From: napi@jaring.ism.my (Mohd Hanafiah Abdullah)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: US vs British university degree
Date: 9 Oct 92 10:59:33 GMT

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.

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.

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
   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
   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
   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.
   And this usually takes around 2.5 to 3 years to complete.  What a crime!!

4. Here at my work place, an R&D institute, I notice how the American graduates
   could start doing the assigned tasks right away with such efficiency and
   confidence.  They are eager to design!  In general, the subject matter is
   well understood and they can express them smoothly whether verbally or
   written.  On the other hand, many of the British educated employees (even
   ones with PhDs) are lost in the discussions.  Plus, here at MIMOS, 80 percent
   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.

5. Looking at the GNP, and the economy in general it would be right to say that
   Britain is really sitting on past glories.  For one thing, its system of
   education was thought of during the last century, and it had not changed
   much since then.  The grading is based on the final exams which does not
   reflect a student's true achievement.  Most students just spot questions and
   memorize certain facts for days then forget them immediately after the exam.
   Remember the SPM/MCE and STPM/HSC?  Plus, many British universities are just
   out to make money by trotting the globe via British Council and grabbing
   potential students especially from the Commonwealth countries.  Many of these
   universities would have to close down without foreign students, unlike
   American universities.  What a waste, because the students will eventually
   realize that they have missed a great opportunity of studying in the US.
   A friend of mine recently obtained a PhD in Computer Science from an
   Australian university, and he was a top student at MCKK.  He told me how he
   wished he had gone to the US after MCE because he found out later that the
   USA was where all the action was, especially in R&D.
   
   Whereas the US system place appropriate weights on homework, exams, quizzes,
   assignments, and class participation throughout a course.  This is a
   progressive and highly effective system of learning, and a student cannot
   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?

   Lately, in Malaysia there has been discussions about the mediocrity of
   graduates from local universities.  To me, it is largely due to incompetent
   British trained lecturers who make up 70 percent of the teaching force at
   all local universities.

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.

Have fun.

Napi
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean