Differences in Education System

Yesterday, I went to the Economics Department where a head professor there talked with us about York and Education in UK.

The difference in Education system between UK and US really attracted me a lot. Though I know it can’t be all right for all aspects and subjects , but on the whole, it’s true in business field. He said that in UK, the education system narrowed down to a certain profession study while in US, it’s something quite broad. Take undergraduate study for example. The US universities usually have more than 2 years’ comprehensive courses which can be quite far from their profession study, like philosophy, history. That’s why the education span in US is longer than that in UK.

This also reminds me of my school, Zhejiang University. Our education system seems to follow the example of US system. We have 2 years to learn some basic and comprehensive courses before we start our profession study.

Why there could be such a difference. Dawn gave her opinion after our presentation that maybe job hunting in UK is so difficult today as 50% of the UK population have attended colleges. So the degree is not so powerful for job hunting unless you really learn something for your work. While, in US, maybe job hunting is not that difficult. And in China, things can be more complex. I think job hunting in China is as hard as that in UK. But we don’t have that high percentage of populations hold bachelor degree, so people may take degree as an important point no matter whether people with that degree have learned anything related to their work or not. However, this is just my guess.