Are you happy with your university education?

[Datajack Franit]

Very satisfied. I hate the city but the quality of the courses makes me forget the recurrent thoughts of packing my stuff and moving to Berlin and work in a kebab stand. Tuition is 1200 euros for every season (3 annual seasons overall)

[Asher]

Re: Are you happy with your university education?

Originally posted by DanS
Did you go to college? Are you happy with your education?

Very.

I had multiple job offers when I graduated, and I'm making the same amount as a guy who just got his Masters in CS from a the University of British Columbia at the same company.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Wezil
University (Waterloo) was good for me as a person.

College (Loyalist) was better for my employment.

Huhhhhh? Don't you have this backwards?

Waterloo students are bat**** insane. College students are simply dumb.

[civman2000]

Quite satisfied so far here at Wash U (in St Louis). I'm more disappointed in the quality of the other students than anything else. Oh, and I wish the math department was bigger. But overall, .

[Kuciwalker]

Oh cool, I considered applying there (but didn't 'cuz they didn't have much CS).

[Asher]

There's a lot of common *nix problems from UW in St. Louis.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by civman2000
Quite satisfied so far here at Wash U (in St Louis). I'm more disappointed in the quality of the other students than anything else. Oh, and I wish the math department was bigger. But overall, .

Washington U in St. Louis... that school will always hold a special place in my heart. When I was a senior in high school (1999-2000), my friends and I were bombarded with Wash U in St. L. propaganda. I must have received 100 pieces of mail from them in a two month period. The fact that they were sending so much mail made me believe that they couldn't possibly be any good, so I completely ignored them. Only later did I find out that Wash. U. actually slighty outranked the school that I ended up choosing.

Does Wash U. still follow the carpet bomb mailing strategy?

[DrS]

I went to Columbia for my undergrad, SUNY Stony Brook for grad. The physics/math curriculum and lab facilities for undergraduates at both were nearly identical.

There was a slight difference in the student body, where most Columbia students were A/B-level from the start, and virtually none by sophmore year were C-level (those that were, decided to quickly go do something else). Stony Brook on the other hand, had more C-level students making it through to graduation. I would not consider this a mark against of the state school in favor of the ivy, in terms of school quality. Like I said, the curricula were very nearly identical, as was the background of the faculty.

[Sikander]

I went to a mediocre state university with an extremely broad selection of classes and a good college for my major, and it offered a good selection of foreign languages. It also had Army ROTC, a rifle team and a judo team, all of which I took advantage of. It was cheap, and located in the town where I went to high school. The class quality varied extremely, from "phone it in" general ed classes to truly excellent classes taught by inspired professionals.

In retrospect I should have taken all of my general ed classes at the nearby community college, which was cheaper still and had much better instructors for the classes it offered. All in all my education was not as good as it could have been, though much of what was lacking was focus on my part. I really should have joined the military before going to college. I needed the break from constant schooling, and I could really have used the educational benefits the military offered as well as the chance to grow up a little. I ended up working full-time while I was in college, which was one of the many things competing for my time. I had a blast socially, and really enjoyed the sports and other extra-curriculars. All in all I'd give the Uni a C- for my education, and a B+ for life lessons and skills.

[Starchild]

Originally posted by Odin


OMG, that's obcene, my tuition is around $5,500/yr..

That's obscene. My tuition is around US$2300/yr.
The new level of tuition for students starting in Sept 2006 is closer to the US$5,000 a year mark, but it gets treated as part of their government loan so they don't actually pay it until they're earning £15,000 / US$30,000 per year.

Or something close to that. Americans pay too much for their universities.

[Dinner]

Re: Are you happy with your university education?

Originally posted by DanS
Did you go to college? Are you happy with your education?

I ask because the US is considered to have excellent colleges, and many other countries are considered to be lagging. But does this perception bear out in actual fact for you personally? The US spends a very high amount on its universities compared to everybody but the Koreans, but does that lead to good educations?

By way of background, my alma mater is ranked about #120 in the US -- i.e., second or third tier. Private, with tuition in the $30k range. I think that I got a good education.

I loved m college and consider it to be of excellent quality. I got to study under many world reknowned thinkers in the field of geology who were responsible for some of the greatest theories and innovations in the field. The University of California system truly deserves its title as the world's leading public university system.

[Dinner]

BTW my tuition was around $3,700 per year while comparable private schools had tuition set at around $50,000-$100,000 per year. The public is getting its money out of California's two university systems. (The UC system takes in the top 10% of students while the CSU take in the students who score in the top 50%-90%)

[Tingkai]

Did a BA at York U, in Toronto, and an MA at the University of Western Ontario. At the time, most people would have ranked UWO much higher than York, but my experience at York was much better.

Oh, and tuition when I started was $900 a year.

[PLATO]

Wow! I'm gettin' old!

My last quarter in college I paid $183 in tuition. Yep...college used to be an affordable thing...

[Drogue]

Yes, it's been amazing. No only are my classes taught by fantastic tutors, the largest class I've had was 4 people, and it cost me an average of ~£1000 a year in fees. Obviously it costs the university a lot more than that, they spend a fortune on our education, but it's money well spent as far as I'm concerned.

All of the visiting students who come here from the states find it very different. They're not used to the personal attention: having their work taken apart in a very small group tuition environment and the social pressure not to waste your tutor's time by handing in substandard work.

From talking to a lot of US students, the trade off seems to be that they get the very best academics in the world teaching them, however they don't get much personal contact with them at all. In the US it's a very different atmosphere for a tutor - the top tutors spend their time researching, while at Oxford there is a huge emphasis on the importance of teaching. All my tutors are US educated (for postgrad) and one who joined us a couple of years ago is only realising how much effort is expected when it comes to teaching.

As for background, I'm at Oxford, ranked #1/2 in the UK and around the middle of the top 10 in the world.