Sendai: Things to Do?

well, even at the time when free fees were abolished there was no way on earth my family could have afforded to put me through university - and that's at a fairly middling ex-poly.

The new mindset seems to be "oh saddle yourself with debt and get your uni degree" which is still definitely worht it in the UK, but is in no way as good as it was when education was free. But perhaps i'm a bleeding heart liberal expecting higher education for all?

For me it was the single best thing about the UK.

The stuff i've seen at uni has been incredible - one of my friends has a few books out but the stuff he was doing pre and post doctorate was incredible.

One of his books: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000PY4F4I/afreward-20/

he sent me the japanese language version of his book "Genesis Machines" - given i don't undestand half of it in English, a Japanese version was particularly painful!

Besides, i'll wait for the superior SNES Machines...




We all know of Oxford and all that shit, but from what I've been told (generally by international uni professors) the claim is that the US State University program is the cat's meow. Of course, if you are unfortunately the resident of a shitty state you are fucked, since you'll have to pay out of state tuittion to go to another school (which is pricey).


But saying the global university system is broken in general is hillarity at it's best. It's one of the few systems on the planet that encourages internationalism, as well as the mixing of professionals and amateurs for the sake of progress...quite often for humanity when it comes to sciences.

 

Oh, they definitely have that in the US. Plenty of parents insist on sending their kids to private universities...especially amazingly religious ones. But, coming full circle to my declaration, an affordable and more importantly good education is available.

 

My sister is doing 5 or 6 years of university to become a vet.
I think about 75% of the money she receives from the government is not a loan. You can also ask the EU to pay for your university education... lot's of people don't realise that they don't have to get loans via The Student Loans Company. If you want to become a doctor or dentist in the UK I think the government will give you big wad of cash to do so. Actually the government is handing out money to anyone that does higher education these days.. if you come from a less well off or single parent family the government will give you a weekly allowance for turning up to school/college everyday.

I'm not 100% sure on the rules on this.. but I believe since the government started to allow universities to be able to decide more about the fees they charge the loans/grants system has been changed to allow less well off people do potentially expensive courses. And for the millionth time, if you are "the right stuff" but can't afford to go to a high ranking university you can always ask the EU to sponsor you. I think some universities will sponsor gifted students too. My uni has recently started sponsoring foreign students pretty aggressively and is setting them up with decent places to stay at reduced rates in an attempt to attract talent (i.e people that want to become doctors). If you signup to MI5 before uni they will sponsor you too, oh I think the Army will too.

Not at all. ESL teachers nowhere else seem to have this massive chip on their shoulder, actually no, someone I know that did ESL in South Korea had some sort of mountain sized chip on his shoulder. Teachers that go and do ESL in Indonesia etc all seem to have a great time. Mates in China have no problems either, as long as their schools keep bribing the right people everything is sweet for them. South America should be fun, good chance to start using Spanish again too.

Also people doing skilled jobs like ASIC design here don't seem to have any problems either. Mates that work in the "Online Gaming" (read: gambling) industry here have no issues either, maybe it's because the majority of them have worked in all over the place.

I have the standard English text for kids on my desk here.. the 3 levels of New Horizon.. the material seems pretty good. There's even some culture and bits in there. Exercises based on Beetles songs can't be bad?

 

For the millionth time, that's not the fucking point I wast trying to make. Yes it's easier when you're smarter and whatnot, but scholarships are not only for geniuses and athletes in the US. They're easier, but not exclusive.

 

In the UK at least the push to get 50% of 18+'s into university has really diluted the quality of education. There's some report out about falling standards actually... Stuff like upping everyone's grades if the average is below 40%, essentially passing everyone. Sorry, actually, no only Japan does stuff like that, sorry.

It's the same anywhere in the world.. The Spanish hate expats, the French hate expats. They dislike Germans in the Czech Republic.

Same everywhere in the world. Just replace "foreigner" with "teenager", oh, it's the same thing.

I've only once been called a Gaijin.. and that was Gaijin-sama by a taxi driver in Tokyo. The best name I've had over here was Jack as in union jack. Basically the only time I see/hear the word Gaijin is places like this.

Maybe you should talk to some of the Gurkhas. You know, they stuck their lives on the line for the UK and they got treated like total shit. This stuff is the same the world over.

You mean girls that work at hostest clubs and then get killed by Korean immigrants?

Running the same flash etc on <insert large search engine company here> in Japan as in Europe and the US. ;-)
There is lot's of Japanese activity in the FOSS world too..

The thread was "what to do in Sendai".. and that seems to indicate "let's moan about Japan it's soooo horrible :crying:"

Like it or lump it.

 

Ok, so the US gives scholarships for people to do courses that they have no chance of achieving then? Seems a bit silly. As I said.. as long as you meet the entry requirments for your course (there's clearing too..) you can get funding to do it one way or another. That's not some special thing the US has thought up.

 

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naaa, you know what? i think we're just being trolled now.
i'm chosing to lump seeing anymore strawmen ideas. :dance:

I vote we keep moaning.

which was your trigger to come in moan about (ex)english teachers, tell everyone you have made a bigger contribution to Japan, paid more taxes than everyone else , and then proceed to throw a whole load of strawman arguments (teenagers/ghurkas/etc) as reasons why we aren't supposed to moan on a board you've just joined?

as you say, if you don't like it, you really should lump it.

 

You don't have to be a genius by a stretch to complete most university courses. I was average at best in high school, and ate tons of ecstacy through college which made my classwork a fucking bitch. I still finished and have managed to build myself a pretty enviable existence by most standards.