Ombre_Rouge (Offline)  

Thank you for the reply, and the effort!

I completely agree with this one:
The British student also probably spends less time in class and more time doing independent research and teaching oneself. The American student likely has class more days per week and has more contact hours with academic staff.

In view of the business model where students are paying for the education, I tend to side with the American education system. It gives the students, in my view, a better worth for their money. I have been to two types of Unis; one is in the UK, and another follows the American system; I tend to favor the latter - I don't know, maybe it's just me but I tend to get my investment worth in the latter system than sitting around being clueless about the material and not being able to get help from the academic staff.

But in a different view, it might help the student to become more independent if they adapted well with the English system.

Yes, American based Universities and Universities that modeled after them would actually encourage extracurricular activities; I don't see these in the UK universities (Complete generalization - I could be wrong)

I also agree with this as well:

British universities also seem to structure their assessments differently. My American friends complain about midterms and finals, frequent test and quizzes, constant essays, and lots of small assignments. At British universities, students generally have fewer, larger deadlines and must develop good time management skills. Their workloads thus appear more sporadic, as opposed to the more constant flow of work that American students seem to have.

I received a truck load of assignments, quizzes, small lab works and tests, but I received lesser (not even half of what I used to get) with the British System.

Continue to Part II

Part II

I don't quite like the idea that some UK universities tend to lump all the exams for Term 1 to Term 2, making the exams much harder since now you have a combined exams for Term 1 and Term 2 together at the end of the year; I like the semester based system where at the end of the semester, students will be having exams for that semester only and no interference from other semesters.

Thank you for your time and input; I enjoy reading your reply!

Hello

I noticed that you're an American studying at St. Andrews. I hope you don't mind me asking, how do you find the UK education system so far compared to the US education system?