Let me show you the personal experience of an international student.
I have a kid Mike from the Economics Department of the University of Chicago, who just entered the first year of college this year. The University of Chicago is the birthplace of the world-famous Chicago School. With his help, I picked up my schoolbag like a freshman and walked into their LiberalArts class to listen.
The general education of the University of Chicago is unique in the United States, which is famous for its harsh standards and great academic pressure. But it is precisely because of this that the excellent quality of undergraduate talent training in the University of Chicago is guaranteed. All this is probably due to the undergraduate teaching reform initiated by President hutchins in 1930s. In this revolutionary change, Zhida University has established a general education curriculum system and a small class teaching model, which still has an important influence.
I attended a seminar on the history of Greek thought. I wanted to choose more, but Mike suggested that I had better choose only one and listen to it from beginning to end. I don't believe it. At that time, I was studying in Peking University, and I had to take at least ten courses a semester. Although I am a little older now, the course of the University of Chicago is a little more difficult, but the gap is not so big. Mike told me bluntly that he only took five classes a semester and was about to collapse. I'll be skeptical.
Sure enough, this course is extremely difficult. On average, students must finish reading a book like Plato's Republic in two or three weeks (the free art course at the University of Chicago never talks about the thoughts of the living). About four original books will be read in one semester, excluding supplementary reading materials. In class, a student usually makes a report about 15 minutes first, and then everyone starts to discuss. A class lasts 90 minutes, and the teacher only talks for about 50 minutes. Moreover, the teacher's lecture is not a performance by one person, and he will ask many questions. Students can also interrupt questions and participate in the discussion at any time. There is a lot of homework after class. Students must read the original work after class, otherwise they will not be able to finish their homework or participate in the course discussion, which will be included in the students' final grade. More importantly, you must work very hard from the beginning and not skip class. Otherwise, you can't catch up step by step. Once I missed a class because I had to attend a meeting, and immediately fell into an incomprehensible state.
After class, Mike took me to the canteen for dinner. He almost ran around to get things-and helped me get lunch-and sat down and took out books and pens from his schoolbag, and wrote and drew in the book while eating. It was dinner. He was basically reading a book, but the meal was finished in five minutes. I asked him why he was so nervous. He told me that the content of the chemistry experiment class in the afternoon was not finished, and if it was not finished, the class could not be attended. This surprised me greatly. Mike's major is economics. It is understandable if he wants to take a math class, but it has nothing to do with chemistry.
After a hasty meal, Mike told me that he would be very busy next week, because the mid-term exam was about to begin. I know what he means-he may not have time to see me. I said at once, it doesn't matter, you go ahead and we'll meet again in two weeks. Mike said with a reluctant expression, I'm afraid not. These mid-term exams will last until the end of the semester, that is, linked to the final exam.
At that moment, I suddenly understood why Mike and other students at the University of Chicago were so busy that they hardly had time to eat. But don't think that these students are just reading. Mike goes to work in the city every Sunday and usually attends and enjoys various concerts.
Comparatively speaking, the unit curriculum pressure of domestic undergraduate courses is much less. The students in Peking University are very hard, but for some particularly smart science students and most liberal arts students, life is much easier-he or she can be lazy. When I was in college, I worked hard, too. I only sleep for four or five hours every day, but I spend most of my time reading my favorite books and social activities, and I don't really spend much time studying. Even so, my grades are not bad. There is a simple reason. Before every final exam, I will borrow the notes of the classmate who remembers the best in the class and copy them, often with higher scores than him. How good his notes are-he can write down everything the teacher says, including his jokes, and then write it down in a notebook (laughter).
It took me a long time to understand that this method of copying notes when I had no money actually helped me deepen my understanding of the teacher's teaching content; Students who remember their notes clearly may be so absorbed in taking notes that they ignore the essence of the teacher's lecture. Therefore, I especially miss those days when I had neither money nor developed technology, and when I became a teacher, I repeatedly warned my students not to take notes carefully with my own personal experience. Later, when I got rich, the price of copying dropped sharply. I never tried to copy notes again, but my exam results were not so good.
