<p>Hi there! This is my first post here, though I've been wandering here for a while. I wish I had discovered this site before.
Anyway, I just graduated and now Im going to Grad School in Europe, best department in my area here, top-50 worldwide. Because I think almost everyone here goes/went to colleges in North America, Id like to share some differences in college life on the other side of the Atlantic. Btw, I spend a time as exchange student in flagship Univ. of Rocky Mountain State (just a little paranoid with being googled ant that), than stayed for a short while in a 2-tier Uni. at Large East Coast City, it from where Ive drawn some conclusions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>People drink less, but do it legally. In my country, one is allowed to drink beer at 16, spirits/liquor at 18. There are some heavy drinkers, but in general students drink less (though they drink more times per week).</p></li>
<li><p>The percentage of undergraduate students living in dorm/uni. housing is far smaller. Theres far less sense of student community here. A lot of universities' buildings are spread around a city center, which sucks. Buildings might be old and historical, but theres no such campus feeling.</p></li>
<li><p>Academic year is 4 to 6 weeks longer. No way of going home for the summer in early June or late May then coming back only in late August. Winter breaks are shorter, also.</p></li>
<li><p>Theres almost no such thing as Honors Program. Id love to had have some here. The proportion of guys who frown upon you being too focused on studies is higher than in US. That sucks. Accomplishment and merit are better recognized in Americas colleges.</p></li>
<li><p>Students are lazy when it comes to graduate on time. Id say that in my country and two neighboring countries graduate on allotted time is exception rather than norm. Overstaying in universities up to 2, two-and-half years are common.</p></li>
<li><p>The government pays for almost everything. Tuition is very low, even in top universities. The sticker for intl. students is higher; therefore everyone is talking about recruiting abroad. In my country, government gives $ 3.800/year for good students for up to 7 years, in top of tuition remission. If youre not good student, you can still get loans, hardly anyone gets debt exceeding 8.000 (US$ 11.200). Again, this is good but reinforces bad behavior: its easy to overstay in college cause government will still pay u for a while.</p></li>
<li><p>You have far less options when it comes to deciding/changing majors/minors and such. We apply to individual schools (Business, Arts, Social Sciences) and, many times, even to specific majors, which is difficult to change after enrollment most of the time.</p></li>
<li><p>Med school is hard to get into, schemes vary by country. Theres no pre-Med arrangement. Law School, however, is far less rated (in terms of prestige/aspiration to attend), and one apply directly as B.Sc. in Law. Lawyer is less desirable as career comparing to the US, and they dont make as much money as they do in America. Hardly any good lawyer makes as much money as a good physician. </p></li>
<li><p>Is seems to be less disparity in sexual life of undergrads here in Europe: fewer chast people, fewer party animals. And many girls dont keep up with their appearance (makeup, nice dressing, exercise) and some dont wash/shower as they should (disgusting).</p></li>
<li><p>Europe's univerisity cafeterias and mensas are a shame comparing to dining halls in America. They look like a low-income restaurant in an immigrant neighborhood, not like a food court. And they hardly have any meal plan, so they mostly operate on pay-as-you-go(eat) basis.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>That’s depressing. Some of those apply to canada as well (dorms not popular, younger drinking age). Med school is hard to get into in the states as well, though. In canada it’s almost impossible (if you don’t have at least a 3.85 GPA, don’t bother).</p>
<p>Well I can understand why the facilities are crap. The socialist approach is flawed. The government paying for everything leaves little for the school to improve.</p>
<p>You are overgeneralizing. You can make comparisons between the colleges you attended but not between all European and all American universities. The dining hall at my former German university served just as much variety of food (at a higher quality and half the price!) as the dining hall at my American college (no food courts here). Med schools are not all that hard to get into in all of Europe. Some of the new Bologna degree programs force students to graduate on time, and at some American universities the median time to earn a Bachelor’s degree is 6 years. College summer breaks in Germany go from mid July to mid October. That’s three months, just about as long as the break at my American college (late May through late August). Also, not in all European countries does the government fund the entire university system. (Granted, all public universities receive some government funding, but students might still be faced with significant tuition charges.)</p>
<p>I don’t want to generalize, of course. Germany and England are somehow exceptions… However, its hard do believe that anyone will graduate with 100K debt upon graduation. And grad school is usually free on the academic track.</p>
<p>About the Bologna process approach that forces student to graduate on time, I’d say: put a lower bar, more will pass over.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t think that either systems it heaven and the ohter is crap, but there are some major differences. Government support is good at one hand because you don’t have to indebt yourself to pay college. However, sometimes government support comes with open admission policies and political pressure to admit more people than they would otherwhise want to admit, overcrowding facilities, classroooms and professors’ office hours.</p>
