Mass Shootings in the US

[Steamboat]

I've spent 18 of the last 20 years involved in university assessment and credit transfer, etc, etc, so am reasonably confident of my ground when I say that's a bit of a misunderstanding.

For the sake of simplicity, the European Credit Transfer System has a generic rule of thumb which is 2 UK Credits = 1 ECTS Credit = 2 US Credits which enables a generic comparison to be made.

To mildly complicate matters, although the UK and Europe use what's called the Bologna Process so that there is standardisation between us, we inevitably chose to use a slightly different form of calculation so that a UK 30 Credit module is a European 15 Credit module and an undergraduate degree is 360 Credits in the UK and 180 in Europe (for a 3 year programme)

Nevertheless 120 Credits in the US = 60 ECTS/120 UK Credits. And so on.

However, this isn't that precise- because it means that an Undergrad at the University of London gains 360 US Credits over three years compared to our American student's 120-130.

Which isn't that helpful in making any sort of exact comparison, even if our splendid (irony alert) Secretary of State for Education, in one of his more nationalistic moments, might cheerfully claim that UK graduates are 3 times better than US graduates and be puzzled when the reaction (from within the UK) was 'Errrrrr....' I can say from experience that US students are 3 times less capable or do 3 times less work than UK students.

When you get into the actual business of credit transfer and accrediting international institutions in terms of years/terms/semesters abroad, then this nice, neat calculation falls to pieces and you can have a single institution in the US (say) calculating credits for UK institutions in 3 different ways (so a semester studying at (say) Oxford Brooks can bring 30 UK and 15 US Credits for a University of South Carolina student, whereas if a student does a semester at LSE, they get 30 UK Credits but 2 US Credits...) And having done one inordinately long post on Arrse today, I'm not even going to begin to try to explain why that sort of wild difference can make sense.

I was under the impression two ECTS credits were worth one US credit generally speaking.

But what is considered a full course load for a normal UK/European University?

Doing a semester abroad would have been fun, but was not a real possibility.

But why the lack of electives in degree programs? It makes it easier to get a degree when one doesn’t have to worry about racking up credit hours.

 

[truck_trasher]

I did Applied Physics and there were twenty-eight Physics-related teaching/lab hours per week, plus four hours 'other' courses. That was looooong ago though, so long ago that I wrote my submissions on a typewriter equipped with tabs for the endless data-tables. Somewhat more recently I did a two year business course and the 'minimum hours' teaching required by the education-authorities had been reduced enormously. Also, I started at infant school aged four, at a time when kindergarten hadn't yet got to the UK.

 

[smartascarrots]

Actually, mechanical refrigeration was invented in Australia in 1854

Based on mechanical principles demonstrated at the University of Glasgow in 1755.

In other words, we've had mechanical refrigeration for several decades longer than we've had the USA.

 

[scoldog]

Based on mechanical principles demonstrated at the University of Glasgow in 1755.

In other words, we've had mechanical refrigeration for several decades longer than we've had the USA.

Seems Australia has a lot to thank Scotland for. Off the top of my head:

James Harrison

Captain Cook (Scottish Descendants)

Robert Menzies (Scottish Descendants)

Elle McPherson (Scottish Descendants)

Colin Hay

Angus and Malcolm Young

Jimmy Barnes.

 

[Filthy_contract]

Your three year degree would translate to roughly 90 credit hours. Or an associates, but not a bachelors degree.

One might also understand that the immigrants of the past also managed to fit in quickly.

I'm afraid you are wrong. My three year BSc was recognised as a Bachelor's degree in the US when I was accepted into a Masters' programme at Georgetown in 2010. Or have the rules changed to stop well-educated Euro-commies from infesting your Universities?

 

[Filthy_contract]

Based on mechanical principles demonstrated at the University of Glasgow in 1755.

In other words, we've had mechanical refrigeration for several decades longer than we've had the USA.

The export of frozen meat to the UK from Australasia started in the 1880s...

 

[Nick Dipples]

It always upsets Americans that their PhDs are not considered "better" than a UK PhD despite taking twice as long (because US institutions use them as cheap labour).

 

[Archimedes]

I was under the impression two ECTS credits were worth one US credit generally speaking.

