One of the most surprising results of this difference in diligence is that if we follow the attentive students and the dilatory ones to the end of their four year assignment as undergraduates, it's highly likely that both will receive a bachelor's degree and go off merrily as graduates of the institution. It is also safe to presume that the difference in their level of skill will be remarkable. Where Credit Is Due Nevertheless, the credit system ensures that students who barely make the grade graduate right alongside those who have excelled. Rather than accumulating evident skills and knowledge, they have both accumulated a certain number of credits. This issue about the credit system worries me a bit because Europe is about to embrace this very American form of schooling.
Mastery has a long history in various forms of education.
The master painter, builder, sculptor, or writer could show extraordinary skill or supreme intellectual or artistic achievement. Personal achievement can only occur if an individual understands who he or she is, what he or she would like to attain, and consciously pursues the acquisition of the necessary knowledge and skills to reach a chosen goal. It's more than a university degree, and it's what I think should be the result of post-secondary education. In the US we have two cultural archetypes that militate against the concept of mastery or personal achievement. But I think these archetypes have a negative influence on students' behaviors in American classrooms.