One of my favorite subjects in Germany is just how long people seem to study without anybody else seeming to notice or care. One institute, which shall remain nameless, describes a ten semester (i.e. five year) programme on its web site, and then announces that the average time for students to finish is fifteen semesters (i.e. seven and a half years). And of course an average means a tail to the long end, since few students will finish in less than five years, so that means there must be a good number that take 8 or 9 years.
Precisely the same thing often happens in Serbia and probably Croatia and many other places in the region and around the world. I've been repeatedly astonished to hear that many of Gs friends are still studying for their first degree. This is something G herself finished in 1999 and something which is a dim and distant memory for me. At first I would ask if the person were very young, but now it is more or less established that many people just drift along for 8, 9, 10 even 11 years without anybody really commenting. Perhaps a dozen times we've tried to meet up with one or other of her old friends, only to be told (for example by parents) that they musn't be disturbed because they have an important exam and need to study. This at the age of (say) 32 when they've already been studying for 9 years, they live at home and almost invariably have a couple of older female relations cooking and cleaning for them.
What, I ask, is going on? I guess the truth is that when people have little to look forward to in the job market, they prefer to linger as a student rather than get on with their lives. Having all the home comforts around probably isn't the best thing either. I'd be willing to bet that students in (say) Novi Sad that come from (say) Srenjenin and thus pay more for lodging and experience all the usual pizza-boxes, rat-infestations and the like that student housing offers will finish quicker.
I think as well that the weaker the University in terms of international standing, the less inclined the faculty are to get people finished. I don't know if this is because the staff have something to prove (i.e. our course is too difficult to finish in the specified time), or if they want students to stay on as cheap labour when grants are non-existent or difficult to get, or for some other reason.
In the AngloSaxon Universities, at least as I remember mine from the eighties, a four year degree is nearly always done in four years. You can take longer (say five) if you can afford it but normally you would need to have a good reason (e.g. illness, family problems, etc.). The conventional wisdom is that if people can't handle it, they drop out and do something else.
Anyway, I don't have much to offer in terms of advice apart from obviously finish quicker. And perhaps be critical about advice from either your family (who probably wrongly think you can't handle the stress and why don't you take this exam next year) and academic staff who might have some hidden agenda to stop you from getting through too quickly.
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3 comments:
It can be explained by a single word - lazziness. On the other hand, school programs in Europe aren't designed for an average student "Joe", so he could finish it easily. They are designed (is this wrong word? :D) to give you much knowledge. So, some people take many years to finish studies, because they can't keep up with program. Or because they have mum to cook for them, they can't menage hanging out, parties, sex, love, etc & studies. So its' either study hard, party on sunday or take it easy, study a few years more, but have more sex :)
Then again, in some other parts of world, there are "average student Joe" programs, where averages finish them quickly, geniuses quicklier and noobs take some more time. But, since school systems are made for average people to finish them (not to upgrade their averageness) you get an average workforce too. And a "why-they-think-we(that great nation)-are-stupid?" syndrom. No offense.
In the end, I think these 2 systems could mix and make a nice baby, but that'll take some time (measured in decades). :)
Yes, there's laziness, but also lack of motivation. Life in Serbia offers nothing - no perspective, no hope, no jobs, no future, no money, no visas. Your student days might easily be the best days of your life - the worst is yet to come. Young people have seen their parents' lives crushed, their savings taken away and their hopes shattered in the 90's. What can they expect? Nothing. That's why they try to postpone the cruel reality. And by the way, I think you're wrong about students in Novi Sad that come from Zrenjanin and finish quicker. It's quite the opposite, although there are always exceptions to the rule. Those students tend to study longer precisely because they don't want to go back to Zrenjanin. What does Zrenjanin offer to a young person? Are you kidding me? People would rather live in a basement with rats in Belgrade or Novi Sad than in some little village. Just my 2 cents.
One comment: being an academic myself, and having seen degree programmes from all over the world, I fail to see any significant differences. Moreover, western rankings of universities - i.e. where MIT, Harvard and Cambridge are listed as the best and few Universities in Eastern Europe end up in the top 500 - are, in my opinion (and according to any metric you can come up with), spot-on. I guess what I'm saying is that eastern European systems - despite what people in them report (and professors in these places often say this) - aren't harder than the equivalents in the west. They mostly just think they are.
In addition, students everywhere do the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll thing (whether in Novi Sad or Wroclow). Work-hard, play-hard: the concept is deeply Anglo-saxon in design.
In summary, I'm more inclined to agree that its laziness or a lack of opportunity that prompts people to study for a decade, instead of any idea about some kind of difference in difficulty. I certainly haven't seen people really struggling - they just delay exams in a way that isn't possible in other systems.
And I guess in their heart of hearts, the universities agree: it is the Eastern European countries that are doing the best to conform to the Bologna standards (which after all are imitations of the American system) while their European equivalents often struggle to do so.
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