What are the differences between Canadian and American universities?

What are the biggest differences between American and European universities?

• Answer:

  First, I think it is important to make the distinction between European universities and British universities (about which I won't speak here), the latter being a bit an outlier standing culturally between the European and the American systems.Other than that, here are my impressions about the two systems, from the perspective of someone who studied 2 years in Switzerland, 1 year in the US and 1 year in the UK:In the United States, college admission is a very competitive process. The location of the school is a relatively secondary matter compared to the ranking and the prestige of the program. Actually, to some extent, the further it is from where you used to live, the better it is since it demonstrates strength of character; leaving the familial home at the age of 18 is considered as full part of the college experience. In Europe however, not only rankings are relatively inconsistent and generally more representative of the importance of the institution as a research center than of quality or prestige, but they also seem pretty irrelevant for most people: the choice of the university will generally be based on more practical criterias, such as the distance from home (many European students living at their parent’s house until the end of their master degree), the cost of the program (convincing a European student to pay  more than a few thousands of dollars of tuition for a better education will often be difficult) or the adequation between the program and the student’s personal interests. Unless a student wants to work in a different country after graduation, he is very likely to study in a local university.As a result, the distinction between a good and a bad student in the United States is mainly made by simply looking at the name of the college, whereas in Europe it is more complex and generally requires an attentive look at the grades and the composition of the program. For example, a college such as the University of Michigan almost only has good students ― very few bad students, but also very few geniuses, because those would probably have gone to something even more prestigious if they could ―, but an average university in Europe is likely to be much more diverse, with a few very bad students but also some extremely good ones, who could perhaps have gone to Harvard but didn’t simply because they weren’t interested.The most obvious difference however, that also best illustrates America’s perceived dynamisn compared to Europe’s perceived wisdom, is the average age of the students. In the United States, a common career path consists of starting college around 18, finishing in 4 years a fairly unspecialized bachelor degree (sometimes combining totally unrelated majors and minors, such as economics and arts), doing 2-3 summer internships during the course of their studies and finally getting a permanent job offer before graduation at the age of 21. Often, after 3-5 years of work experience, students start a MBA at the age of 26. In Europe however, it is not uncommon to see a student starting his bachelor degree at 19 years old (sometimes even later due to the mandatory military service), repeating on average a year so finishing around 23, taking a gap year to do internships (only a few companies take summer interns in Europe, so 6 months internships are more common), then doing a two year master (finding a decent job with only a bachelor degree is almost impossible in Europe) and one more year of master level internships (many companies only take master students for internships), to eventually get a first permanent job at 27 years old (and since recruitments take place later in the year, many students don’t immediately have a job after graduation).