This kind of "cramming" laziness is almost impossible at the University of Chicago. And contrary to domestic undergraduate education, the more courses in humanities and social sciences, the heavier the academic burden of the unit. Therefore, college students in Chicago are very cautious when choosing courses, and will certainly do what they can according to their actual situation. There will never be a case of borrowing humanities and social sciences courses to collect credits. This situation is too common in domestic universities, and the more liberal arts students, the easier it is to muddle along.
The primary reason why college students in Chicago are seldom lazy is the course selection system. According to the regulations of the school, students can choose courses freely. However, in the liberal arts courses of freshmen and sophomores, humanities, social sciences and natural sciences all have corresponding credit requirements. And in the student's course selection catalogue, small class discussion classes must reach a certain proportion. If students are likely to be lazy in college, they can't steal laziness in a small class discussion class of more than a dozen people. If students don't study and finish their homework, don't say that they don't understand what the teacher is saying, and they can't even get a word in the discussion. Students must work very hard from the beginning, otherwise a little negligence will bring endless trouble to the back-just like owing usury, once it is not paid, the interest will roll up and it will be too late to remedy it. The grades of each course include the usual grades, mid-term exams and final exams. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to muddle through the backrest notes before the final exam.
Mike told me that the fundamental reason why college students in Chicago are seldom lazy is that the cost of going to the University of Chicago is too high, and the annual tuition and living expenses are close to 60 thousand dollars. Therefore, every day of study at the University of Chicago and every class you attend can be converted into tuition accordingly. He must learn as much as possible at the University of Chicago, otherwise he will feel sorry for the high price paid by his parents. In other words, when each student pays the same tuition fee, the more he learns, the higher the excess profit he gets. Therefore, every student studies hard. This is especially true for those students who study on scholarships. On the one hand, scholarships are awarded annually. If students don't work hard and get poor grades, it is likely to mean losing next year's scholarship; On the other hand, those students who can't afford to go to the University of Chicago cherish their learning opportunities more because they get scholarships, hoping to get grades after graduation and give back to their alma mater for their help. Psychologically speaking, this endogenous incentive effect is the most significant.
I used to think that students from top universities in the United States seldom slacked off, because they implemented the system of "lenient entry and strict exit" and the elimination rate was high, forcing students not to be lazy in this process. This may be a misunderstanding. In fact, for the top universities in the United States, the competition for admission is extremely fierce, and the conditions are not "wide" at all-most of the "wide" admission conditions are public universities and community colleges; Except for a few universities such as Caltech, the elimination rate of many universities is not very high. The same is true of Zhida. Although the school attaches great importance to the quality of students' training, it is usually not too difficult for students. However, for students, if your report card is all C, don't say you are embarrassed, you will lose your competitiveness in employment-the employment agency will not hire you just because you are a graduate of the University of Chicago. In the highly competitive talent market, if you can't get a position with ideal income, it means that your huge investment in college will be wasted, which is obviously unacceptable to both students and families.
Comparatively speaking, the tuition fees of China University-even the top Peking University and Tsinghua-are very low, only 5,000 yuan a year, less than/kloc-0.000 US dollars. Except for some students with financial difficulties-the state and schools often have a policy of reducing tuition fees for these students-many students do not feel how high the cost of going to college is, or do not have a strong intuitive feeling about the cost of going to college. So for them, learning more and learning less makes no difference. On the other hand, because the repeated training before the college entrance examination is too hard, students will inevitably have some thoughts of muddling along after entering the university. In addition, because the university curriculum is out of touch with the social demand, the employer can't observe the students' actual ability from the course report, and can only make a decision on whether to hire or not through alternative indicators, such as school reputation, social activities, and even parental status, thus affecting the students' emphasis on course learning. Therefore, contrary to the phenomenon that American students are extremely hard after going to college-the harder the humanities students are-the more relaxed the China students are after going to college-the more relaxed the humanities students are, which greatly reduces the quality of undergraduate education in China University.
The seemingly simple phenomenon that students in top universities in the United States seldom slack off is actually closely related to the private university system, the diversity of the job market and social integrity in the United States. American education is a complex system, which adapts to a series of factors such as its social system, economic system and cultural background, and influences and restricts each other. Ignore these hidden institutional factors, and simply advocate or even transplant some specific measures and policies-such as the so-called "lenient entry and strict exit" and AP courses. -failed to achieve the expected results.