Luftwaffles wrote:Ad hominems aside, how do Serbian universities compare with American/Western universities? By that I just don't mean general ranking (those are more a measure of prestige than learning quality and substance) I mean how do Serbian students fare internationally, are learning approaches significantly different from the U.S. etc.
Few Serbian students actually go abroad to study or work. Language barriers aren't a very big problem, as most people, especially students, speak English, often something else, too. The EU and the West, in general, are percieved as places with a lot better standard of living (which they are), it's also thought that you have to work your ass off to achieve that standard. Most people here actually work very little by Western standards. They reason that they don't want to work 50% more for a 25% better life. Therefore, the majority of people who go abroad for any meaningful periods of work or study are very ambitious and capable.
I don't have any statistics in English, but our students who do go to foreign universities almost always fare very well. Those are obviously far from average Serbian students so it's impossible to compare students from Serbia and America (for example) that way.
As for learning approaches, we're following the Bologna process and should theoretically be teaching the same things the same way as other European universities. However, not everything from Bologna is implemented yet. There's a lot of leftovers from the old socialist system. For example, I got my 60 ECTS credits this year, like any Bologna student, but I wasn't required to attend any lectures, which I'm extremely thankful for. Practice (as close as you can get to practice for pre-clinical exams) was mandatory, though. That differs from faculty to faculty, though. Law students don't really have to go to class at all, language and literature students have to attend everything.
I don't know very much about the American (or Canadian, or any other) school system, so I can't give any detailed or specific comments about the differences in teaching approaches. However, the general impression I hear from those who've seen both our and foreign universities is that we learn more theoretical and less practical stuff. The justification I is that bachelor's degrees are academic degrees, and that a bird's eye view of the studied subject is what they're supposed to provide. There's a number of jobs one can do after they get their BA, so it would be impossible for the faculty to teach its students everything they could possibly do. Instead, they provide a theoretical foundation for whatever you learn at work.
I hope that answered your question.
