Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

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I know how engineering courses look like in Poland. Universities are 100% free, but they have absolutely no qualms about kicking out weaker students. Electrical engineering course at any of the largest universities in Poland will enroll 300-400 people,but 200 of them will fail the first year. The last year is usually finished by <10 people on time, there is plenty of people taking resits for years, and it's not uncommon for exams to be so hard that they have 100% failure rate. I have several friends studying engineering in Poland and well, first of all you need to pass all of your assignments to be able to take the exam(if you failed any of your practicals or assignments you are not even allowed to take the exam), and then like I've said it's not uncommon that out of 20 people taking the exam all 20 fail.

In contrast, I studied in UK and getting through university at an Engineering course was very easy if you didn't care about grades too much. You could even fail an exam completely and still be allowed to continue, which is unthinkable in Poland.

The main difference is, that in Poland all that matters is the diploma,not the grades you got, while in UK a diploma with a third or 2-2 grade is nearly worthless. So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless.

"So I think that Universities in Poland are much more careful about actually letting people graduate, while in UK pretty much anyone can graduate,but poor grades make their education worthless."

It's about the philosophy behind it. In Poland (and Romania too, BTW), an institution defends its reputation first and foremost. Somewhere else, it's more business-oriented and the reputation is kept more by marketing than by other means. That is also how "top universities" classification is made - by counting only the highest results, not all of it. It's a nice hack on human mind, as both the students' and the average employers' bells ring when they think of those "top" universities, abstracting away a lot of "uninteresting" information.

As an anecdote, some years ago, I heard about people in Poland that enroll in college (where education is nearly free) just to have access to student discounts!

Student discounts used to be massive in public transportation, accommodation and almost everywhere, even in some restaurants and bars in academic cities. Nowadays these discounts are not as they used to be, so I don't think it is still a common practice.

Some discounts are still significant (33% for railway and mass transit). But I don't think that it would be enough to go through trouble of applying to university. You would be kicked out for not passing first semester anyway. What destroyed recruitment strategies for less popular faculties was army. When army abandoned mandatory conscription many less popular faculties where quite surprised by dramatic drop in number of candidates. People used to apply to escape military service and some of them actually finished degrees despite silly motivation to apply in the beginning.

My girlfriend and her friends, did it in Germany too.

You got for free card for public transport, which for Berlin only cost me 80 Euro/month. Also health insurance is somehow cheaper.

I think there is still an age gap, to prohibit people from overusing it.

That ratio is the same as any EE program in the USA. 66% of the class will flunk out within 2 years. From my experience, only about 20% remained at the end of 4 years.

i finished AGH in Krakow and i approve this message :D lol

I did a CS course at AGH too. I had well over 100 people on my first year (couldn't physically fit them into some lecture halls), after first semester this halved. Second year there were fewer than 40 of us even after transfers. I think it's the most fair way to run courses.

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