Blogs:

A university from our country has been crowned as the best in the world yet again. This is not the first time an American university has beaten one from the UK hands down. To make matters worse, more numbers of British students are opting to fly all the way to US and join one of their universities instead of perusing education in their own backyard.

This is not the first time the California Institute of Technology has triumphed over its UK counterpart. The university put up a similar performance last year as well, leaving the Brit universities stunned and shocked.

Natasha Lipman, a well known UK blogger recently visited a US university. She was quick to state that the US system is a lot more superior in its approach and execution. She added that the system is also more flexible. What impressed her most is the fact that a student gets the freedom to declare his/her major right till the penultimate year of the course. A course originally lasts for four years and a student can decide upon the major in the third year.

According to Natasha, this flexibility gives a student ample time to take a firm decision. Most of the students attend a number of classes before making their decision. They end up getting a fair idea about different subjects and according to choose one which they are most comfortable with. On the other hand, UK universities do not offer this flexibility.

Natasha stated that this is one of the reasons why many students have no other option but to take an year off from the university only because they do not like their major. Unfortunately, most of the students have to decide onto a major in a relatively short span of time, often leaving them with a subject to which they don’t suit well.

She was quick to point out that flexibility is not the only highlight of a US university. It also gives more stress on the quality of education. UK universities usually demand about eight to ten hours of lecture from students per week. According to Natasha, this period of time is far too less. On the other hand, a US university demands as many as eighteen hours a week from its students. Also, it is lot more serious about the assignments allotted to the students which further motivates the students to do well at every task.

US universities spend a lot of time and energy in assessing the overall progress of the student. Hence, students invariably have to be up to the task if they want to end up with good grades. Also, each assignment has a certain value to it. What this means is that the overall performance of the student is not based on one single exam. Natasha finds this system to be fairer and says it does justice to the efforts put in by students. Kudos to our system and this certainly seems to be a ray of light and hope amidst our otherwise gloomy situation.