But what is considered a full course load for a normal UK/European University?

Doing a semester abroad would have been fun, but was not a real possibility.

But why the lack of electives in degree programs? It makes it easier to get a degree when one doesn’t have to worry about racking up credit hours.

Yes, you’ll find sources which go something like 2 UK Credits = 1 ECTS Credit =0.5 US Credits, but this is for the purposes of credit transfer rather than the theoretical comparing of degrees and their overall credit value; as noted different places apply a series of different calculations in actual credit value awarded to the year abroad student, so even that doesn’t help as a generic comparator - it helps provide a baseline of sorts.

If you use that model for a theoretical comparison, though, you end up with a three year degree at Oxbridge being deemed to be worth 90 US credits - yet you don’t find many US sources (or indeed international ones) claiming that an Oxbridge degree is inferior to one at (say) Vasser...

As effendi says, the education systems differ sufficiently to make it difficult to draw exact comparisons in terms of load. The US system places more weight on classroom activity generally, which adds to the difficulty of comparison, since a lot of humanities and social science subjects here work on a basis of about 10% of the overall learning being spent in class, the rest being down the student to manage. I probably worked less hard than some contemporaries, in truth, but couldn’t place a figure on how many hours per week I did since I was being asked to read books, and that wasn’t work (well apart from a couple of them which would’ve been abandoned after the first chapter otherwise) The UK system has worked for the UK and before that the nations which make up the UK, for centuries; the US system works for the US.

And again, this comes down to different systems - UK students going to Harvard can obtain Advanced Standing because their A-levels take out the need for the first year, for example. Does this make the UK system better? Or just different? I’d say the latter. Do US or UK students work harder? Or do they do their hours differently? Again, I’d say the latter is more of an apposite question than the former.

 

[Steamboat]

I'm afraid you are wrong. My three year BSc was recognised as a Bachelor's degree in the US when I was accepted into a Masters' programme at Georgetown in 2010. Or have the rules changed to stop well-educated Euro-commies from infesting your Universities?

I am afraid you would be the wrong gender.

 

[SkippedOnce]

Poor little mites.

'A West Virginia mother gunned down her five young children before burning down her house and turning the gun on herself in December, officials said this week.

'Oreanna Myers, 25 left a confessional suicide note in which she wrote she was not strong enough to defeat her “demons,” and apologised for her “evil crime,” law enforcement officials said Thursday.

'The horrific Dec. 8 massacre left Myers’ three sons and two stepchildren from her husband’s previous marriage dead.

'The children were identified as Shaun Dawson Bumgarner, 7, Riley James Bumgarner, 6, Kian Myers, 4, Aarikyle Nova Myers, 3, and Haiken Jirachi Myers, 1.'

Mum kills five children in murder-suicide

A West Virginia mother gunned down her five young children before burning down her house and turning the gun on herself in December, officials said this week.

www.news.com.au

 

[Zemlyak]

More of a mass wounding, but 8 shot in broad daylight. Luckily none killed.

8 wounded in Philadelphia shooting; one arrested, two guns recovered

Gunfire erupted about 2:50 p.m. near the Olney Transportation Center.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Cutaway]

More of a mass wounding, but 8 shot in broad daylight. Luckily none killed.

8 wounded in Philadelphia shooting; one arrested, two guns recovered

Gunfire erupted about 2:50 p.m. near the Olney Transportation Center.

www.nbcnews.com

Have BLM organised a mostly peaceful "protest" yet ?

 

[Zemlyak]

Have BLM organised a mostly peaceful "protest" yet ?

Probably not. No police were involved.

 

[Cutaway]

Probably not. No police were involved.

BLOMWWPOAI isn't as catchy.

 

[Sam The Bam]

Chicago was the same last night, six people shot and wounded and 1 killed. NO BLM protests either.

 

[Cutaway]

Chicago was the same last night, six people shot and wounded and 1 killed. NO BLM protests either.

I'll let the whites shoot the kak out of each other then.

 

[merchantman]

Someone picked the wrong shop to start shooting in:

Three killed in New Orleans gun shop shooting

The local sheriff says a suspect shot two people, before being shot by others at the store.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Stonker]

BLOMWWPOAI isn't as catchy.

Mebbe in Afrikaans?