• curlywurly@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    25 days ago

    I could be wrong here, but I think it might not be an apples-to-apples comparison here. I think

    • USA high school is much more general than UK A levels --> USA unis can assume less base knowledge (wildly different by subject, I’m sure)
    • USA universities have more general education requirements than UK ones, who are very happy to let you just study your chosen subject

    So it does make sense that university in the USA might last longer

    • daannii@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      25 days ago

      Yes. U.s requires more gen ed courses. In many other countries, (I know for sure UK , India, and Germany ) students start specializing earlier (even at high school level) and focus on their area and take less general courses.

      There are pros and cons to this approach.

      I myself mastered in psych. U.s.

      Now I still had to take course work on economics, history, humanities, and 2 science courses. One was human anatomy the other weather.

      Only one was relevant to my major.

      Required Classes I recall taking for my associates unrelated to my major: macro economics, u.s history, art history, music history, and a weather class.

      I still feel like these classes were valuable. I actually felt like I learned a bit about human behavior with commerce and finances from the economics class.

      Of course studying the early history of my country at a less censored level was enlightening.

      Even though I got a C in the weather class (predicting weather is hard!), I still learned a few things that I apply to real life. For instance. If you get a day where it’s much warmer than usual or much colder, it’s almost certainly going to storm later that day or night.

      And I have a better general idea of why weather changes so much.

      I think knowing the history of art and music makes me understand the evolution of these things and appreciate where they come from.

      Idk. Maybe not everyone feels that way. Even though I took those classes because they were required, I didn’t feel like it was wasted time or irrelevant knowledge.