[manasecret]

When I was in Malta doing a year abroad, I found out that European universities are hard as hell, much much MUCH harder than Tulane University. But it wasn't like I learned more than I did at home, in fact I learned less. Because it wasn't the material that was hard, the material is pretty much the same. It was the format of the classes that was horrendously, overbearingly difficult.

Let me explain. At the University of Malta, there was no homework, no tests, nothing at ALL throughout the whole course being graded for the whole semester. All there was was a big humongous final at the end that counted for your entire grade in the course. That means if you f'ed up the final, you were screwed.

I hate this format. Yes, I'm used to the final exam counting for the majority of the grade. But without homework -- or bare minimum without mid-term tests -- there is no surefire way to know if you're keeping up with the course. Plus, as I think everyone knows, it's quite easy to mess up one exam even if you know your stuff -- you feel sick, you had a couple major brain farts, anything can mess it up. Your grade for the course shouldn't entirely ride on the results of one big humongous exam at the end. It's unfair.

For the easier classes this format was no big deal. Italian, Prob/Stat to some extent, etc. But for the engineering classes, it was damn near impossible to pass. There's an argument that maybe they're trying to cull the herd of the ones who don't really want to be there, but making the format hard is not a true test of your ability. The difficulty should be in the material, which as I said is no different than what you learn anywhere else.

I've heard that most American universities used to run their courses this way, and maybe some still do. But I think there's a good reason they changed.

Up there I generalized that Malta University = all European universities, which I don't know if that's true or not. How does your university run, Angrist?

Oh, and did I mention there were no textbooks? You know those things you reference to learn from when you realize the professor is terrible at teaching? Yeah, none of those. All you had were lectures and the lousy professor's notes to rely on. Oh, and you had to go get your own copies of the notes from the copy center. Bringing notes was too lowly of a task for the professor to do.