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[ideagirl]

IMHO, the only "success" Bologna has achieved has been the promotion of exchange programs.

That alone is great, but you're forgetting what happens after university: looking for work. If you want to look for work abroad, it's a lot easier to get your foot in the door if you can put "Masters" on your resume than if you have to start the education section of your resume with something like "French degree that is the rough equivalent of a one-year taught Masters program, but with a shorter thesis" or "English degree similar to the first three years of a German university degree."

[frenchdoctor]

However, the big mantra in accreditation now is graduation rates, and universities are somehow considered deficient if the students they admit don't graduate in 6 years. 

Don't tell. A (minor) part of the current reforms in France are changes made to the funding protocols of public universities. Ie, the way the State gives the money. Imagine this : one of the new criterions is the graduation rate. It means the public universities will receive more money if they pass more students. They call this joke performance assessment. Soon, since it brings bucks, you'll have a graduation rate of 100% everywhere -- and don't forget French public unis are open-enrollment.

I can give another example of how serious the ECTS are. French universities, as you know, are on strike (yet again, many will say). The semester, so to say, didn't happen. But, degrees and grades will be awarded anyway. No courses, no exams... but credits given. So a student who went to, let's say, Cambridge had to work a little bit to get the credits. A student who went to France had nothing to do (except maybe shouting revolutionary slogans in the streets) to get the same credits. Fair ? I don't think so.

I don't even think such a system can be operative on the long term. Soon enough, you'll have diploma mills in Saint-Tropez, on the Costa del Sol, in Majorca or Malta that will sell cheap credits & party time to the students. To show how different they are, the more selective and prestigious universities will have no other choice than to sit on the Bologna process.

[secretweapon]

Soon enough, you'll have diploma mills in Saint-Tropez, on the Costa del Sol, in Majorca or Malta that will sell cheap credits & party time to the students.

When will they start hiring!?

[frenchdoctor]

When will they start hiring!?

Can you teach in bikini ? Administrators will require it.

[secretweapon]

When will they start hiring!?

Can you teach in bikini ? Administrators will require it.

Ha!  Of course.  But I would be the Administrator, and I would wear whatever the heck I want.

[frenchdoctor]

Ha!  Of course. 

Good. You're ready for the future of Academia.

[normative_]

Here again, someone with in-depth experience of Bologna reforms. The process has flaws, but it's a positive development that I greet. There are a couple of mixed goals that need to be distinguished and prioritised.

1) There is the issue of degree comparability and recognition. This is one of the most important contributions that Bologna makes. Just as someone in the US might take a first degree at a relatively inexpensive state university before going on to grad school elsewhere in the country, Bologna makes it easier to apply to a grad programme in another EU member state.

1a) It doesn't always work well in terms of recognition, but the standardisation helps. The main issue I don't like is that the bachelor degree is a three-year affair, which I view as insufficient preparation for grad school. Universities are free to introduce a four-year degree, but it happens infrequently.

2) There is the issue of making student exchanges possible without losing credit / losing time in the course of one's studies. This was possible in the past, but there is a drive to increase the certainty of recognition at one's home university for courses taken abroad, and doubly so for study requirements in a particular sub-field of the discipline.

I think this is not as important from an educational standpoint (though many young people, especially in the humanities, see it otherwise and really want to spend a semester abroad, and I can't blame them), but I understand the civilisational project that really stands behind it and value it.

The thing is, with regard to English, is that it really is necessary, for reasons of bringing supply and demand together, to offer entire teaching modules in English. This means a course of study comprising two or three courses requiring 300 (?) hours of study or so (this figure escapes me).

I've noticed that English-language scientific journals are increasingly showing up in several non-English countries to meet the demand for the shift to

3) The French, as usual, are doing their own thing. I spoke with someone recently who had in-depth knowledge of what the French had been doing there, and could only manage a francophone shrug in response.

4) Some universities are heavily marketing their exchange agreements with a plethora of universities as a good reason to register for a degree there. This creates an significant amount of administrative work for us.

5) Timetables. Some universities are starting at the beginning of September, some in mid-October. Some end in April, others in mid-July. It impedes exchanges, or we get requests from students to let them take several weeks out of class because they really, really want to do the exchange with university X, where they're doing an exchange.

And since this is a public forum, and the odd student might stumble across it and learn something, let me get this off my chest. The course requirements are clear. I tell you at the beginning of the course you have so many absences free, and you have to write the exam like everybody else, at the same time as everybody else. If you ask for special treatment, then bite me. I save my special contempt for students who start up before the semester starts by saying 'I will be gone the last four weeks of classes because of this exchange and need to make arrangements...' Yeah. Make arrangements to take another class. I'm not less important than your exchange. Deal with it.

