The Experience

Australians are smarter than Americans. Coming to Australia, I thought that college here would be similar to college back home. False. There are several small distinctions between higher education in Australia and in the United States that end up making a pretty big difference.

On the surface, the most noticeable difference is probably in how many people attend a university. In the United States, College is pretty much an expected next step after graduating from high school. Basically if you can afford to go to college, you go. But in Australia, a lot fewer people choose to further their education. Also, many colleges in the United States are liberal arts, so they have general education classes that everyone has to take. This allows students to come into school without completely knowing what they want to major in and what they will do after college. They can try different things and then decide to focus on one subject. In Australia, however, I haven’t heard of anywhere that has general education courses. Uni is only three years long and its focused on a specific degree. This could be a reason why fewer Aussies go to college—they don’t know the direction that they want to take in their life—and why many first-year uni students are older than 18.

In Australia, the students who choose to go to college know what they want to do: they are driven. They also don’t have to take classes that don’t apply to their major, so all their classes are applicable and therefore more interesting. There is a lot more motivation to pay attention and do well in a class that you know is going to help you everyday in your job once you graduate. I’m not saying that liberal arts are bad, because they aren’t and I think its great to have a well-rounded education (Taylor University makes sure that its students know the benefits of a liberal arts education), but many students can’t connect what they are learning in general education classes to their life and so they seem pointless. And when classes seem pointless, students stop trying as hard. That attitude then becomes habitual and it leads to a general disinterest in school.

It seems like this attitude has almost become cultural in the US, so that students now go to college for “the experience,” not necessarily for the education (and it is a great experience). But in Australia, uni is just a specialized school. There is no “experience.” They go because they care about what they are learning and they want to have success in their future careers.

Casey Snyder
Taylor University