There are so many differences in the education attitude and atmosphere and it could be for a large range of reasons.
1) You pay a ton less here. I pay about one hundred euros for a semester, comparing to upwards of 20/30thousand
2) Because of this, there are tons more students here and there aren’t, usually, stiff hard entrance qualifications (this depends on the university and field of study)
3) There may just be a general cultural different attitudes towards education
For these and many, I am having trouble adapting here. I’ve heard stories where classes aren’t mandatory, some of them (mainly large lectures), and where your grade largely depends on one exam at the end, with not that many assignments during the semester. This may create an atmosphere where there is less incentive for continual learning or less accountability.
The course process for selection of courses is very different than I am used to. You rank the classes that could fit into a certain requirement and you do this for all classes, even if there’s only one option. Then after the course deadline for registering passes, a computer raffles those who selectred priority one. There is no first come first serve, and it’s more or less all to chance.
I’ll state first my reactions. I think it’s frustrating to say the least. I like to have a schedule and order, and by keeping me on my toes until 4 days before the semester starts to tell me which courses I will be taking is like telling someone they have just received a job (for which they chose by selecting a priority) and they start after the weekend (with required reading of course). It seems unfair to me. I don’t know if it’s a perpetuating cycle between the attitudes of the students, or the system, but it’s frustrating to me. I feel in flux, all the way to the end, where then I get thrown into a pit of sharks where all I have to protect me is a life raft and a bag of supplies, for which I have only had a couple days to make and prepare.
And this brings me to my next reaction. I feel uncomfortable with it and it frustrates me. But for a larger reason. I feel I have lived my life with the assumption that when I work hard enough, stay up to register, study the whole year, I get results, whether that be in grades, priority, whatever. I have operated under the mindset that when I truly work so hard that all I do is work, I will get what I have worked for. It seems like a fair mentality to me. When someone works hard enough, they can get what they have worked towards. I realize that there’s flaws, there are factors you can’t get around, where you can work your hardest and you will never get what you want. It’s a mentality that supports when you are diligent, know when the course registration opens, stay up till midnight, and are ready to input the course numbers, you get the ones you have signed up for. There isn’t a lot of chance. You can assess which courses you will get by a running current count of how many spots are left over, you can make a schedule for yourself. There is a certainty to it. There’s an element of punishment as well, if you miss it, if you aren’t prepared, then you don’t get exactly what you want. I know this is too black and white.
And this all ignores the reality that life isn’t fair. There are things I can work my whole life towards and never achieve. But maybe I can’t accept a life where things are up to a raffle, up to chance, and where I can’t influence my life. Maybe I am a control freak, maybe I am too wound up. But I want to have the agency to control an aspect of my life, one that makes a huge deal to me, that affects the rest of my life. I know life isn’t fair, but, to me, this should be. And if not completely fair, but more so. I can’t change it, I can’t change that life isn’t fair, but I can notice the things around me, and work to make it more fair for others.