Education In The US ?
Q: I am in a dilemma. I am Danish and currently studying International Business
Administration (bachelor level) in Denmark. Since I am very big on the
international aspect I have thought about taking a business masters in the
US. My biggest problem is that I am, after having looked into several
business programs (both grad and undergrad), starting to get the picture
that taking an education in the US is a step down from one in Europe unless
you go for the top notch schools. I see several programs going through
simple accounting problems with income and cash flow statements together
with simple finance ratios on graduate level! Furthermore lots of undergrad
studies don't have classes like micro and macro economics together with
statistics. All these are crucial for developing understanding. But since
these classes aren't mandatory, graduate schools cannot count on the
students having these skills when attending hence a lower level. I get the
feeling that a lot of business masters in the US are baloons of hot air. Has
anybody got some knowlegde on differences between the american and the
european system?
A:Where do I start? Since the American Challenge by Jean-Jacques
Servan-Schreiber awakened Europe in the late 60s, Europe has overcompensated
with business-econ programs proliferating. Sure doesn't seemed to have helped
Europe's economy much. Only small pockets of the EU (northern Italy, Czech
Republic, Barcelona, etc.) learning the lessons of capitalism and U.S.
management style. Europe hasn't imploded the way Japan has, but its
expectations of attaining parity with the U.S. have stalled because they refuse
to end protectionism, social classes, and socialist institutions. Free trade
within Europe doesn't help much if there is not free trade outside the
continent. Instead, the U.S., Far East, and rest of the world can ignore Europe
and there ain't much you folks can do about it.
Your analysis of graduate business education in the U.S. is correct
superficially, but it is more complicated than that. Our business ed boom
started in the mid-70s. You can tell a good liberal arts college or university
by its absence of business majors (though Penn, Bucknell, Notre Dame, USC and a
few other highly-selective places may debate the point with not great
enthusiam), because the liberal arts mantra