Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: US vs British university degree
From: Amos.Omondi@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Amos Omondi)
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 05:24:45 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.

In article <296@jaring.ism.my> napi@jaring.ism.my (Mohd Hanafiah Abdullah) writes:
>Here's my 2 cents worth:
>
>I am convinced that the American system of education is SUPERIOR to its
>British counterpart by far as explained by the following:
>
>1. As a computer science graduate from an American university, the number of
>   required CS courses that I took surpassed those of a friend who studied in
>   Britain.  And I took more CS courses than I was required.  In addition, I
>   was able to take so many other courses in the humanities, literature, and
>   other hard sciences, and social sciences to expand one's horizon; and this
>   is non-existent in the British system.

Interestingly, I have noticed that most of the courses offered to final 
year undergraduate comp. sci. students in Britain correspond, in depth 
and breadth, to graduate courses in US comp. sci. departments.  

>
>2. The professors that I had were involved in heavy duty research activities
>   funded by organizations like the Natonal Science Foundation, Hewlett-Packard,
>   NASA, Motorola, and so forth, just to name a few.  They worked on real
>   projects like building an industrial strength programming language, or a
>   full-featured central-processing-unit as opposed to usually "toy" projects
>   undertaken at British universities.  As a result, one could get substantial
>   amount of high quality education from these American instructors who were
>   authorities in their respective fields.  They were well-balanced between
>   the theories and practice.

Interestingl, excluding NSF, all of the organizations that you mention are 
actually funding large projects in the UK.  What toy projects? Ever hear of 
logic programming and functional languages?  Ever hear of dataflow and 
reduction computer architectures?  Where does most of the leading research 
in these areas take place?

>
>3. In the US, before one starts to work on a PhD thesis he/she has to go through
>   around 30 hours of graduate courses related to the field of study, not
>   including those taken at the Masters level.  Only after that would a
>   candidate start working on the dissertation supervised by a professor who
>   is an authority on the subject and very likely possessing grants from a major

Since I have worked as a faculty member in the US, I think I am in a 
position to assure you that getting grants (even big ones) have little 
to do with being an authority in anything.  

>   corporation.  This means that the person is well-equipped with the
>   knowledge that spans the breadth of his chosen field, thus, he/she has a
>   very high likelihood of producing high quality, impactful dissertations.
>   For instance, the SPARCs, MIPS, and their compilers are results of several
>   PhD dissertations at American universities.  A PhD program normally takes at
>   least 4 years to complete.
>
>   Talk about resources, most US universities have the state-of-the-art
>   equipment and tools, excellent libraries, world renowned professors, lots of
>   money, and the best and most extensive network infrastructure.  While
>   British universities are struggling with their budget, and furthermore using

Last time I looked the biggest network of Suns in an academic environment 
was in the UK ...

>   American made equipment such as computers, test equipment, and software;
>   as well as books and technical reports.
>
>   A PhD candidate in Britain would right away start on a dissertation,
>   ill-equipped, and with extremely little supervision.  They sometime do not
>   see the supervisor for more than six  months until they happen to run into
>   each other in the corridor.  For example, a person with a bachelor and
>   masters degree in Physics go on to do a PhD in computer science.  The only

A great number of people who get PhDs in comp. sci. in the USA actually 
have a degree in something else, in fact the proportion of such people 
is greater in the USA

>   computer science course he has is maybe an intro to Fortran-4 taken
>   several years back, yet he would be awarded a PhD in computer science by
>   just completing a dissertation that covers a very narrow area in the field,
>   for instance something that is related to Object Oriented Technology.
>   What?  A PhD holder in computer science who does not know much if anything
>   about operating systems, compilers, computer architecture, computer graphics,
>   artificial intelligence, database management systems, networks, and so forth.

I do agree with you about the problem of narrowness.

>   And this usually takes around 2.5 to 3 years to complete.  What a crime!!
>
>   of the hardware that we have is American, 90 percent of the software is
>   American, 80 percent of the journals (like IEEE, ACM, and the like) are
>   American, and 90 percent of the books are American.  That is simply
>   an overwhelming testimony of the superiority of the American system which
>   is largely due to its system of education!  BTW, there is no British
>   computer/electronics equipment here at MIMOS.

No, I think it is an overwhelming testimony to the fact that Americans 
have a lot more money.  Of course, being the product of an American system, 
you may well believe that money = brains ...

>
>   universities would have to close down without foreign students, unlike
>   American universities.  What a waste, because the students will eventually

You may be surprised to learn that slightly more than 50% of all PhDs in 
engineering and the sciences now go to foreigners.  You may also be 
surprised at the proportion of foreign students in some depts., which 
would probably have to close without those students.  

>   afford to put of his/her studies until the last minute.  BTW, what is the
>   percentage of American Nobel Prize laureates as compared to British during
>   the last 50 years?

Percentage relative to what?  Are you just looking at the raw numbers, 
ignoring the size of the base population, the money spent, etc. ?

>So to the British trained, face the facts, there is not much to be proud of
>about British education.  The fact is that the American system is SUPERIOR
>by a lot!!  I rest my case.
>

I think you were right in saying that it was "2 cents worth"  


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