From: clipper@gleep.csd.uwo.ca (Khun Yee Fung)
Subject: Re: US vs British university degree
Organization: The University of Western Ontario, Department of Computer Science
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 07:57:54 GMT
	<1992Aug26.060234.4707@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>

>>>>> On Wed, 26 Aug 1992 06:02:34 GMT, eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg
>>>>> (Othman Ahmad) said:

>> echong@porpoise.ecn.purdue.edu (Edwin Chong) writes:
>> : 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.

In my university, not sure about other universities in Canada, to get
a PhD in computer science, it is four years of BSc, one/two years MSc,
and 2/3/4/5/6/7... years of PhD. Starting the year after my GCE `O'
level, it took me 11 years. I must be very stupid :-)

>> 	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.

To get into the PhD program, we have to do a thesis master degree,
meaning that the master thesis must contribute something to the field.
The very rough criterion is one journal paper. Then, the PhD thesis
should also be original enough to contain about three papers, more or
less.  Before becoming a PhD candidate, we also have to pass the
comprehensive exams, four basic exams, covering every topic under the
sun in computer science with the titles of Theory, Hardware, Software,
and Applications. With these four basic exams, the candidate must also
pass one advanced exam in his/her own field. When I was in the
program, I had to pass all of them in two trials and within one year,
with the exams being written exams. Now it is oral and failing the
first means the candidate has to take appropriate courses before
taking the second test.

>> 	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.

One half of my master thesis contains ideas from my supervisor and the
other half contains my original ideas. I did all of my PhD research
myself. The research contents of both these are definitely mine. My
writing was guided by my supervisors. Maybe our department is just a
little strict. Waterloo should be at least as strict.

>> : 
>> : US universities typically have larger graduate programs, and as
>> : such they have more opportunity (and reason) to offer graduate courses 
>> : at all levels. In the Univ of Adelaide in South Australia, where I 
>> : did part of my graduate studies, there were *no* graduate courses. 
>> : Everything had to be learnt on your own.
>> : 
>> : Virtually all PhD programs in the US require students to pass a
>> : "qualifying exam". This is a comprehensive exam on the student's area
>> : of specialization, typically at an advanced level. Preparation for
>> : this exam is usually much more intensive than any undergraduate exam.

>> Those who graduate from UK system like Hong Kong can score A easily in these
>> courses.

Probably. But the list of books I had to read to prepare for my
comprehensive exams was certainly very long and comprehensive. And I
doubt too many Students from Hong Kong can answer the question
``Describe your original ideas to triangulate a simple polygon''
paraphrasing from my advanced graphics exam. The alternate question
in the exam was ``extend the Bresenham algorithm to three
dimensions''. Both were research questions.

>> 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?

>> : 
>> : >
>> : >Is anybody from Singapore/Australia/NZ in a position to compare their
>> : >undergraduate curriculums with  those in US?
>> : 
>> : 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.

I can't compare my experience with yours. Just what I went through.
The mandatory first-year course I took in my first year had about 1000
students. Only 200 were expected to get in the second year program. My
second-year courses were rather standard among the universities here,
I suspect. Not terribly hard, just impossible to finish everything
unless you are really brilliant. That made craming or studying by rote
impossible because there wasn't time to finish the assignments AND
read the textbooks and notes. One of the math courses failed about 30%
of the students and these student could not apply for honour program
anymore. About 50 students continued to third year honor program and
the rest continued through the general program. The two programs had
different set of courses.

>> 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.

Yes and no. I would say having both is the best way. The practical
stuff is usually very messy. Without experience, it is rather
difficult to follow the technology.  Without the practical skills, a
computer science graduate becomes a computer user, rather than a
computer professional. Or, maybe we should divide the field into pure
and applied fields, just like in math. Like experiemental and
theoretical physicists, both highly skilled but in different ways.

>> 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.


>> HOw do you feel if a group of students were sent to UK and another
>> to USA with similar MCE exam results, and find that in USA everyone
>> passes? From UK, a lot of them failed or only manage to get general
>> degree.

No idea about USA. Here I did see many Malaysian students struggled.
Some were successful but many not so. 

>> In USA, to get 90% in normal. In UK, you are lucky to get 70%.
>> There is no point in having a large syllabus when the exam
>> questions are easy and straight forward, and the marking also less
>> strict.

In my experience, among my classmates, almost everybody got above 80%
in first year (but only 20% in first year would eventually get in the
program so it is easy to see why). After second year, people with
average (just computer science and math courses) above 70% were
admitted to the honour program (25% of the class). Then in third and
fourth years, 80% and above was easier to get.

>> Marks in UK is not based on statistics. It is based on ability. If
>> the quality of student intake is poor, you may not have a single
>> First Class honours for many years. From Cambridge University, 90%
>> got 1st class.

This I can't comment. It is like whether the North American high
school system is better or worse than the British system. Apparently
both are successful in some areas and not so in other areas.

>> In USA, it is based on average mark for students. If you study in a
>> low class university where student quality is poor, you can still
>> get 3.5. The same student studying in MIT will even fail. This is
>> documented in some journals who commented on some attempts to place
>> "black students" at prestigious Universities and found that a lot
>> of them failed.  	The article commented that it may be better to
>> put the students at less prestigious schools so that at least they
>> learn more.

The book by Denesh D'sousa or somebody with similar name. The book is
called `iliberal education'. But this is an entirely different issue.
We can talk about affirmative action program some other times.

>> Malaysian newer Universities are following USA system with semesters and
>> point average. Now hardly anyone fails.

>> In USA the employers know about this so they judge the graduates from the 
>> University that they graduate. The same is true to Japan. The battle is
>> therefore to get into the Elite Universities.

>> IMHO Malaysian Government should only send scholarship holders to
>> the top Universities in the World, after spending so much money on
>> them, instead of sending to the lower class ones. They may as well
>> be sent to local Universities.

This is funny but not all professors in the famous schools were
educated in the famous schools. And not all professors in `lower
class' schools were not educated in the famour schools. What gives?

>> For me, I do not care which university I come from. What matters is my
>>  intereset and I did practice this. Wealth and fame is not my aim, only
>> knowledge. Knowledge can be found by reading books and journals, and talking
>> to people like this usenet groups.

Knowledge can be obtained from books and journals. Usenet groups give
you flames, half-baked ideas, and generally great entertainment. And
occasionally insights, of course.

Khun Yee

P.S. Since I finished my undergraduate a long time ago, I am not sure
whether the information I have here is still valid. The PhD part should
be.

--
Khun Yee Fung    clipper@csd.uwo.ca
Department of Computer Science
Middlesex College
University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
Canada N6A 5B7
Fax: (519) 661-3515