University of Technology Eindhoven. Although Leiden is an example of a presitigious and respected university in the same system.Jebus said:
How smart are you?
- Thread starter Max Demian
- Start date
Sander said:
Never heard of the University of Eindhoven.
But that's perhaps because Leiden was fairly important in the world of historical research.
Eindhoven is a relatively new university (50 years old), and it's dedicated solely to technical studies, so those are two reasons why you probably haven't heard of it. Although it is reasonably well-known within technological circles.
Montez: I don't have a clue as to what the US government is spending on universities, but I do know that the US universities have always revolved around private funding. That's where they get all of their money from, and trust me, they get many, many times the money our universities receive in any way. So they do have greater means, much larger libraries, for instance, than most of our universities. But the universities here function within a very different principle: equal access to education for everyone. If you want to be educated somewhere, and you ahve the proper schooling, you can be educated there.
Montez: I don't have a clue as to what the US government is spending on universities, but I do know that the US universities have always revolved around private funding. That's where they get all of their money from, and trust me, they get many, many times the money our universities receive in any way. So they do have greater means, much larger libraries, for instance, than most of our universities. But the universities here function within a very different principle: equal access to education for everyone. If you want to be educated somewhere, and you ahve the proper schooling, you can be educated there.
Montez said:
I guess the difference origninates from the basic ideological difference between the USA and Europe: respectively* the very best for the elite, or the best possible for the majority. While individual schooling might be better in the top-US universities, and they may have much greater means (I have personally already had to order copies of articles from Berkekey and Harvard universities on several occasions); because of their high operating costs they are forced to focus on the 'select few'. Here in Europe you have relatively large universities, where in theory everyone is admitted, and a great difference in level intelligence often exists between students. The quality of education in general is roughly the same as in the USA, but individual education will be *much* less: with classes of over 300 people, the system of education is bound to be different. Especially in the first years, when not that many people have dropped out yet, classes are mostly monologues held by the professors.
Another difference may be that, at least here in Belgium, the scholarship system is quite different from the USA. The vast majority of people here can actually afford to send their children to the Univ. with relatively few monetary problems (my parents for example, who are after all only working class people) - and hence don't get scholarships, or very very small ones. This means that the government can actually afford to put more money in education *itself*, then actually making it possible for students to go to univ. in the first place. This might seem like an enormous paradox, but I believe it makes some sense.
* If that word exists in English
Jebus said:
Arrogant fucks, too. The Rector Magnificicus' speech must've included "Leiden is the best university in Holland" at least 3 times.
It's fairly true, though, Leiden is probably the best overal, though it clearly can't beat a specialized university like Eindhoven. What about Delft, Sander?
PS: I'm going to study in Leiden this September
PPS: the entire first year of my study consists of 27 people. Small focus, ey
i'm guessing this is an ego thread, fine by me-everyone needs a confirmation to thier skills, but here's my opinion on intelligance-
it isnt a key to success or happiness, so you can be smart and depressed, because being happy isnt at all about being smart or any other charasterstics.
you can be wise and unhappy, you can be dumb and unhappy, it just isnt related.
if by confirming your intelligance makes you happy, then you'll always need to chase that instead of concentrating on the more important thing..to be happy?
it isnt a key to success or happiness, so you can be smart and depressed, because being happy isnt at all about being smart or any other charasterstics.
you can be wise and unhappy, you can be dumb and unhappy, it just isnt related.
if by confirming your intelligance makes you happy, then you'll always need to chase that instead of concentrating on the more important thing..to be happy?
aegis said:
And an 'opinion' is all you'll ever have about it.
Well, Jebus and Sander, I generally agree with you and like the system you described. But don't be too quick to come to the conclusion that achieving a "prestigious" education is only reserved for the l337 of America. Jebus, like your parents, both my mom and dad have blue collar jobs and also like you, i have worked in construction for a few years. English is my second language and i arrived to the States right before high school. The odds were certainly against me that I would make it into the university i am in now. In fact, i was rejected from Northwestern when i first applied out of high school. So i went to my next best choice school (Loyola University), got a 3.9 GPA (4.0 being all As) my first year, worked harder on the admission essays, reapplied to Northwestern and got in.
Sure its easier to get into an Ivy league school if your whole family went there, or if you come from a rich family, or if you're a great athlete (no brains required), but it's not impossible for the less privileged. The only thing you cannot afford is to be passive. As i said before, you are in constant competition for everything. If you really want something and are willing to work hard for it, trust me you can get it....sorry for the cliche.
WTF? like you? Then what the hell have i been doing looking at your webcam photos for motivation every time i studied? I thought you were, like, supposed to represent some academic idol.