<p>But I still envy the community feeling from the unviersities I visited/studied. We have no such thing here: majority of first-tier universities are scattered around old/medieval city center. It’s just another building next to a store, a post office and a cafe, for instance. We should invest building brand new campuses in the suburbs and selling the buildings in city centers for hefty prices so they could develop and gentrify these places and use de proceeds to build state-of-the-art facilities (though I doubt they’d ever have the political will do that in France or Italy, for instance, pulibc outcry if desing dorms or top-notch sports facilities were to be built here would be too much).</p>
<p>Guys, I don’t think the OP is trying to put down European universities or something (they have some of the best colleges in the world), just trying to pinpoint some differences which is handy because many Americans study abroad in Europe. For example, many Euro colleges are funded by the Govt which has obvious pros and cons (free tuition but facilities might not be as good, etc). Plus the culture of different nations leads to different college atmospheres…in Canada, people generally also commute to college. </p>
<p>Europe is a diverse continent; which country are you specifically in?</p>
<p>I believe Med school is actually harder to get into in Canada/USA because of the way the system works. In Europe they go to Med right out of High school instead of getting a Bachelors/MD. Law is more prestigious in the US because it requires 7 years of higher education and Law is a high-demand career (we have way more lawsuits).</p>
<p>As someone who currently lives in Europe and lived in the US for many years, I agree with you on everything except #9. European girls are for the most part much, MUCH better dressed than their American counterparts and generally keep up their appearances better, so I don’t know where you hang out haha. Don’t know about the bathing part but everyone I’ve met here smells good.</p>
<p>^ In Northern European countries like the scandinavian nations, people are practically obsessed with cleanliness…Swedes and Norwegians always remove their shoes in their homes and they have separate “street shoes” and “indoor shoes” and other quirky habits…they’re like really into being clean and organized haha. </p>
<p>Craig Ferguson always jokes that back in his native Scotland, people don’t bathe as much and it’s an American habit he picked up lol…are you in Scotland?</p>
<p>It’s too hard to generalize how Europeans dress cause it’s an entire continent. Parisian women might be chic and sophisticated as opposed to Romanian goat-herders. But American women are fatter and exercise less. But in a pricy college you’ll find upper class women who tend to dress better and work out more and stuff.</p>
<p>“4. There’s almost no such thing as “Honors Program”. I’d love to had have some here. The proportion of guys who frown upon you being too focused on studies is higher than in US. That sucks. Accomplishment and merit are better recognized in America’s colleges.”</p>
<p>Can you explain further? I thought in Europe education was more pressed and that people envied the school nerd instead of berating him.</p>
<p>Ok, I might be wrong about 6-year graduate rates in US. I read some reports I got from the parent’s forum, compiled by US News, and took them for accurate.</p>
<p>Regarding #4, I’m talking abou top-tier universities in each side of the Atlantic. I know there are crapy univ. where you indebt-to-party in America as there are institutions here in Europe I’d better call “state-sponsored weed camp”.</p>
<p>What I was trying to point is that, in my limted experience, if you are a nerd, geek, hard-studying very intelligent guy, you’ll find your way in good American Universities. They’ll give you harder classes, offer a Honors Program, sponsor high performance academic societies; they’ll give you opportunities to thrive. Here, in good European universities, the resources a very good student has to develop him/herself above average are scarcer. There’s an approach that it wouldn’t be fair to give some group of studentes ‘prefferred treatment’ just because they have better grades.</p>
<p>A separate academic program with side benefits (better dorms, merit scholarships etc.) is almost unheard of in undergraduate education: every student, in the majority POV, should have the same offers once admitted to a given Univ./program.</p>
<p>As a rule, European students are more independent than there US counterparts. There is a community feeling, that’s what Student Unions are for - its not worse, just different. I duno where you go but in the UK most universities have incredible facilities, and regarding crap food… you do know most people make their own food, right?</p>
<p>Yes, but I’m the wort guy in the kitchen ever, so I relied on the Food Plaza… Whem I lived in US, it was too easy and cheap, never cooked anything besides microwave stuff. But I’m an excpetion, most students here are very good at cooking own meals.</p>
The regular math classes offered at my former German university covered the same material as honors math classes at Swarthmore. European universities may not need a separate honors program because they are teaching everything at an honors level already and students who cannot keep up are left behind. American universities in contrast are expected to accomodate all of their students and hence why offer lower-level classes accessible to everyone. I would rephrase your observation like this: European universities cater only to top students while American universities are trying to cater to all students. The cream of the crop feels left out in either system. (I am saying that after attending a summer research program at Cornell with students from some of the most selective universities in the US who were disappointed by the courses that their prestigious universities offer.)</p>