Having studied in Germany, I have a few quibbles with that article.
On 1: teachers not uploading material is hardly a systemic issue. Not all academics are great teachers, that is true. But complaining about having to take notes seems a bit whiny to me.
On 2: whether you spend the semester learning and then have a quick recap before the exam, or whether you spend it goofing off and then quickly memorize everything until the end of the exam is your choice, and your responsibility. If you need constant motivation to keep working, that is not the universities problem. You have to work on that yourself.
3. I have never taken such an exam, but the exams described here are just terrible. I assume this is related to point 1.
4. I've only ever had one card at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, for the library, the cantina, building access, printing credit, admin stuff, and student ID. As the author noted, this is being changed in Cologne too, so I'm not sure what's the point except a good rant.
5. No argument here. Administration seems to be universally terrible.
6. This is Point 1 again.
7. Wtf, Cologne?
8. Duplicate of #5.
I'm not claiming that everything is roses in Germany, but some of the author's points are about individual teachers or issues at the University of Cologne, and do not do the title justice.
it's not a problem specific to germany, but he makes a legitimate criticism of the classic lecture format. it is an antiquated mode of delivery, an extremely poor use of students' time, and really should not be part of university education any longer. i suppose it is one way of limiting cost...
I am not saying they are not there, but compared to online course for example, I think pyscially attending lectures gives more incentive to learn having invested the effort to actually turn up.
Online lectures. Uploaded scripts. (At least in my university good scripts were followed so closely, that a "lecture" was exactly what the name says "somebody reading the script". And bad lectures were an utter waste of time. I remember one math prof who permanently corrected his proofs back and forth - in the end we just took photos of his blackboard "art" (back in 2000), because taking notes was absolutely pointless.)
With modern technology those could be annotated; students could have online discussions about those (think "soundcloud-style interface").
Everyone could benefit from those, not only students. Can I please live in a world where I can do every course from home, at my own pace? I'd happily pay to have my all tests evaluated and finally for time spent by university employees on my exams - for which I'd sign up whenever I am ready and without formally being enrolled as a student.
> I think pyscially attending lectures gives more incentive to learn
Or it allows for less time to learn. In my university the different institutes are distributed across the whole city and I spent 12 hours every week just on commutes between those. Thus, people who need to work for paying for their studies (not tuition, but rent, food, transportation) are already excluded by being forced to physically attend. Same for people who already have a job. I am not talking about those few who can study while working because their employer supports this, I'm talking about the carpenter with an interest in theoretical physics, astronomy or arts.
Online lectures provide too many distractions. Constant urge to check emails or HN. I tried a MOOC once (Andrew Ng's Machine Learning), and the pace was too slow for me to stay concentrated for even a couple of minutes. Still, recorded lectures can be useful (e.g. if you get sick, you can catch up after recovering). I just don't think that they're very well suited to being the primary delivery format.
There is rarely a good excuse not to upload scripts, though, and at my university most are uploaded. My university also uploads lots of recorded lectures on youtube and provides discussion forums. Everyone can watch the lectures and download the material.
> In my university the different institutes are distributed across the whole city
That's unfortunate, but it's a fairly rare problem in Germany. Many of the best universities are in fairly small cities like Heidelberg, Tübingen, Freiburg (all of these have a population between 90k and 150k). Those that aren't are often not that strewn about, or at least clustered (TU München has a Garching campus for natural sciences, but afaik students don't have to travel between the centre and Garching a lot).
My university (Karlsruhe) is a centrally located campus university. Everything is within 10 walking minutes.
> I'm talking about the carpenter with an interest in theoretical physics, astronomy or arts.
I'm all in favour of enabling that, but you neglect that 90%+ of students are full-time students, and that is the model that universities cater to.
Point # 2, the complaint that grades are based on one exam at the end of the course is actually a feature. At my lovely State College I'm teaching a course with weekly graded lab reports. You grade the blasted things because each of them counts towards the final grade, but there is no time to review or critique them. From the shape of what the kids hand in, they need much guidance and critiquing, and we are failing them by not giving it. They are clearly incapable of independent study at this stage.
indeed. people like to imagine an idealised world of highly able, motivated and disciplined students. why design an education system for a set of students that doesn't really exist?
On 1: teachers not uploading material is hardly a systemic issue. Not all academics are great teachers, that is true. But complaining about having to take notes seems a bit whiny to me.
On 2: whether you spend the semester learning and then have a quick recap before the exam, or whether you spend it goofing off and then quickly memorize everything until the end of the exam is your choice, and your responsibility. If you need constant motivation to keep working, that is not the universities problem. You have to work on that yourself.
3. I have never taken such an exam, but the exams described here are just terrible. I assume this is related to point 1.
4. I've only ever had one card at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, for the library, the cantina, building access, printing credit, admin stuff, and student ID. As the author noted, this is being changed in Cologne too, so I'm not sure what's the point except a good rant.
5. No argument here. Administration seems to be universally terrible.
6. This is Point 1 again.
7. Wtf, Cologne?
8. Duplicate of #5.
I'm not claiming that everything is roses in Germany, but some of the author's points are about individual teachers or issues at the University of Cologne, and do not do the title justice.