EDIT:
i loled.
aegis, sorry for taking you seriously, but how does your happiness theory relate to the thread? A pretty common sense theory too. And what kind of a comeback is "just like your manners"? It really doesn't make any sense. I mean what exactly is just like Jebus' manners? You were better off just saying "Yo mama".
EDIT2: Oh nice. He edited his post from "just like your manners" to "just like your opinion on manners?"
Sure its easier to get into an Ivy league school if your whole family went there, or if you come from a rich family, or if you're a great athlete (no brains required), but it's not impossible for the less privileged. The only thing you cannot afford is to be passive. As i said before, you are in constant competition for everything. If you really want something and are willing to work hard for it, trust me you can get it....sorry for the cliche.
Jebus said:
WTF? like you? Then what the hell have i been doing looking at your webcam photos for motivation every time i studied? I thought you were, like, supposed to represent some academic idol.
EDIT:
Jebus said:
i loled. aegis, sorry for taking you seriously, but how does your happiness theory relate to the thread? A pretty common sense theory too. And what kind of a comeback is "just like your manners"? It really doesn't make any sense. I mean what exactly is just like Jebus' manners? You were better off just saying "Yo mama".
EDIT2: Oh nice. He edited his post from "just like your manners" to "just like your opinion on manners?"
dont mind really(rly?)- why else would you take the trouble to write how smart you are in the first place, whats your academic level, and how important it is to be smart? if you guyz think that being smart can make you lives better, thats cool, i just think otherwise.
Max Demian
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Kharn said:
That's perfectly OK with me...
Kharn said:
...as are people not having firm standpoints – of course, as long as you show a genuine effort of contributing to the discussion at hand. So, a little "introspection" from you would be appreciated. That’s only fair, don’t you think?
Appreciate your opinion, albeit more as a critique than a genuine contribution. It would, though, be OK if this were a thread discussing the correlation between intelligence and life happiness (accomplishment), but it’s not. Although I vicariously gathered a lot of information from your previous posts, I’d still like if you would give us your own view on how intelligent (capable) you are, and the general view people make of you. That would be more helpful, as this is an introspection thread after all. ThanksAegis said:
Quite impressive...Corith said:
A litte something from Wikipedia:
The highest IQ ever recorded was something like 228 for a ten year old girl if I remember correctly...though such numeration becomes meaningless as one becomes an adult - "You're quite smart for your age: only 40 and you have the mental capacity of a 70 year old. Wow!" - "Huh!?"
Plus, corpora. Eyeeeeeech, corpora.Kharn said:
Delft is...different from Eindhoven in certain fields. It has a few different studies, for instance, and the content of certain studies can vary wildly from Eindhoven (take Comput(er/ing!) Science, in Eindhoven the emphasis lies to a much greater degree on mathematics and scientific proofs, while Delft is more like HBO in that matter: it's aimed much more at practicing and just doing things.Kharn said:
Plus, Delft is a wildly different city and environment.
But, overall, Eindhoven and Delft do share more characteristics than other universities.
And what are you going to study?Kharn said:PS: I'm going to study in Leiden this September
PPS: the entire first year of my study consists of 27 people. Small focus, ey
KQX: Oh, I have no doubt that poor people can get there too. I'm just absolutely certain that while it is possible, the odds are you'll never be able to afford getting in, 'good breeding' and lots of money make it much, much easier to get in. And that's something that is absolutely not true here.
Max Demian said:
The subject matter of the thread changed from "tell us how intelligent you are" to some notes on American colleges/universities and the "continental" European system. The latter subject, as opposed to people talking about how intelligent they are, does interest me. I have not read any of the soliloquys in this thread yet, though I should as you can tell more about a man in how he speaks on a subject, including himself, than in what he says about it.
I thought it'd be fairly obvious that I slipped back into the thread not because I lack firmness of standpoint but because the subject changed, as threads are apt to switch subjects. Far be it for me to guess that would not be obvious to every single dingbat and would necessitate large glowing footnotes.
Duh. Gypsy.
I will not "introspect" shit. Sorry.
Sander said:
Meh.
Sander said:
Delft is pretty unique in that about half the city's population are students or people tied to the university. Makes for an odd city
Leiden is odd too in that sense, but it's still only 1/10th of the population
That said, I think Delft certainly beats Eindhoven in the sense of a practical research university, mostly post-Master stuff, I suppose. Delft has a damned good international rep.
Max said:
Did it hurt?
KQX said:
I wouldn't say it is, but it *is* impossible for quite a large amount of people, larger amounts than in continental Europe, and a lot of the people that get in have to work harder than they do in Europe. Not because of study is necessarily harder, though it usually is, but also because they need to pay their way through. Which hurts.
