Comparing three university cultures
Abstract
Comparing …
| Konstanz | Sussex | Maastricht | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Country | Germany | United Kingdom | Netherlands |
| Most important languages* | German, English | English | English, Dutch |
| ‘%Germans’ | 85% | <5% | 35% |
| Yearly study fees (citizens)* | 0.5k | 10k | 2k |
| Yearly study fees (non-citizens)* | 2.5k | 20k | 20k |
| Location | Campus next to the lake, in the middle of nowhere. | Campus next to the national park, in the middle of nowhere. | Scattered campus, partially in a park. |
| Architecture | Antiauthoritarian | Postcolonial | International |
| (Almost) free public transport* | Yes | No | Yes |
| Nice bike infrastructure | Yes | No | Yes |
| Food | Socialist cafeteria | Capitalist cafeteria | Bring your own food |
| Accomodation* | Cheap student residences in the city. | Expensive student residences on campus or private flats in the city. | Expensive private flats in the city. Single-person apartments are substantially subsidized. |
| Lecture content | The book or unpublished Latex script that the lecturer has written on the topic. | Slides based on the standard textbook on the topic. | A wild collection of slides copied from various sources. |
| Teaching medium | Blackboard, PowerPoint | PowerPoint | PowerPoint, malfunctioning digital overhead projectors |
| Addressing lecturers* | last name | last or first name | first name |
| Beyond lectures | Tutorials led by students, 1-on-1 office hours with the lecturer | Tutorials led by students or the lecturer. | Tutorials led by students or the lecturer, team projects. |
| Jobs at uni | The best students become teaching or research assistants, some research groups offer paid theses. | The best students become teaching assistants. | Bachelor students may not work at the uni, thus any master student can become a teaching assistant. |
| Number of student associations | 50 | 200 (including the hiking society, the album listening society, and the student society society) | 80 (+40 sororities/fraternities) |
| Student participation* | Student representatives are organized in groups that are loosely connected to the German political parties. There are very official elections on every level (department, faculty, senate, uni). | Student representatives are elected on the uni level based on their personality and manifesto. | Student representatives on the uni level are organized in parties and elected online. Departmental student representatives are selected via application with CV by a departmental committee. |
| Typical political argument | “The library charges fees for late returns – and what about my right to free education as per article 1 of the UN human rights declaration?!” | “This researcher has found out that the rights of one minority may clash with the rights of another minoruty, they must be sacked immediately, and so must our chancellor, let’s make a protest march!” | “Management have given us some money, let’s organize a couple of parties and events where everyone feels welcome!” |
| International mobility* | Part of Erasmus. | Would love to be, but the country is too cool for Erasmus. | Part of Erasmus and YUFE. |
| Cost of language course per semester | 0 | 50 | 250 |
| Library access | always; open to the public | always; restricted to uni members | 62% of the time (sometimes more, sometimes less); restricted to uni members and reservations needed for most working spaces |
| Publication philosophy | The uni forces all researchers to publish 100% open access and has gone to court over the issue. The uni hosts its own publication and dataset repositories. | – | The uni hosts its own publication repository. |
| Software philosophy | Everything is open source and self-hosted. | The uni is owned by Microsoft and SAP. | The uni is owned by Microsoft and SAP and has lost millions to ransomware. |
| Website | A normal website with unique and consistent design. | A normal website. | A complete mess; no information can be found about most researchers and research groups or even semester dates; regulations are published in multiple places and only kept up to date in some of them. |
| Marketing | [include list of scientific breakthroughs from last week] | “We are the wokest uni in the UK.” | “We are international and have the most innovative pedagogic concepts. (Or at least let’s pretend so!)” |
| How complicated is your email address | first.last@uni.kn | fl123@sussex.ac.uk | f.last@student.maastrichtuniversity.nl |
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