Reader luna asks:
I am a big fan of your posts about life in the FSU and would like to know more!
Particularly, what was math and science education like in the FSU? You have said earlier that education in general was quite crappy. But scientific hearsay is that a lot of good physics and mathematics was done in the USSR, take sending humans to space for example. If the science education was also crappy, what would you say is the reason for this success?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to answer this question because this is always a subject of heated discussions between me and N. He got his first degree at one of the most prestigious math programs in the FSU and is the product of the (post) Soviet science education. Naturally, he has very good things to say about that system of education while I don’t, to put it very mildly.
It is true that there were never any attempts to bring ideology into the study of physics and mathematics in the USSR. As a result, these fields were left free of ideological conditioning and many people used them as a respite from the endless Communist slogans that were hammered into their brains at every step. Mathematics was an international language that made one feel part of the world instead of a terrified little creature separated from the rest of humanity by the Iron Curtain. Many brilliant mathematicians and physicists came out of this education system.
However, what they received cannot possibly be called a university education. The reason why people go to college is to become well-rounded individuals who have a number of skills and a stock of knowledge in a variety of disciplines. In the American system of higher education – which, I insist, still offers the best higher education in the world- all students have to take a significant number of General Education courses outside of their Major concentration. You can’t come to college, take 40 courses in math, and graduate without ever taking a peek outside of your calculus textbook.
In the USSR, students of all disciplines also had to take a variety of Gen Ed courses (foreign languages, the history of the Communist Party, something called “Scientific Atheism,” etc.) but the value of those courses was non-existent. There were, of course, people who worked on developing their non-mathematical interests outside of the classroom. They were not the majority, however. I can’t tell you how many brilliant programmers and mathematicians I have met who were as intellectually stimulating to talk to as 5-year-olds. They knew their equations, programming languages, and logarithms, but that was all they knew.
The difference between a university and a vocational school is precisely that a university offers you more than an insight into a single discipline. This is why I always say that there was good vocational training in the sciences in the USSR but there was no education.
Clarissa's Blog 
I live in Israel, so will mainly talk of high ed there. In STEM fields the number of not connected to a discipline courses is 2-4 (?) because there’re so many needed courses in this discipline and you have only 3-4 (4 in engineering) years to study it all. In economics, for example, if you study only economics, you have to take quite a lot courses from different department(s) for a degree. Seems, as a rule, the closer to STEM a discipline is (I suppose, it’s true for medicine & law too), the less courses outside it one has to take because of time.
In Israel nowadays the practical difference between a university and a college is precisely the depth, in which a single discipline is studied. To a university go future researchers, developers & scientists AND people who want deep, wide knowledge of this single discipline. To a college go people, who couldn’t be accepted to a university. F.e. in engineering in a college & in a university the same course (in a name) is studied, but the material covered isn’t the same.
I am extremely against prolonging the studies in another year in STEM in Israel to add more Other courses. My mother got 2nd degree at old, ripe age of 22. In Israel it’s 2 (for women) or 3 (for men) years of army service, then add a year in case you’re released in a middle of academic year, work to earn money, travel a bit, do psychometric exam, etc. So you already get 18+3 or 4 = 21-22 for 1st degree for women and 22-23 for men. At best.
In Israel one has to know 2nd language, English, well to get a degree anyway, so you already get at least 2 languages (Hebrew + English).
Don’t have much time now, so just several thoughts.
How well rounded should one be after a university? Why not force everybody study geography, art and do sports at university too? (The latter like in FSU.) I think high school is supposed to give a direction and there basics of most disciplines should be offered to produce this well rounded individual. University should be deep & specialized. A college won’t make real international, breakthrough research, as universities have done. Best students don’t go to colleges, which offer much worse education and cost 2-3 times as much.
LikeLike
“University should be deep & specialized.”
– Like a trade school? 🙂 Thanks, but no thanks. We offer REAL education here. And most students do get exposed to art, if not to geography, unfortunately, in the process.
