Poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle

Re:Poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle by lewis1028282 on Sunday April 07, 2019 @10:49AM (#19597072)

I'm a master's student in the UK so I'm not really sure what you mean by 'short courses'? The UK follows the Bologna process and bachelor degrees are 3 years, masters 1, PhDs are 3 years.

I'm not, Oxford and Cambridge are always in the top 5 universities in the world don't see how you can argue they are not.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle by padthai on Sunday April 07, 2019 @11:30AM (#19597383)

> The UK follows the Bologna process and bachelor degrees are 3 years, masters 1, PhDs are 3 years.

That is not true for every European country. In lots of them bachelors last 4 years, and some degrees just morphed their old plans in undergrad+masters as a way to keep them longer (5-6 years). As far as I know, placements years are unusual too.

You also does not need a master to get a PhD in the UK. I have met plenty of 23-24 year olds with PhDs there.

And again, the biggest problem is than most teachers cannot fail more than a small percentage of their students, even if they are absolutely terrible.

> I'm not, Oxford and Cambridge are always in the top 5 universities in the world don't see how you can argue they are not.

Even if Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial have excellent undergrad courses (as I am sure they have good PhD courses), that does not change the reality of the other 200. At some point, by the way, I was doing a PhD in a top 4 UK university. And I can tell you that the quality of undergrad courses I saw was questonable at best.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle by arethuza on Sunday April 07, 2019 @11:25AM (#19597353)

Nitpick: Scottish undergraduate degrees are typically 4 years - the education system being completely different up here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor public transport explains the UK’s productivity puzzle by padthai on Sunday April 07, 2019 @11:31AM (#19597386)

And in Germany, Spain, etc. Plenty of places.

[ Parent | on HN ]