Sander said:
This is what I was going to post. Getting accepted to a good university isn't that difficult, provided you have really good grades, SAT scores, etc, though it is out of your average or underachieving student's reach. Tuition for Northwestern University is $29,000 a year though, and that's not including room and board, books, and other expenses that a student incurs. That's pretty much the average tuition for 'good' universities, and the 'prestigious' ones like Harvard, Princeton, etc., cost about $40,000. That is well beyond the majority of American's means, scholarships or not. And there's a large amount of people who can afford it (through loans mainly) but choose less expensive universities because they realize that they are going to be paying back that debt for the majority of their adult lives - and in consequence not attaining a much better standard of living than if they had not gone to college at all.
Edit: I might be mistaken about room & board not being included in those tuition costs - still, it's more than the average american makes in a year.
I thought Nijmegen had a really high student-percentage thing as well.Kharn said:
And the type of students tends to vary, too, Leiden and Delft have a very active society thing going on, hence the corpora. But Eindhoven doesn't, we have three general student society thingies, and they have some 600 members altogether. Making this much more of a loose city.
As for research, high-quality research is usually a Post-Master thing.
And I'm not entirely sure as to what you mean by 'practical' research, science often also has a lot of non-practical research, especially in fields such as Maths and Computer Science.
Whether or not Delft is better, its international esteem is better (or at least it's better known), but Eindhoven's quality of research is higher, as can be seen by the fact that it does have that third place in Europe.
Although I suppose it also has to do with different fields of study, and which university excells at what.
Then I better get smart!
I think some things in life should be free and not privatly owned:
School, medical care/drugs und sex.
Of course, things get 'better' with money and if you/your parents can afford it you could get more from a privatly owned school as well as you maybe get better medical care and better equipment in a privatly owned hostpital. And those who gives you sex for money got mad skillZ. Buttt as a far term goal (can you say that? In swedish I can...) I think we should strive to get more focus on community school and medical care. Vote for Arnold. Again.
I've heard a lot about the US university system being privately funded and open mostly to the elite, but I think that's an oversimplification. Tuition for in-state schools (most of them, anyway) is dirt cheap. My friend is going to school for 2 grand a semester- at a university, not a community college. Granted, he does have his own place and doesn't pay for dorms or anything, but even if he did it would still be only 4 or 5 grand a semester, which is quite manageable for most parents, or even students working part time.
And, of course, there is community college, and to be honest the curicculum is pretty much the same as a university (except the whole associate's degree thing). And you can always transfer to a more complete school whenever you want. Those schools oftentimes are loads cheaper than anything else and are funded mostly by the government.
And most private US universities are funded by the government in a roundabout way, since students oftentimes take out low-interest loans specially designed for education or get government scholarships. Also, the military here offers a lot of money (40k to 70k, enough to pay for all the tuition for a decent school) for college kids willing to sign up for a few years.
Also, there are tons and tons of scholarships. For instance, here in my beautiful home state of Idaho, the government gives you up to 3 grand a year just for having good grades (provided you go to an in-state school). And every college has a long list of scholarships set up for students wanting to attend that college, too. If you apply yourself and are willing to work for your education in some fashion (be it applying for scholarships or loans or taking a job) there is really no reason why you can't get an education, and a decent one at that.
So, in conclusion, the system is more similar to Europe's (just from what I've heard in this thread) than it might at first seem.
And, of course, there is community college, and to be honest the curicculum is pretty much the same as a university (except the whole associate's degree thing). And you can always transfer to a more complete school whenever you want. Those schools oftentimes are loads cheaper than anything else and are funded mostly by the government.
And most private US universities are funded by the government in a roundabout way, since students oftentimes take out low-interest loans specially designed for education or get government scholarships. Also, the military here offers a lot of money (40k to 70k, enough to pay for all the tuition for a decent school) for college kids willing to sign up for a few years.
Also, there are tons and tons of scholarships. For instance, here in my beautiful home state of Idaho, the government gives you up to 3 grand a year just for having good grades (provided you go to an in-state school). And every college has a long list of scholarships set up for students wanting to attend that college, too. If you apply yourself and are willing to work for your education in some fashion (be it applying for scholarships or loans or taking a job) there is really no reason why you can't get an education, and a decent one at that.
So, in conclusion, the system is more similar to Europe's (just from what I've heard in this thread) than it might at first seem.
Montez said:
That's pretty damn sick. My univ. was 500€, and I don't think they're allowed to raise it any more.
How the hell could they possibly justify 40 000$? Are universities not non-profit organisations?
Well, mine, much like all other universities in Croatia, is 0€. Chew on that.
EDIT: I lie. There is a 10€ paperwork fee when enrolling.
EDIT: I lie. There is a 10€ paperwork fee when enrolling.