“In Israel it’s 2 (for women) or 3 (for men) years of army service, then add a year in case you’re released in a middle of academic year, work to earn money, travel a bit, do psychometric exam, etc. So you already get 18+3 or 4 = 21-22 for 1st degree for women and 22-23 for men. At best.”
– Of course, the draft is a huge problem. But sacrificing what really is an eductaion for its sake seems self-defeating.
LikeLike
I have to say I am with el here. A good high school education can offer a lot of breadth. I had two foreign languages, literature, plenty of history, geography, art, as well as math and science in middle school and in high school. Here in the US I see what my son does in middle school and it’s laughable — in 6th grade they still had to color stuff for homework. WTF? And they are systematically shielded from mathematics, especially in science classes. I really wish someone would do a serious intervention on the US K-12 education instead of all the jerking-off with the latest fads that does nothing for anyone (except burn lots of money).
I teach engineering students and they are overstretched — the major is very demanding, very time-consuming, lots of long projects. and the breadth requirements slow them down a lot — as in, they end up graduating in 9 or 10 semesters instead of 8 as people in some other majors do where the course load is lighter. Kids complain about these issues a lot, and these are not stupid or lazy kids. You can’t appreciate liberal arts or humanities when you are overscheduled with the courses in your technical major, on which you count to get a job.
For some people college is an opportunity to explore and broaden their horizons, but for many it is really a route to a degree and a job (yes, I suppose you would call it vocational training, if you want to use a derogatory term). Considering how much college costs, I don’t think we can impose one view of what undegraduate education should be or that we can blame kids for wanting to get training and get a job…
LikeLike
Thanks for answering my question! I really love your posts about the FSU, and this one is no exception.
I completely agree about the need for a well-rounded education among those who are technically inclined. Unfortunately, even in the US, many science and engineering students feel that the general education classes they are forced to take are a great imposition. Many of them realize the need for these skills much later in life, and by then it is too late.
LikeLike
Yes, I was young and silly, too. I was convinced that Latin and literature courses were a total waste of time. 😦
LikeLike
There are still schools in the US who claim that they don’t offer general education requirements. They’re also the schools who most encourage taking classes outside the major.
“You can’t come to college, take 40 courses in math, and graduate without ever taking a peek outside of your calculus textbook.”
-I should hope a math major doesn’t take forty courses in calculus. :p Most schools only offer four.
I wouldn’t say general education classes are a waste of time, but for a major with an already packed schedule it can appear to interfere with a lot. Which is why I work, so I can take some general education requirements over the summer and pay off loans before I graduate.
LikeLike
“I wouldn’t say general education classes are a waste of time, but for a major with an already packed schedule it can appear to interfere with a lot.”
– Without going into boring details, I didn’t have to do a single course outside of my Honors program in Hispanic Studies during my BA at McGill. I was happy because I didn’t want to “waste time” on anything outside my Major. I can’t tell you how much I regret this today.
LikeLike
Still, I can see why some science majors don’t appreciate gen ed requirements on top of their workload. I could finish a minor or even most of a major on general education. I could do even more in math, or in chemistry, or French with the help of those extra twenty credit hours. I could take computer science classes I won’t ever get the chance to take, or I could do a music or studio art or anthropology minor. Instead, I have about twenty-three credits in which I can’t do more music, or French, or anthropology. I can’t take creative writing classes and music composition classes because I don’t have time to build up the credits in English and music to do so.
LikeLike
I graduated in 88 with a BS in Computer Science. I spent a couple years at local community colleges where I knew far more about computers than the professors and took all the required BS classes like psychology and sociology and English Lit before transferring to the state university. Unfortunately a lot of credits didn’t transfer because the U didn’t have equivalent computer classes so I basically had to start over again. So my well rounded education ended up costing me 6 years, half of which was nothing but BS classes. The only reason I went to college was to get the piece of paper that said I knew how to do what I already knew how to to before I went to college. An expensive piece of paper that was and they even spelled my name wrong and had to send me another one.
LikeLike