[wheels]

Germany's basically the same. I've lived here 20 years. I went to a liberal arts college in the US. Shortening the time to getting a PhD is the only argument I could make for the European system vs. a liberal arts system. German even has a word for people who are knowledgeable in their field and nothing else: "fachidiot" (literally field-idiot). Even aside from being a well-rounded individual, the number of times it's helped in my career that I had to take university-level general education classes is huge.

Even with my liberal arts background, and having worked in pretty mathy areas of industry, it's rare that I, say, have to use much from my last two years of CS education. (What they did prepare me for is getting to the point that I can read research papers in areas I've since worked in.)

To be clear: virtually everywhere in the US a CS curriculum takes 4 years. There's no deciding in year three and graduating on time. You could potentially switch to CS from engineering, math or physics and get close.

In Germany at least, in contrast to the US, there's no coursework in a PhD, which I believe is the main thing that makes a PhD shorter than, say, a US PhD directly after a bachelors degree (which is typical in the sciences).

[robertlagrant]

> German even has a word for people who are knowledgeable in their field and nothing else: "fachidiot" (literally field-idiot).

While I don't disagree with the sentiment, English has the word "dragon" - doesn't mean dragons exist!