Saturday afternoon we had lunch with some very musical friends, one of whom, A., plays the organ. (His wife is a violist, son plays the cello, daughter the violin.) In the course of our lunch, A. told us of visiting France and getting to play the organ at Strasbourg Cathedral. When they arrived, they discovered playbills posted around town, announcing the concert he’d be giving at the Cathedral. He was quite shocked to find himself given top billing, exclaiming that, “I’m just a dentist!” Yeah – we don’t believe him, either.
Here are all of our pictures of organs, including another few of the Kelvingrove Museum Organ. There aren’t many, but now that we know we might be able to tempt our friend into giving a concert playing around when he visits, we’ll make a point of taking more.
As A’s son, B., is wrapping up his undergraduate degree in Music, B. is looking around for different graduate programs. Since D. is studying abroad, it was natural to discuss the differences between studying in the U.S. and studying in Europe. One of the major differences is, simply, the cost of study. For example, D. pointed out that doing a PhD is free at Charles University, in Prague. See this page for the F.A.Q., in which you’ll find out that all study is free, provided it’s done in the Czech language. What you won’t find is that PhD studies may be supervised in whichever language you speak, provided you and your supervisor both speak it – and that English is quite commonly spoken. We were asked, “why would it be free?” I guess the question really ought to be, “why should they not?”
A PhD student is expected to participate in the academic community: to give lectures within their area of expertise (for which they are paid a paltry sum), to dedicate a certain amount of time to assisting other graduate and undergraduate students, to take on Teaching Assistant duties (again – paltry sums, indeed), and to “invigilate” exams. But it’s not just what PhD students do which makes them valuable: it’s that they keep the research and thinking going which makes them valuable.
Professors are not just teachers, in that they do not solely teach undergraduates. Professors do research of their own, and supervise PhD students who have similar interests. Supervising PhD’s is part of what being a professor is all about. If you want good professors and good research, you need to have PhD-level discussion going on. And having ongoing research is what draws interest from undergraduates.
So, research institutions need to attract PhD’s, and to keep them happy while they are there. The universities, therefore, either find funding for their PhD’s, or they make graduate study cheaper than undergraduate study, or both. This is true across the board, of course, as American universities are competing for some of the same students.
Anyway, that’s the perspective on education, as according to the people D. talks to about it. Because, really: it’s a foreign concept to us as well, is Free Education.
– D & T
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
All higher education is free in Estonia as well – at BA, MA or PhD level, providing you pass the rigorous exams and are considered worthy. If you fall below the threshold, you can apply for a non-state-supported place, and perhaps you get lucky later one (somebody on a free ‘place’ drops out or fails the exams etc). There are special international and extra (alternative) programmes that aren’t free at state universities, but these are not dominant.
If you prefer, you can always apply for one of the private universities, but most people try the very good state universities first.
If you excel in your studies, you get a modest stipend on top of that.
The first time I had to pay for my studies (MSc and PhD) was in Edinburgh. Luckily I managed to get a grant covering both my tuition and all living costs (though I had to do some tutoring in return. Fair deal, I say:))