Ukraine, Canada, US: Differences in Higher Ed

Reader twicerandomly always comes up with the best questions for me to answer so I will respond to them in separate posts.

The first question concerned difference between higher ed systems in Ukraine, Canada and the US.

The greatest difference, I believe is the purpose and the scope of education provided. The post-Soviet system produces people who acquire a spattering of everything but no profound knowledge of anything. There isn’t anything like the specialization (called a Major) in North America. Everybody at the Humanities department takes the same courses without having any choice in the matter. Graduates end up knowing a bit about everything but not prepared for any actual employment.

In Canada, the system is the exact opposite. Unless you make an effort, you can easily take only the courses in your area of specialization and end up extremely narrowly specialized and very ignorant about everything but your tiny little field.

I think that both systems are problematic and prefer the US system that makes all students do both a specialization in a single field and a wide variety of courses from all disciplines. Students end up more well-rounded and enriched not only as future professionals but as human beings as well.