to 5 years before the PhD is awarded.

As for guidance in the work, I think one cannot generalise either the UK or
US system.  A lot depends on one's superivsor(s).   In my university, there
are more than 20 Singaporeans doing PhD for various courses (perhaps the
university with the largest no. of Singaporean PhD students).  From this
group, the opinion is that generally not much guidance is provided.

> : For the above reasons, it normally takes longer to get a PhD in the US 
> : than in the UK.

The average time taken for a Singaporean to get a PhD in my university is
about 3.5 to 4 years.

> : Another difference I've noticed, at least in engineering, is that PhD
> : research in the US is typically more theoretical than in the UK.
> I thought it is the opposite.

This depends on the strength on the university, and the types of research
one is involved.  

> I had studied for my MSc at Edinburg. We study some so called advanced topics
> invented at Edinburg but these are experimental knowledge which may not be 
> successfully applied for Industry.
> 	In fack UK system is known to produce brilliant theoretical foundations
> but are not good at exploiting it. In was the USA and Japan who exploited the
> theoretical discoveries. In fact UK is weak in practical work because of lack
> of funding compared to MIT and UCB.
> 	Even in so called advanced work in RISC computers, the originality is
> suspect. The idea come from the professors. There is a team of graduate
> workers working on the same project guided by Patterson. USA project management
> and funding is excellent but the originality of their PhD work is suspect.
> It is more like working for someone rather than doing original research.
> Any comment?

In the field of finance, PhD work in the US universities can be both
theoretical or empirical (see the UMI list of dissertations), while in the
UK most work tends to be empirical.  However, a few UK universities have
produced excellent theoretical work.

> : I did my undergrad degree in Elec. Engr. (EE) at the Univ of Adelaide. 
> : The program was very rigid; not even a single elective. Every course 
> : was predetermined.  Everyone in EE took exactly the same courses.
> : The program was also very comprehensive. We studied courses ranging
> : from power systems to stress analysis to VLSI circuit design. In
> : contrast, a typicall US undergrad in EE only takes courses in a
> : certain specialization; e.g., either power systems *or* VLSI, but
> : seldom both.
> : Unlike in the UK, the B.E. and B.E.(Hons) programs take 4 years. However,
> : just like in the UK, as pointed out by K.C.Goh, the material is covered
> : at a rather shallow level (I guess something has to give if you want
> : to do everything).
> UK only teach you the fundamentals. Like Maxwell equations. The rest you must
> solve yourself. You are not taught. You must work out from first principles
> in order to solve your problems. Now I realise that some of our exam questions
> are actually taken from "published papers" which we are asked to prove.
> You can imagine how difficult it is to pass in the UK system.

Again this depends on the university.  In Glasgow, we have two universities.
A comparison of say the mechanical engineering courses of both universities
reveal some differences.  One university tend to focus on "traditional"
engineering practices, while the other university tend to use new materials.

> Now that I have worked in Industry and lecture at a University, I strongly
> believe that we must teach student fundamentals instead of practical skills
> which are just the application of those fundamental theories. The practical
> skills are argueable and "will become obsolete". The fundamentals will not 
> become obsolete.
> This explains why UK trained professionals tend to develop original ideas and
> are in great demand even in USA, at least the better ones. This is called
> brain drain from UK and Europe.

I thought the brain-drain (especially of lecturers) was due to lower wages in
the UK.

While I agree with Enc. Othman that personally, I do not care which university
I come from, such luxury can only be afforded by people who intend to be
their own boss.  Recently, a career fair was held in UK.  Three cities were
chosen as the venue for interviews:  London, Manchester and Glasgow.  I was
involved in helping out the fair in Glasgow.  Though outwardly none of the
companies present at the fair show any discrimination against the "lesser"
universities, one can sense a certain lack of enthusiasm from them.  A few
organisations did not come up to Glasgow (they only visited London and
Manchester).

Sigh....

#----------------------------------#-------------------------------------------#
|  W.H.Watt                        #  JANET:                                   |
|  Dept. of Accounting & Finance   #           w.h.watt@uk.ac.strath.vaxa      |
|  University of Strathclyde       #  Rest of the World:                       |
|  Glasgow                         #           w.h.watt@vaxa.strath.ac.uk      |
|  United Kingdom                  #                                           |
#----------------------------------#-------------------------------------------#
(Still unemployed and unmarried....)