Bologna is not baloney.

[observer3]

Just to add a cynical view, based on what I have seen on this at my uni.

The process exists in the abstract as a vague phrase thrown around occasionally. But it hasn't been thrown around concretely because the Self-career Builders haven't yet figured out if siding with Bologna is a good or a bad idea in terms of their own goals of advancement. So far there has been a sort of lip service paid to Bologna but no real action for this reason.

The minute one of the Self-career Builders figures out a way that Bologna can be used to his / her advantage, depending on his/her position it could be full steam ahead at the expense of staff and programs. Consultation may or may not take place.

Some of us at the grassroots level have been trying to start some discussion of how Bologna could be done wisely and with consultation. This has gone nowhere. I think this is because for a Self-career Builder to take credit for something they don't want other people involved. My best guess, anyway.

I'm really becoming cynical. Sigh.

[donstefano]

The single best evolution in European education has been the start of the Erasmus student exchange programme. I'm a product of Erasmus myself, and would recommend it to everyone.

Now, when hiring teching assistants and grad students, there's one question I always ask if the Cv doesn't mention it "why, excactly, did you not participate in Erasmus, and why did you not study abroad for at least one term". And they better have a good explanation.

[normative_]

I wouldn't hold it against them, though, if they hadn't done, DvF. Unless it was just 'couldn't be bothered'. I'm in a field where the exchange makes sense, but I've seen students not go on exchanges due to language problems, and because the modules taken abroad couldn't cover core courses present in the home uni's curriculum to graduate. A couple of those students chose to stay at home, mostly for financial reasons (for not paying tuition an extra semester).

Personally, I begged and borrowed and took gifts (in addition to working) to fund my exchange, but I could understand it doesn't always work out.

[dyst_uk]

Now, when hiring teching assistants and grad students, there's one question I always ask if the Cv doesn't mention it "why, excactly, did you not participate in Erasmus, and why did you not study abroad for at least one term". And they better have a good explanation.

I think it depends on the subject; certainly with a lot of those regulated by professional bodies (i.e. health), you cannot choose optional modules, let alone take part in Erasmus.  Also, some of our faculties offer help toward taking part, others do not.

I have mixed feelings about Bologna (having heard some of the discussions surrounding the +2 part of the scheme).

I have heard a number of students express the view that whilst they could afford a 1-year Masters (i.e. 12 months), the financial implications of a 2-year one (possibly closer to 18-19 months) would be hard.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I wouldn't hold it against them, though, if they hadn't done, DvF.

I think you mean 'donstefano'.  DvF is ambivalent about the value of student exchange programs; while it is broadening for everyone to spend a serious block of time in another culture, doing so in the middle of a program is potentially very disruptive to studies, especially in the sciences.

In the US, student exchanges traditionally take place in the 3rd year (out of 4 or 5) of school.  I would like to see it at the second year, with two unbroken years remaining to devote to study in the major. - DvF

[normative_]

I wouldn't hold it against them, though, if they hadn't done, DvF.

I think you mean 'donstefano'. 

Indeed. My apologies to both of you.

In the US, student exchanges traditionally take place in the 3rd year (out of 4 or 5) of school.  I would like to see it at the second year, with two unbroken years remaining to devote to study in the major. - DvF

The second year is still general study in your field then? I did mine in Canada, so it might be different, but second year was chock-full of mandatory courses for the major.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

In the US, student exchanges traditionally take place in the 3rd year (out of 4 or 5) of school.  I would like to see it at the second year, with two unbroken years remaining to devote to study in the major. - DvF

The second year is still general study in your field then? I did mine in Canada, so it might be different, but second year was chock-full of mandatory courses for the major.

Students at my institution do not need to declare a major until the end of their second year.  Of course, many are already taking courses they need for their major, both in my department and in other related fields, but they also have a large number of distribution/gen ed courses they need to take at some point, and it would be reasonable for many of those to be done abroad.  I would also rather that if they are going to do their science courses at another institution, that it be freshman/sophomore courses rather than junior/senior courses.  Not because our programs are so much better, but because of the program integration at the level of the major. - DvF

[normative_]

That makes sense then. We had our system (just my own uni, can't speak for others) based on the following plan

Year 1: Gen Ed, including one intro course for the declared/prospective major*
Year 2: All of the heavy core foundation courses. Little discretion, lots of weeding out between the normal and honours BA students (3 vs. 4-year programmes, probably a 2:1 split)
Year 3: specialisation / a couple of electives
Year 4: deepening / a couple of electives

For that reason, we could be pretty sure that the core courses were given at the home institution, and students could take advantage of whatever exotic things the host institution had to offer.


*though it wasn't hard to change at the end of year one