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Lordandmaster -> RE: Is trump a "genius" or crook (10/9/2016 6:16:38 PM)
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Since I spend a lot of time in Europe, I'm going to have to disagree with this very strongly. Ordinary Europeans are better-read than ordinary Americans because Europeans public schools are better (because better funded) than American public schools. This changes drastically at the university level, where the top ten schools in America are the top ten schools in the world. (If you don't accept that, we'll have to start a different thread for it, because it would be hijacking the conversation.)
The fact is that Germany does NOT "have the funds to spend on uni education." Far from it! Of all the European nations, Germany is probably in the best position to spend on university education, and all you have to do is go there and visit universities to see that they're shockingly underfunded. Their research libraries, for example, are crap. With the exception of the Staatsbibliothek and MAYBE the library of the University of Heidelberg, a third-rate American research library is better funded, better stocked, and more up to date than anything you will ever find in Germany. Then look at things like researchers' salaries, faculty-student ratios, etc., and you'll see that Germany's higher education system is just not competitive. The best indicator of all would be to compare the number of German researchers in American universities to the number of American researchers in German universities. It's not even close. The PEOPLE are smart; the system is crap.
France is worse, and then if you start talking about countries like Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, you're not even in the First World anymore.
I'm sorry to have to say such unpleasant things, but they're based on many years of familiarity with European universities, and if you'd like further details, I'd be happy to get into them--in a different thread.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Edwird
The majority of people from Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, etc. I come across on forums (primarily from pro audio sites) don't have a degree. They speak English, and some of them French, and it's obvious they are at least as well read as those in England or the US.
Germany has the funds to spend on uni education because they don't waste money on forcing plumbers and carpenters to suffer another two years beyond what's required for their trade. No stupid and completely useless 'High School Diploma' with no skill at all, as in the US.
I was a HS dropout and read James Joyce and William Faulkner and other crap when I was 16-17.
The problem with academia in the US is that it's assumed nobody has any interest in anything unless it's shoved down their throats by ... you guessed it; academia. The fact that the uni places far more importance on the written word, where everything is literally spelled out for you, more than art or music, which challenge abstract thinking process to a much greater degree, tells us what we need to know about the people ruling that enterprise.
The reason so many people drop out of college after one or two years, then go back to it a year or two later, because they know they have to for the job, is that the whole presentation and process is so utterly stultifying and stifling to any naturally free thinking mind. Whatever you thought would be fun to learn, the university goes out of their way to make it as un-fun as possible.
Here in the US, I've come across many people without college degree who are well spoken, well read, and/or listen to historical jazz or classical music, or have a great eye for art, classic photography, etc.
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